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white_hartI really enjoyed Alix E. Harrow's Hugo-winning short story, A Witch's Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies, so I was very interested to read her debut novel, The Ten Thousand Doors of January, which came out this autumn.
The Ten Thousand Doors of January is the story of January Scaller, an awkward, stubborn girl with odd red-brown skin which marks her as a curiosity in turn-of-the-twentieth century America. January's father spends his time travelling the world collecting curiosities for the wealthy businessman Mr Locke, who is almost like a foster father to his employee's daughter. At the age of seven, January finds a Door to another world. At the age of seventeen, she finds a curious book which tells a story of Doors and love and adventure which changes her life for ever.
This was an absolutely delightful book; a clever fantasy with an engaging heroine which weaves its two narratives (January's own, and the book she finds) together so that they become a single, seamless whole, with vivid, beautifully-described secondary worlds, chilling but complex villains and an underlying critique of imperialism and conservatism which warmed my lefty heart. I wasn't entirely convinced by the romance subplot, and I did see a lot of the plot twists coming a long way ahead of January, but overall I loved this, and it turns out that a beautifully-written fantasy about escaping into magical worlds and books was just what I needed in a cold, dark, miserable December.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free eARC for review.
The Ten Thousand Doors of January is the story of January Scaller, an awkward, stubborn girl with odd red-brown skin which marks her as a curiosity in turn-of-the-twentieth century America. January's father spends his time travelling the world collecting curiosities for the wealthy businessman Mr Locke, who is almost like a foster father to his employee's daughter. At the age of seven, January finds a Door to another world. At the age of seventeen, she finds a curious book which tells a story of Doors and love and adventure which changes her life for ever.
This was an absolutely delightful book; a clever fantasy with an engaging heroine which weaves its two narratives (January's own, and the book she finds) together so that they become a single, seamless whole, with vivid, beautifully-described secondary worlds, chilling but complex villains and an underlying critique of imperialism and conservatism which warmed my lefty heart. I wasn't entirely convinced by the romance subplot, and I did see a lot of the plot twists coming a long way ahead of January, but overall I loved this, and it turns out that a beautifully-written fantasy about escaping into magical worlds and books was just what I needed in a cold, dark, miserable December.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free eARC for review.
