“Even in the darkest moments, light exists if you have the faith to see it.”

I read One Door Away from Heaven quite a long time ago, but it is one that has stuck with me all these years. Koontz’s main themes of friendship, hope, and healing, make his words at times poetic. His beautifully worded descriptions illuminate the splendor of the world around us.

Though Koontz tends to write rather creepy stories, One Door is different while still maintaining the intensity that the author is also known for. Koontz takes an ambitious and eclectic cast of characters, such as an ex-con trying to better herself and her quirky storytelling aunt. They are soon introduced to a self-described nine-year-old mutant and her drugged-out mother and her alien-obsessed stepfather.  His cast is further diversified with the pairing of an eccentric young boy who has special and strange abilities and two bombshell Vegas showgirls and brings them all together in a fiery end.

With its unique plot and end-of-chapter cliffhangers, One Door has a few laughs, a lot of cries, and a whole cast of deep, thoroughly developed characters that kept me turning pages late into the night.

Michelina Bellsong is on a mission. She is following a missing family to the edge of America . . . to a place she never knew existed—a place of terror, wonder, and shattering revelation. What awaits her there will change her life and the life of everyone she knows—if she can find the key to survival. At stake are a young girl of extraordinary goodness, a young boy with killers on his trail, and Micky’s own wounded soul. Ahead lie incredible peril, startling discoveries, and paths that lead through terrible darkness to unexpected light.