Praise for Dean Koontz
#1 New York Times Bestseller
“Natalie Naudus narrates with the emotion required for a Koontz thriller in which danger lurks around every corner.… Naudus is at her best as she deftly balances the older woman's slightly deeper voice with the frightened teenager's higher pitch.” —AudioFile Magazine
“America’s most popular suspense novelist.” —Rolling Stone
“Koontz has always had near-Dickensian powers of description and an ability to yank us from one page to the next that few novelists can match.” —Los Angeles Times
“Tumbling, hallucinogenic prose.” —New York Times Book Review
“Dean Koontz is not just a master of our darkest dreams but also a literary juggler.” —The Times (London)
“Dean Koontz writes page-turners, middle-of-the-night-sneak-up-behind-you suspense thrillers. He touches our hearts and tingles our spines.” —Washington Post Book World
“Koontz has a knack for making the bizarre and uncanny seem as commonplace as a sunrise. Bottom line: the Dean of Suspense.” —People magazine
“Positively twitching with suspense. Another sure-fire hit from a thriller master.” —Booklist (starred review)
“If Stephen King is the Rolling Stones of novels, Koontz is the Beatles.” —Playboy
“A superb plotter and wordsmith. He chronicles the hopes and fears of our time in broad strokes and fine detail, using popular fiction to explore the human condition [and] demonstrating that the real horror of life is found not in monsters but within the human psyche.” —USA Today
“Far more than a genre writer. Characters and the search for meaning, exquisitely crafted, are the soul of his work. This is why his novels will be read long after the ghosts and monsters of most genre writers have been consigned to the attic. One of the master storytellers of this or any age.” —Tampa Tribune
“Dean Koontz almost occupies a genre of his own. He is a master at building suspense and holding the reader spellbound.” —Richmond Times-Dispatch
“Demanding much of itself, Koontz’s style bleaches out clichés while showing a genius for details. He leaves his competitors buried in the dust.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Another A-plus thriller from a writer on a serious winning streak.” —Booklist (starred review)
Natalie Naudus narrates with the emotion required for a Koontz thriller in which danger lurks around every corner. Katie, an artist who is recoiling from a past loss, lives on an island. She soon learns that a neighboring island houses a government research operation, but what goes on there is a mystery. When she discovers agents snooping around her own island, she teams up with a girl who also wants to get to the bottom of what's going on. Naudus is at her best as she deftly balances the older woman's slightly deeper voice with the frightened teenager's higher pitch. The two make a good team. M.B. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
2022-11-16
A tragedy has sent a young artist into seclusion. A potential apocalypse may be enough to bring her back.
For the past two years, 10 months, and 18 days, Katie’s lived in darkness, on retreat from her former life as a rising artist after a personal tragedy eclipsed any happiness she believed possible. Jacob’s Ladder, a remote island named by a former resident for its potential as a stairway to heaven, offers Katie the chance to hide from the rest of the world, merely existing, not healing. She lives each day trying to fulfill what she’s called “the Promise” to those in the life she once knew, though a promise of what is not clear. The closest neighboring islands, Oak Haven and Ringrock, are equally cloistered. Though Katie’s realtor has suggested that Ringrock is some sort of Environmental Protection Agency research station, Katie’s cynicism makes her suspect something more nefarious. The protagonist's remote world and the author’s moody writing are disrupted one night by the startling appearance of drones and the suspicious behavior of a fox Katie’s dubbed Michael J. The wary canine serves as a harbinger of potential danger, and Katie responds by arming herself to the hilt when unexpected guests descend on Jacob’s Ladder. While the true purpose of these visitors is unclear, Katie senses that the greater world is at the precipice of permanent collapse and that she may be the only one who can prevent the impending apocalypse.
A moody tone hangs like a cloud over the alarming but vague danger awaiting the world.
