Your Heart Belongs to Me: A Novel

4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars | 1,506 ratings

Price: 1.99

Last update: 02-02-2025


About this item

From the #1 New York Times bestselling master of suspense comes a riveting thriller that probes the deepest terrors of the human psyche—and the ineffable mystery of what truly makes us who we are. Here a brilliant young man finds himself fighting for his very existence in a battle that starts with the most frightening words of all…

At thirty-four, Internet entrepreneur Ryan Perry seemed to have the world in his pocket—until the first troubling symptoms appeared out of nowhere. Within days, he’s diagnosed with incurable cardiomyopathy and finds himself on the waiting list for a heart transplant; it’s his only hope, and it’s dwindling fast. Ryan is about to lose it all…his health, his girlfriend Samantha, and his life.

One year later, Ryan has never felt better. Business is good and he hopes to renew his relationship with Samantha. Then the unmarked gifts begin to appear—a box of Valentine candy hearts, a heart pendant. Most disturbing of all, a graphic heart surgery video and the chilling message: Your heart belongs to me.

In a heartbeat, the medical miracle that gave Ryan a second chance at life is about to become a curse worse than death. For Ryan is being stalked by a mysterious woman who feels entitled to everything he has. She’s the spitting image of the twenty-six-year-old donor of the heart beating steadily in Ryan’s own chest.

And she’s come to take it back.

Top reviews from the United States

  • handsonhealing
    5.0 out of 5 stars What is life?
    Reviewed in the United States on August 7, 2024
    Your Heart Belongs to Me by Dean Koontz is a soul ripping, a what is happening, story of humanism. The simple message, so blatantly exposed, may be overlooked as one reads on in this apparently lovely story. There are subtexts and subtexts that begin to stroke your heart strings as you see below the surface. Dean Koontz allows the metaphysical.
  • ellen george
    4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting book on a timely subject - with a Koontz twist
    Reviewed in the United States on December 6, 2008
    Thirty-four year old Ryan Perry is richer than Croesus. He has a gorgeous girlfriend, mansion, ritzy cars - everything! But he starts feeling frightening sensations and pains in his chest and has trouble breathing!
    He goes to his doctor and after some tests finds he has hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. That is a thickening of the walls of the heart impeding its job to pump blood.
    Every so often you read about a young athletic collapsing after a workout, and they find it was this condition. If it is found in a young person, a heart transplant is necessary, and that is what the doctors tell Ryan - he needs a heart transplant within the year. They will give him bigtime meds until then to maintain his condition.
    Anxious to get a heart faster, he switches cardiologists. The new doctor gets a heart within a short period. Maybe Ryan paying cold hard cash makes a difference...
    The surgery is a success and then...Ryan starts getting weird messages.
    Candy hearts that all read 'mine'. Evidence of people being in his space even when he has a security system that wouldn't allow that to happen.
    Ryan gets paranoid and tries to find out what's happening - He suspects his girlfriend, her estranged mother in Vegas (who runs in really weird company) and in a big reveal, he finally finds out the who and why his new heart is not his own.
    In the typical Koontz style, bizarre images and casual violence pepper the reading experience.
    For those of us who have experience with this heart condition, it is a frightening thing. For younger folks, a transplant is possible, but if it shows itself in latter years, you have to live with it and take lots and lots of meds and pace yourself.
    While this isn't my favorite book, it is classic Koontz.
  • Christy T
    5.0 out of 5 stars It Took Me a
    Reviewed in the United States on August 7, 2024
    VERY long time to get into this book. I'm so glad I didn't (couldn't) slam it shut after the first 100 pages. So full of inspiration.... not at all your "typical" Koontz book. I believe he's getting softer as he ages. Thank you for the gift of this book!
  • Sheilla Thomas
    3.0 out of 5 stars Not His Usual Thing
    Reviewed in the United States on October 4, 2024
    Highly disappointed book, nothing like Dean's other books that terrify or encourage you to wonder about the world around you. Simply put, one man's journey into every boring detail of his life and the costs he goes through to continue to live until he meets someone who wants to kill him for being an organ recipient from someone they loved and was taken away too soon. B O R I N G, do not recommend.
  • Kindle Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful read
    Reviewed in the United States on August 6, 2024
    This read forced me to look at my life and to list my faults as well as to begin to change who I have become. Thank you Mr. Koontz.
  • Laura E. Felty
    4.0 out of 5 stars Did not see that coming
    Reviewed in the United States on April 7, 2024
    This was difficult to read. At times I was not sure where it was going. Koontz was good with details and descriptions. I thought I knew how it would end, but nope. He had to change it all up on me.
  • Carolyn J. Mears
    5.0 out of 5 stars Deceptively Brilliant
    Reviewed in the United States on December 18, 2008
    For those who think the story in Your Heart Belongs to Me falls short of Koontz's usual literary offerings, consider this: Is it possible Ryan's tale is not fiction at all, but rather a true story? Perhaps the oft-mentioned "subtext" (for which Ryan endlessly searches in Samantha's book) is a clue. Think about it. Who puts dead bodies on display "as art" in "middleclass neighborhoods"? Who looks everywhere suspiciously, seeing a potential culprit in every single face? Who cannot long survive on the life force given him by parents - who, by the way, he continues to support in style in spite of years of parental neglect? And who can never-ever keep the real girl no matter how deeply she loves him for a while, or how long he may linger in her mind after the fact? (I could go on, but don't want to reveal too many details of Ryan's story, which is good in its own right, for those who haven't read it yet.) So, whose true story might this be? Fiction.

    I can't say for sure that Fiction is the real topic - the author's intended subtext. Every element of the story just happens to fit that premise. But, who knows, next read-though, I may see a different subtext that works equally well. The only thing I can say with certainty is that Dean Koontz knows what he's doing - and from where I sit, it looks brilliant.
  • Joseph Palen
    5.0 out of 5 stars Welcome back Mr. Koontz
    Reviewed in the United States on December 7, 2008
    I was disappointed with his last book, which seemed to be more of an effort to write a book than a product of inspiration, and I thought went to the Odd Thomas well one time too often. Not this one. This is Koontz back with all his creative juices, spinning out twists and turns, reverses and double reverses. An unusual love story, where the intimacy becomes less but the true love becomes more intense. It was refreshing to share the life of a dot com billionaire for a change instead of the good, simple, poor, Odd Thomas. But the Evil is the same - truely wicked and twisted. The moral is: better check where your new body parts came from, you might not want them if you know. A truely weird, truely Koontz book - and even with a (surprise) feel good ending. Good job!

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