Intensity: A Novel

(Waring Spoilers) Chyna Shepard, the hard childhood-ed, hard-shelled, criminal psychology student. She and her best friend go on a road trip to her friend's family’s farm home. Chyna had never really had a friend and had been just a survivor her whole life. On the first night there, she hears screaming coming from outside of her door. Instinctively, she quickly goes under her bed as she hears footsteps slowly making their way to her door. A tall man walks into the room and looks around. The man then takes another look and goes back downstairs. Chyna, who then followed him from out of her room, started to search around the upstairs to see where everyone was. She found the mom and dad slaughtered in their rooms. She walks downstairs to see that her best friend is tied up downstairs. Next thing Chyna knows her friend is in the arms of the man limp and walking into his motor home. She followed him into the motor home to find out how to stop him. She found her friend dead and her journey continued. She went through many trials, found out he had a girl in his basement, and was determined to save her. She had used her situation to try to at least save someone. The story will then go on for her to try to accomplish her goal without dying herself. Chyna was easily my favorite character as she was the hero and main protagonist. However I really enjoyed reading about Vess. He was the serial killer maniac who was tormenting Chyna. I thought his character was one of the most compelling things about the book, just how interesting he kept the book in my hands. The book isn’t exactly relatable in terms of the situation, however it showcased the thoughts and feelings I would have if I was in the same situation. I feel that a lot of times in books the main character makes very stupid decisions that I would never make, but in this story Chyna is a very good decision maker. The characters can be fairly reliable as well. She has a tough upbringing and that upbringing can drag her down in life at some points. This could be very relatable to someone who has had that type of upbringing, but not me personally.Now, for the good stuff. My opinion on this book is incredibly high. I walked into this book with very high expectations, and they were met and in fact succeeded. I was promised a very scary, gut wrenching, intense read and it was given. This book does an incredible job of letting you know how the characters feel, and switches perspectives many times. For example, you spend 2/3s of the book with Chyna, and the other third with Vess. This explains why characters' decisions are so accurate because I can read their thought process. Some books fail in doing this, they have characters make spontaneous decisions and as a reader I’m expected to just accept that. This book leaves no room for unreasonable storytelling and never leaves you wondering why a character would do something. Although this is one of the best books I’ve read, there are some minor issues I have. First of all, during some points of the book the author can go into these long description sessions with our characters. For example, Chyna goes into a car that is only used once in the whole book. The author then proceeds to spend 3-5 minutes of reading time describing the car. Don’t get me wrong I’m all for descriptive writing but this book took it to the next level a few times. This with a few other very minor flaws are all I can say bad about this book. This is a must read for me, and one of the best I’ve read from this author.I highly recommend the book to anyone who can get their hand on it. It will keep you interested for hours upon hours and make you look behind your back in frightening fear. I recommend this book to anyone who is ready for an adventure of fear and suspense. For a more mature audience, this book can be very vulgar and not for the weak stomach. Overall, this book is one of the best I’ve ever read, and Intensity is truly Intense

The book was really a page turner. I found it hard to put down and by the time I was about a third of the way through it I had to finish it in one afternoon. The only reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 is in some places the author sidetracked into to much background information that I didn't think added much to the story and just seem to drag it out. The story itself is a 5. I read a lot of the authors books and find them to be very good stories and do recommend them.

I can’t believe I had not read Dean Koontz until now. I won’t spoil the plot and I recommend not even reading the blurb as the story is so much more effective when you don’t know what it’s about. I’ll just say it starts with four people in a house in a lovely California vineyard, and danger and evil lurks nearby. My top recommendation for this amazingly written thriller.

The Story is engaging, descriptive nightmare fuel that keeps you turning the page. It misses the mark in just a few places keeping it from being an incredible read.

Good read

Just finished another DK novel. I’ve only read about five of his, most earlier year pubs. I don’t know what draws me to them. The writing isn’t especially compelling, the plot is straightforward and simplistic, and the formatting is pretty formulaic. Maybe I’m drawn to them for just that reason; each in their singularity might be a show stopper. But cohesively, they turn out a good page-turner. And that it did. I must say, if you boiled down all 437 pages (kindle) and just read the essential lines, scenes, and chapters of the storyline, it would probably come in at about 250 pages. DK has always been big on detail, but this novel is bloated with minutia that slowed the pace dramatically. My beginning in-depth reading of INTENSITY soon morphed about midway through the first chapter into skimming. While I might have missed some detail that Koontz spent researching on, it didn’t take away from the fun of the read to a dramatic conclusion. For those into well-researched detail, and a lot of it, this one is for them.

Big fan of the author for a long time. The story is told through the innocence of the victims and the deceitfulness of the killer.Every movement and the environment around them has meaning with a surprise ending.

I had to take breaks from reading this book due to the intensity. Very good. Sitting in a chair it made my heart rate increase to 105 bpm up from the usual 70. Thrilling

Ok so this is my first Dean Koontz book and my late mother was certainly a fan.I paid 99p for this and I have to say I made myself finish it.Which I'm glad I did in honesty.I loved the start of the book, however for me the main character as she became was seemingly making stupid decisions, and Koontz felt the need to put a reason behind them in his narrative which didn't really help justify them, well at least to me anyhow.I found personally that in this book the author got lost in narrative and and wandered off the story too much explaining or going into situations that I just didn't care about or it seemed just to extend the novel. I was thinking please get back to the story!The middle of the book I didn't really care for but the last 25% was certainly better. I can't say too much here because I don't want to spoil what happens but for me the main protagonist of the book goes missing for a large portion which I found very odd.However I am still glad I read this book and for 99p you can't complain.I am definitely still going to buy and read more Koontz books as it seems even some of his die hard fans didn't rate this as high as some of his others.

A tight psychological, character driven thriller.Chyna Shepard goes to spend the weekend with her friend and her friend’s parents. The first night the friend and her parents are slaughtered in their beds. Chyna hides in the guest bedroom, avoids being killed and then proceeds to follow the murderer in his mobile home.A tense game of cat-and-mouse ensues. As there is mainly only two people in the story, the dialogue is sparse. Nevertheless the tension mounts as the story unfolds during scenes depicting the two main characters' backgrounds and psyches.With character driven novels, the author has to use a lot of background and thus flashbacks to make the story work. If this is done skilfully, the story will write itself. However, use too much and the the momentum and the story dies. Here Dean Koontz has come dangerously near teetering on the edge of destroying it, but of course he is an immensely skilful writer, and obviously sensed when to hold back. And so what he has created is a great read..

What a brilliant book this is, it had my heart beating and my fingernails are bitten to the quick with the intensity of it.A real page turner in no mistake, Chyna Shepherd’s life is about to change drastically trying to stay alive, one step ahead of Edgler Vess.I can’t quite remember the last time I read a book that had me carried along on such a nerve racking rollercoaster!Intensity the book is called and intensity is the feeling you have reading this psychological thriller. Great, fantastic, brilliant!!!

I read this many years ago (I read a lot) but this stayed with me. I’m not sure why.I wanted to read it again but I couldn’t remember the book’s name or even the author - after an accident messed with my memory.Sitting in the waiting room for the required 15 mins after my covid booster, I spotted it on the shelf and it rang a bell.Sure enough, it was the one I’d been trying to remember.As gripping and inspiring today as I’d hoped and clearly left an indelible impression on my foggy brain.

I just couldn't get into this and have given up on page 76. I know the author has to describe the surroundings for the reader to get a feel for the story but my goodness, he really drones on. It seems like every little movement is written about and takes 76 pages to write about something that probably happened in a few hours. So boring.