One Door Away from Heaven

Micky Bellsong has a history of making wrong choices; she wants to change but can’t find her way. She is living, temporarily, with her aunt in a dusty trailer park on the far edge of the Californian dream. There she meets Leilani Maddoc, a precocious, radiant, dazzlingly charming nine-year-old. Although Leilani’s left leg requires a brace and her left hand is deformed as well, she is buoyant and indomitable; her great spirit begins to inspire change in Micky.

But under Leilan’s charm and buoyancy, Micky also senses a quiet desperation and a fear that the girl dares not express. Then the Maddoc family disappears.

Micky is convinced that Leilani’s life is in danger, and no one seems to care but Micky herself. To the surprise of everyone who knows her – indeed, surprising even herself – Micky is for the first time living for something bigger than her own desires, for someone other than herself. She sets out across America to track and to find the Maddocs, alone and afraid but increasingly obsessed – and discovers that she has pitted herself against an adversary as fearsome as he is cunning.