Parallel universes have been the topic of many Sci-Fi stories together with the ‘time paradox’ that always appears in written form or on the screen. Elsewhere brings a new dimension in my reading experience of good guys verses the bad guys and in a way the reader starts to hope about halfway through that the good guys will prevail. The twists and turns that happen throughout the story are written in such a way that Koontz has really thought through the pitfalls that can occur with this subject matter as this intricate story is a fascinating read. One does not really know how each problem out heroes are faced with will be resolved, but the detailed research that went into the subject(s) increase the plausibility of the ultimate outcome for all concerned.
The real heroine is Amity, and the reader would wish all daughters to be as smart and resourceful as she. The other participants are a real mixture, and you have to wonder at the thought processes that go on to create the extreme character of the villain who is described as one of the most evil individuals who really deserved his fate in the end.
Elsewhere makes you think whether there really are parallel timelines of our world where we could escape to – be careful what you wish for!!

4.5 stars

It’s been a few years since I’ve read Dean Koonz book and it’s nice to come back to an author you enjoy his writing and adventure stories. 

Elsewhere is a different type of novel though. It implies two different worlds, the existence of a multiverse and the main characters can jump in between them just using a key/device left on their hands by a runaway homeless turned out to be a scientist that wants to discover a better universe to live in and to get Michelle, Jeffy’s wife, back into the family. 

It’s fast-paced action with interesting characters, especially Amity, with many suspenseful moments and in my opinion, it reads more like sci-fi, although I must admit that I haven’t read many in my life. 

There are a few that left me questioning and I still need answers, but overall it’s a splendid book that many readers will enjoy. 

Very grateful to the publisher Harper Collins UK for my review copy

Superb writing from Dean Koontz. Jeffy and his daughter Amity are trying to build their lives after Michelle walked out on them. Then Spooky Ed entrusts Jeffy with what he calls the key to everything. This will open up parallel worlds and leave them wondering what could be. Brilliant characters and Koontz's customary engrossing plot and pace. Really great read.

I haven’t read a Dean Koontz novel for years as I started to feel bored with his writing. I was very surprised and gratified to find that he is now back on form. A gripping, entertaining and ultimately satisfying read. A little let down by the soft ending but loved the concept.

Brilliant book, just loved it from the first page to the last. Such a good author never had a dull book.
Strong storyline and excellent characters.

The key to everything is a lot of temptation to hand someone then tell them to not use it. When a seemingly harmless vagrant called Ed hands said key to single parent Jeff, with the warning that the key is dangerous, should never be used, people are after him for it, that it is worth billions, and if Ed doesn’t return, that Jeff should bury it in a barrel of concrete and dump it in the ocean, Jeff is bemused to say the least.

But when Jeff and his daughter Amity, and her pet rat Snowball accidentally use the key, bemusement turns to confusion, panic, and soon flat out terror. They find themselves on the run from the same people Ed was fleeing from. The only difference is, they don’t know the full story. Who are the bad guys? Why do they want them dead? As they try desperately to keep one step ahead, things get more and more twisted. Alternative dimensions. Security monkeys that talk and attack. Robots. Worlds where books are banned. Worlds where Hitler is revered. Wolds in which the worst horrors imaginable exist. But in all of this Jeff and Amity both have the same hope - what if they can reunite their family? Michelle - mom and wife. Who walked out on them all those years ago. In one of these worlds, what if she is there. A Michelle who wants to be with them?

From start to finish this book brings you on a literal journey, of personal growth, hope and emotion. With all the drama and twists that you would imagine from a multiverse filled read. The pace never lets up, even at the end as you turn pages, you dare not hope, not even for a moment… Another excellent read from Mr. Koontz!

*I received this book from NetGalley for review but all opinions are my own.

Dean Koontz is a master craftsman. This book is of his usual high standard of word raft, combining graphic descriptions with scifi intrigue and great suspense. Initially, we are surprised and dumbstruck by the notion of a multi-universe with many timelines and worlds. Once we become accustomed to the ease of travel it is easy to accompany our heroes in pursuit of a solution to their predicament. Naturally, Dean introduces evil and greed into the equation to create a fast paced thriller, full of stimulation and questions about time, space and evolution.
Great novel. Worth a read.

What would you do if you were given the key to everything? That is the dilemma that Jeffy and his daughter Amity find themselves before things take a terrifying turn. In a twist to find his wife and Amity’s mother they encounter a demonic parallel world. Deliciously creepy.

Loved the characters and the premise of the key to everything.
I was just fascinated with where they'd land next and how different or similiar it might be.
I also had to stop reading a few times to imagine what that could look like for me.
Can really see this being a fantastic film.
Only negative was that I felt the villian was a bit repetitive in his thoughts. However I loved the tenacity of the daughter she was a great character.

This story had a very slow beginning and I didn't think i was going to enjoy it but then it took off and was a roller coaster ride all the way through. Lots of mind blowing actions rising to a frenetic conclusion and then utter peace. Some story!!

I hadn't read a Dean Koontz book before but always felt I should as he is so popular. I really wanted to like it but found myself skim reading parts as I was bored. I didn't find Amity and Jeffy (still don't know why he was Jeffy rather than Jeffrey but maybe I missed something) engaging characters which didn't help. I think what is most disappointing though is that after setting the expectation that there are all these parallel worlds we only really see two.
The ending is a bit of a let down, everything tied up up neatly in a couple of pages.
I'm sure Koontz fans will love this book but I doubt if I'll read any more I'm afraid.

This was the best Dean Koontz novel I’ve read in years.

It’s felt like the old master was steady regaining his form through the Jane Harper series, this new novel takes it to the next level for me.

The plot is engaging, the characters well drawn and the descriptions are excellent. I had hoped Mr Koontz would show us more of the parallel worlds as the glimpses we do get had me lusting after further adventures.

If you haven’t picked up a Dean Koontz book since the classics such as Watchers, Mr Murder and The Bad Place then I fully recommend you jump back in with this novel.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the early copy.

I do enjoy this genre, I like to mix my genres. I always used to buy books by this author without hesitating, until I read a couple of his books that I didn't really enjoy. This is the first book of his I have read in years, and I am a bit disappointed because again it doesn't blow my frock up,.it is okay I liked the idea of a parallel universe and the characters were alright ,but it plodded some what and I wasn't thrilled . For me it was an okay read, maybe I have higher expectations of Mr Koontz .I won't put anyone else off reading this book, and I hope other readers enjoy it .I will give it 4 stars, rounded up though .

I took a risk requesting this book because it’s many years since I read one of his and definitely not the genre I lean more to nowadays. Well I didn’t hate it but nor was I wowed by it. The ‘ human’ characters I liked but the horror baddy Falkirk was too over the top.
I’m sure it will be another hit for Koontz but it hasn’t pulled me back to this genre.

Jeffy and his daughter Amity, who live on the Californian coast, are still plagued by loss thanks to Jeffy's wife Michelle's disappearance seven years before the story. After a local homeless man named Ed - who Jeffy is friendly with - entrusts him with "the key to everything" and asks him to keep it safe for a year, NSA agents come searching for both the Key and Jeffy's friend.

When the Key is accidentally used, Jeffy & Amity are transported to a dystopian parallel universe where they struggle to survive - they realise that by using the Key, they could potentially reunite with a version of Michelle who did not run away and become a happy family again.

I honestly don't feel like there is enough character development. Jeffy, Amity and the eventual big bad are all quite by-the-numbers characters who don't really change throughout the process of the novel. The eventual Big Bad is also a laughably cartoonish character who seems to hate everyone and everything in his life (but especially women!) and wants to use the Key for his own nefarious means. The story is wrapped up quite nicely, but there's nothing new about the book really - if you've read any other story about parallel universes, you'll probably guess most of the twists.

I estimate it's been over 20 years since I last read Dean Koontz so this was always going to be an interesting read for me.

The book has got a great premise. Jeffy and his daughter Amity are handed the 'key to everything' by a homeless man, and warned never to touch it - that it's best to destroy it, that bad people are looking for it.

It's not long before the key is accidentally used and Jeffy and Amity find out what it really is - a tool that lets you hop between parallel universes, some of which are similar to our own, while others are full of horrors.

What if, they both wonder, the woman who was Jeffy's wife and Amity's mother didn't run away in some of the other universes but needs them instead? They don't get much time to contemplate this, however, because a power-hungry shadow-state bad guy called Falkirk is determined to get the key for himself - whatever it takes...

Jeffy and Amity are likeable characters who create that human angle for the SF plot. Will Amity find a form of her mother who still wants to hang around? What wonders will they see together?

Falkirk is a completely over-the-top evil villain and yes, a little ludicrous. But hey, psychopaths exist and I'm pretty sure some of them would be interested in the key if it too existed.

The key leads to the whole universe, but the story mostly stays on the small side - about Jeffy and the immediate danger his little family is in. I liked this and it made the book a compelling read for me. Others might prefer they spent longer going from world-to-world. Either way it's a good read and while I may not go back and re-read the Koontz books from the 90s (I honestly can't remember which ones I've even read - thank god for Goodreads tracking my reads now), I will look out for new ones in future.

Once upon a time I read all of Dean Koontz's books, but somewhere around the start of the 'Odd Thomas series I lost interest. I'm glad I picked this one up as I found it seemed more like the books in the 'Strangers' & 'Watchers' era. For some this may have been a disappointment, but it was a nice surprise for me.

Jeffy & his eleven year old daughter live quietly. Jeffy is into old things & makes his living repairing old radios & dealing in vintage things. His wife, Michelle, left him some years ago to 'find' herself & the pair have never quite got over it. Sometimes a man who lives off the grid comes & chats to Jeffy. One night he gives him a box & asks him to guard it, not to touch & if he doesn't come back for it, to encase it in concrete & throw in in the ocean. It is the gateway to parallel worlds. Of course Jeffy is intrigued, an accident with a mouse(!) threw them into a scary other world. In another pathway Michelle mourns the death of her husband & daughter. She has also befriended someone who lives off grid with a box. However the box isn't just of interest to people trying to regain lost love. Some very scary people are after it.

Books like this require you to leave you 'rational' head behind & go with the story. As in most of Koontz's books, the characters are easily liked (or loathed) & my interest in them kept me reading. I did skim some of the more violent bits but all in all it was a good read. I hope there are more one off books like this to come from Dean Koontz. Thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for letting me read & review this book.

I have been reading Dean Koontz books since he still had an ‘R’ in his name and haven’t read one I didn’t enjoy so was very excited to receive Elsewhere as an advanced copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Dean Koontz is a master weaver of stories, he uses short, snappy chapters to enable the reader to keep track of multiple characters with ease while giving you a plot to sink your teeth into (who doesn’t love a sojourn through the odd (can’t resist an obligatory reference to Odd Thomas in any Koontz review) multiverse).

But where Koontz excels and what puts him at the top of his genre (certainly in my book) is his crafting of characters, Jeffy, Amity, Ed and Duke are all injected with Quirk and Charm in abundance, making them characters that stay with you, long after the story has ended. Falkirk too stays with you, granted not because he oozes charm but he definitely drips quirk, alongside, well, evil intent.

Elsewhere is everything I love about a Koontz work, fast paced, absorbing plot and dynamite characters. Highly recommended.

I really enjoyed Elsewhere by Dean Koontz, it was quite different from his normal novels but within the first chapter I was hooked, the flow story was good and all the characters we’re engaging even down to snowball the mouse, I thought it almost had a fairytale element to it, with a heroine, her father & the evil villain chasing them. and even though the idea of parallel universes isn’t a new idea it was a wonderful nod to previous sci-fi writers like Bradbury & H G Wells. My only dissatisfaction was the ending was quite abrupt but who knows there might be a sequel.

Elsewhere is the latest thriller from the masterful Dean Koontz and it was every bit as thrilling as we've come to expect. His 78th book to date, it centres around a father and his young daughter who gain the ability to time hop to parallel universes. Jeffy Coltrane and his spirited eleven year old daughter, Amity, live a quiet life in the town of Suavidad Beach, California, with single father Jeffy bringing up his daughter as best he can since her mother, Michelle, left them seven years ago never to be seen again and sadly, Amity can barely remember her. When one day they open the door to vagrant, Ed, who Amity nicknames Mr Spooky, Jeffy is a mixture of puzzled and suspicious when he asks him to hide a small box he describes as the "key to everything" and tells him never to attempt to open it. Ed is the inventor of this special device and is on the run from shady government forces who will go to any length to retrieve the powerful $76 billion dollar machine. He adds that if he hasn't returned to collect it within a year to dispose of it.

Ed's warning about how dangerous it is becomes startlingly real when as soon as Ed departs the Coltrane's porch, their house is descended upon by a heavy-handed band of operatives, instructed every step of the way by head of the National Security Agency (NSA), John Falkirk. He questions them as to whether they know Dr Edwin Harkenbach and proceeds to enter their home and commence a thorough search for the device but Jeffy manages to sneak it out of its box and into a broken Bakelite Radio. Once they skedaddle, Amity's pet mouse, Snowball, accidentally activates the device and they are catapulted into an alternate reality Earth. As they find themselves travelling through a multiverse comprised of innumerable parallel worlds; with some being terrifying and filled with evil creatures the likes of which no human has ever witnessed before but also amongst the danger lies a once in a lifetime opportunity when Amity discovers via Google that her mum is alive and an inhabitant of Earth 1.13. Can they survive the perils of the device and possibly be reunited as a family once again?

This is a compulsive, high-octane and surprisingly touching science fiction thriller, which has an underlying message of belonging, the importance of family and the need to often make tough sacrifices to facilitate loved ones hopes and dreams. It's exciting and full of danger from the get-go and gives you plenty of plot to get your teeth into. Defying easy categorisation, Elsewhere features a father and daughter with a strong, believable bond rubbing shoulders with weird entities, such as the half-boy half-chimp creatures. The short, snappy chapters allowed the tension and intensity to build gradually over the course of the novel and with the peril Jeffy and Amity unwittingly find themselves in, I found myself absorbed by the straightforward storyline, immersed in the changing worlds and cheering on the protagonists through every step of their wild adventure. It's a lively, twisty and imaginative thriller which is the perfect, entertaining piece of escapism. Highly recommended.