In a dusty trailer park on the far edge of the Calif-
ornia dream, Michelina Bellsong contemplates the choices 
she has made. At twenty-eight, she wants to change the 
direction of her troubled life but can't find her way-- 
until a new family settles into the rental trailer next 
door and she meets the young girl who will lead her on 
a remarkable quest.

Despite the brace she must wear on her deformed left leg, 
and her withered left hand, nine-year-old Leilani Klonk 
radiates a buoyant and indomitable spirit that inspires 
Micky. Beneath Leilani's effervescence, however, Micky 
comes to sense a quiet desperation that the girl dares 
not express. Leilani's mother is lost in drugs. The girl's 
stepfather, Preston Maddoc, is educated but threatening.
He has moved the family from place to place as he fanatic-
ally investigates UFO sightings, striving to make contact, 
claiming to have had a vision that by Leilani's tenth 
birthday aliens will either heal her or take her away to 
a better life on their world. Slowly, ever more troubling 
details emerge in Leilani's conversations with Micky. Most 
chilling is Micky's discovery that Leilani had an older 
brother, also disabled, who vanished after Maddoc took him 
into the woods one night and is now "gone to the stars."

Leilani's tenth birthday is approaching. Micky is convinced 
the girl will be dead by that day. While the child-protection 
bureaucracy gives Miky the runaround, the Maddoc family slips 
away into the night. Micky sets out across America to track 
and find them, alone and afraid but for the first time living 
for something bigger than herself. She finds herself pitted 
against an adversary, Preston Maddoc, as fearsome as he is 
cunning. Yet Micky pursues her quest, and her passion, her 
courage, draw a burned-out detective to her side.Hundreds of 
miles away, a motherless boy and a homeless dog begin an even 
more astonishing journey. Ahead for them all lie incredible 
peril, startling discoveries, and paths that will draw them 
through terrible darkness to unexpected light.

"One Door Away From Heaven is an incandescent mix of suspense 
and humor, fear and wonder, a story of redemption and timeless 
wisdom that will have readers cheering. Filled tragedy and joy, with terror and hope, it solidifies Dean Koontz'sreputation 
as one of the foremost storytellers of our time. This is Dean 
Koontz at his very best--and it doesn't get any better than that." *Rolling Stone*