One Door Away from Heaven: A superb thriller of redemption, fear and wonder - Softcover

Koontz, Dean

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1472248295 ISBN 13: 9781472248299

Publisher: Headline, 2017

Synopsis

Leilani Maddoc's tenth birthday is nine months away. Micky Bellsong is convinced that in nine months and one day, the girl will be dead. And no one seems to care but Micky herself.

Micky has a history of making wrong choices and living only for her own desires, but her decision to save the child's life - and pit herself against an adversary as fearsome as he is cunning - takes her on a journey of incredible peril and stunning discoveries, a journey filled with tragedy and joy, with humour, terror and hope, a journey that will change her for ever.

About this title

Review:

Dean Koontz virtually invented the cross-genre novel and in One Door Away from Heaven he mixes an action thriller with post-X Files alien paranoia to remarkable effect. Micky Bellsong is a young woman at a crisis point in her life, unsure of where she should be heading and using a stay at her Aunt Geneva's to sort out her life. Then the precocious and deformed Leilani Kronk walks into her life telling stories of her stepfather Preston Maddoc and her drugged-up mother who both believe aliens will beam the girl into their mothership and heal her deformities before her 10th birthday. But tales of Preston's vicious past, including his hand in several murders, leave Micky believing that a far more terrible fate awaits her friend so when the Maddocs head off taking Leilani with them, Micky pursues.

Typically with a Koontz novel, nothing turns out to be what it seems and the author relishes playing with you, tugging you this way and that in a meticulously crafted plot that tightens like a noose with every turn of the page. His characters are exceptionally drawn, driving the novel forward with realism and warmth. Micky is one of his more attractive young heroines but the real star is Leilani, a mature young girl whose plucky nature and sparkling dialogue instantly make her Koontz's most memorable creation. She is the embodiment of the very moral core of every Koontz novel; despite her deformities and dreadful upbringing, her buoyant optimism is what drives Micky on to do good. Likewise, it is Koontz's firm belief that despite the violence, pain and suffering, there is always goodness to be found in every person and situation if you are prepared to look for it. Koontz has once again delivered a work of spectacular fiction and proven why he is one of the premier novelists of his generation. --Jonathan Weir

Review:

'A wonderful contemporary fable, firmly rooted in the gritty reality of turn of the millennium America...Koontz constantly surprises as his story unfolds and reaches its stunning conclusion. Brilliant and compulsive' Good Book Guide Oct 2002 (Good Book Guide)

About this edition

• Publisher: Headline
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1472248295
• ISBN 13: 9781472248299
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 672