Intensity

A Novel

By: Dean Koontz

Narrated by: Frankie Corzo

Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

#1 New York Times Bestseller

Past midnight, Chyna Shepard, twenty-six, gazes out a moonlit window, unable to sleep on her first night in the Napa Valley home of her best friend’s family. Instinct proves reliable. A murderous sociopath, Edgler Foreman Vess, has entered the house, intent on killing everyone inside. A self-proclaimed “homicidal adventurer,” Vess lives only to satisfy all appetites as they arise, to immerse himself in sensation, to live without fear, remorse, or limits, to live with intensity. Chyna is trapped in his deadly orbit.

Chyna is a survivor, toughened by a lifelong struggle for safety and self-respect. Now she will be tested as never before. At first her sole aim is to get out alive - until, by chance, she learns the identity of Vess’s next intended victim, a faraway innocent only she can save. Driven by a newly discovered thirst for meaning beyond mere self-preservation, Chyna musters every inner resource she has to save an endangered girl...as moment by moment, the terrifying threat of Edgler Foreman Vess intensifies.

©1995 Dean Koontz (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Critic reviews

“Chills the reader to the core and establishes Koontz as a master.”—Associated Press

“Tumbling, hallucinogenic prose . . . The story does not move so much as rocket up the . . . gloomy highway with the reader in violent pursuit.”—The New York Times

“The most viscerally exciting thriller of the year.”—Publishers Weekly

My favorite Dean Koontz book!

There was an earlier audible version with a male narrator that was a bit better. Otherwise well done!

Performance

The story was good and keeps you listening. I did not like the performance of the story. The reader was kind of flat and breathy. I would have expected a story named Intensity to have some intensity in the voice and feel, and it did not. There was no distinction between characters and no matter what was happening, the same flat breathy read. Also, there were several words the reader was unfamiliar with and she pronounced them incorrectly. You know what the words should be based upon the sentence, but it was a bit distracting. I will likely stay away from books with this reader in the future.

Distracting narrator ruins the story

I was enthralled with the story. The title is accurate and the plot is increasingly intense. It’s going to kill me not knowing how this ends, but the narrator really shouldn’t be allowed to narrate. I’m not sure if it’s a speech impediment or an accent? Every word with a t in the middle, the t isn’t enunciated. Mountain=moun-ain. Kitten=ki—en. It’s ridiculously distracting. She enunciates the lack of t more than one would normally enunciate the t.

She also is monotone and boring. In an intense story, my mind wandered often and I had to rewind. How does one manage to show this little emotion in a story this intense??

I gave up when upholstered and upholstery because Up-Holstered and Up-Holstery. Emphasis on the h. So disappointing.

Performance (enunciate!) made it hard to listen.

The story was good - not his best - but was enjoyable. EXCEPT for the narration, which was beyond annoying.

Intensity describes this book perfectly!

Intense and riveting story that will keep you on the edge of your seat. It overly graphic and is the epitome of the thriller genre. Well done Dean Koontz.

Earns it's title

gripping right from the start. I read this years ago in high school and loved listening to it again. storyline has you on the edge of your seat from the first chapter

The ending is worth it

In the first half of the book the protagonist really irritated me, but by the second half I was sitting on the edge of my seat and dreaded the ending. Omg that ending is so good!!! I can't wait to start my next Dean Koontz and I loved the narrator.

Perfect

This book is a must! It kept me on the edge of my seat pretty much all the time. I felt goosebumps at night as I was reading it. And even got scared if my door made noises. It's a chilling and thrilling story.

So frightening I had to DNF. This found my limit.

I don't think i can finish this, it's so incredibly scary and uncomfortable.

I can stomach a lot from a book but this found my limit.

This book is so frightening that I honestly keep having to pause it to digest what's going on and to relax.

I keep not wanting to move forward because it's so scary and well written that I'm legit struggling because I don't want to see what happens next. I feel like I have such a vivid picture what this character is going through and the whole situation makes me nauseated.

Going to DNF for now at 50%, I'm not sure if I will return to this.

Getting this far was an achievement.

Overall, with my review, I read enough to say that this book is so incredibly well written. It's vivid descriptive writing makes it so easy to picture what's going on. The characters are so well written to that it's each to latch on to what they are feeling and get on their level emotionally.

The plot is intense. It's so intense that I sometimes got lightheaded with how much anxiety it gave me.

High recommend it if you have a strong tolerance level for the thrills.

Kept Me On My Toes

Wow. I’m not much of a reader, but I couldn’t stop reading this book. I had to stay up all night just to get to the end. By far one of the most “intense” books I’ve ever read. I felt my heart beating fast almost the whole time.