Elsewhere

By: Dean Koontz

Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Imani Parks, Josh Bloomberg, Brian Holden, Kevin T. Collins, Soneela Nankani, Alexander Cendese, Amanda Leigh Cobb

Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

The fate of the world is in the hands of a father and daughter in an epic novel of wonder and terror by Dean Koontz, the number one New York Times best-selling master of suspense.

Since his wife, Michelle, left seven years ago, Jeffy Coltrane has worked to maintain a normal life for himself and his 11-year-old daughter, Amity, in Suavidad Beach. It’s a quiet life, until a local eccentric known as Spooky Ed shows up on their doorstep.

Ed entrusts Jeffy with hiding a strange and dangerous object - something he calls “the key to everything” - and tells Jeffy that he must never use the device. But after a visit from a group of ominous men, Jeffy and Amity find themselves accidentally activating the key and discovering an extraordinary truth. The device allows them to jump between parallel planes at once familiar and bizarre, wondrous and terrifying. And Jeffy and Amity can’t help but wonder, could Michelle be just a click away?

Jeffy and Amity aren’t the only ones interested in the device. A man with a dark purpose is in pursuit, determined to use its grand potential for profound evil. Unless Amity and Jeffy can outwit him, the place they call home may never be safe again.

Includes an audio-only short story, "Parlor Trick," a kind of karmic coda to the novel.

©2020 The Koontz Living Trust (P)2020 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Critic reviews

“Ballerini (a Koontz veteran) is tremendous, and Parks makes strong choices in diction, pronunciation, and pacing to bring Amity Coltrane to life. The collaborative effect of Ballerini and Parks' narration works as a deliberate “all-in” to the production, making the audio version even more of a standout.”—Booklist

“Colorful, imaginative…a lively, offbeat novel.” —Kirkus Reviews

“This is a genre-busting work that happily will appeal to readers who enjoy thrillers, horror, sci-fi or just a flat-out well-told story with a breakneck pace that never lets up.” —Bookreporter

Female narrator ruins a good story

I should have listened to the advice of other reviewers. I have listened to 100s of audio books and never heard one worse than this female narrator. The publisher should re-record her parts. Ballerini was great as always, but I’m surprised he agreed to co-read with her.
This story line, as with some others from this author, requires suspension of logic and science, but it was fun and interesting. I wish I had read the book instead of listening to it.

Great story, poor performance.

This story was exciting and fast paced. I really enjoyed it.
I was distracted by the female narrator. She often mispronounced words such as secreted, past tense of secret which she pronounced as the past tense of secrete. She also mispronounced her name as well. There was also a problem with what I call mush-mouth. She would kind of drag her way through some words. It was quite annoying.
I felt like the male narrator did a fine job,
but listening to the female was a bit torturous.

Wonderful! Exceptions Koontz!

I loved the entire novel! Unlike some other reviewers I did like the young female voice. It helped remind me she’s only 11 (closer to 12 :-)) it was filled with intrigue, action, fantasy- but realistic enough to keep me wondering

Great Story, Difficult Narrator

As always, Dean Koontz delivers a great story. Although parts of the book are written in a young girl's voice, this would have been much easier to listen to if a mature female who reads well narrated. The mispronunciations were difficult, but the inability to read past the end of a line without pausing, or to use other punctuation correctly made this pretty tough to listen to.

I.M.O. DEAN'S MAGNUM OPUS

As short as this book was, contained therein are great qualities of pure dissension against all things deep state, especially the mass use of the deep state of the tried and true tools of destruction known as Marxism, Maoism, collectivism, progressivism, fascism gone totally awry and socialism at large, etc. For those w/ eyes to see, there are so many talking points in this book that the likes of Solzhenitsyn and Dostoyevsky could cross their legs under the table for a prolonged discussion on the end results of philosophical and dialectical materialism (classic atheism) leading to "special camps" for political prisoners and way worse. There are some unlikely heros in this book, and the refrain of the importance of constant reading and forming proper heros at a young age to build courageous characters to face down evil. The points run on and on, some partially hidden, but many readily discernible. "The heart is deceitful above all things". Both voice actors were excellent. This is a sharp-pointed finger and polemic against our current shadow government and their intentions on ruling everything w/o compunction or a trace of regret for mass murdering and torture. Brilliantly done Dean! My favorite Koontz book before this was "Fear Nothing".

amazing

Dean Koontz is an amazing author, no surprise this was another excellent book from him.

Love Koontz but hated this one

The story rambled and the female narrator was horrible. Lost track of where I was in the story and had to rewind so many times. Not an exciting or even interesting listen.

Not one of Koontz's best.

The story line lacks the excitement that most Koontz novels have and borders more on a psychological approach. The performance was good but story line was not and the short story that followed went nowhere.

Great read!

I thought this book was very interesting my only complaint is that it's too short I wanted more.

bright and entertaining

love the characters in this book. makes you wonder if there's another one of me putting in a chair somewhere able to walk, climbing Hills and living out her retirement elsewhere. of course she would still be listening to Dean Koontz on Audible