This gem of a book covers every base. Well written, well planned, lovely prose and a female heroine who was a great role model. Loved the whole thing. Great debut!

DNF @37%

I was really hoping that I would love this book as it sounded right up my alley: gorgeous prose, magical realism, fantasy, etc. but I found myself completely bored with it. Now, the writing was quite beautiful in some parts. I did love how she wrote certain sentences and quick turns of phrase. I did not like the alternating chapters between the non-fiction book that January reads and the chapters of January's own story. I found the book that she's reading to be very boring and struggled to get through those chapters. In fact, after three chapters of reading the book within the book, I realized that I had no idea how January actually came across the book. I'm sure it was there but I couldn't recall it at all. That's when I knew that this story wasn't holding my attention. It was a struggle to pick up and when I did I was reading it but wasn't engaged in the story at all. Sadly, this book just didn't work for me.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an advanced reader ebook in exchange for an honest review.

The Ten Thousand Doors of January
By Alix E. Harrow
3.5/5

January Scaller is a perfectly unique specimen of a girl. Her dark bronze skin as much as her name set her apart—but it is more than that. January lives with Mr. Locke, her father’s employer and patron, a wealthy white man living in Vermont. Her father is an adventurer and acquires rare collectibles for Locke. And everything would be this simple if not for the discovery of a door that opened to a new world. January, a lover of words, wrote it open one day, and was prompt punished—the door, destroyed. Since then, January has tried hard to conform to Mr. Locke’s rules to become a proper young lady. But when she finds a book describing the doors, and puts together the missing pieces of her life, she discovers that things are not what they seem, and no door is ever shut to her.

This book is a tale of self discovery, reunion, family, and love. Bring tissues because it is SAD and TRAGIC but also so hopeful and uplifting you won’t be sure whether you are crying in anguish or happiness! This reads like literary fiction so it took me a long time! It also has a fairly slow start so I wasn’t really into it until about half way through when the pace picked up. It has parts that alternate between the present story and a chapter of the book she finds, which is cool but I’m not a huge fan of that style of book. I feel it takes you out of the story and you have to reorient yourself every time. But the later chapters that were more like storytelling than academic information were easier to adjust to. I very much enjoyed this book, but I do have my reservations about the pace and these chapter switches. Additionally, it definitely did not read like a ya fantasy book until the last forty percent or so, but the prose is beautiful. I found myself getting a bit bogged down in the prose that was waxing poetic about words, but overall it is very well written and tells a beautiful story. This book is great for those readers who like coming of age stories, almost poetic prose, and who maybe aren’t ready for high fantasy but want to dip their toes in!

E-Arc provided by the publisher through Netgalley for my honest review

The story is written like a mix of family stories and a scientific documentary surrounding Doors to other worlds. As a young girl January finds a door to another world in a field while traveling with her caretaker Mr. Locke. Over the years January begins to shape up into a “proper young woman” and leave the fantasies behind, until her father goes missing and she discovers a book all about the Doors and the journey of a woman names Ade.

The book had a very intriguing premise but was very challenging to get into. I picked it up and put it down several times before pushing through. The first two thirds of the book were largely building backstory, and then January started to take action in her own life around the final third of the book. The story is based in late 1800s to early 1900s but does work in a fantasy element with the Doors and some unique characters. I think someone who enjoys historical fiction with a little fantasy would enjoy this story.

Thank you to NetGalley and Red Hook books for the opportunity to read The Ten Thousand Doors of January in exchange my honest review.

Imagine Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children meets The Eyre Affair meets a sort of reverse Inkheart meets a whole lot of probably-a-metaphor. I won't waste your time with summary, but what a synopsis can't tell you is the immediacy of Harrow's writing, and how much they can convey about a character in very little time. There were parts of the book I read like I watch horror movies, because Harrow made me care so much.

Yes, there were characters I wish had more screen time and development (namely Jane and Samuel), and I wouldn't be terribly surprised if those characters got their own novels later on, though there's plenty of closure. And there were several reveals I saw coming chapters ahead of time. But I didn't <i>care</i>.

This is not a book that you pick-up and immediately become immersed in, but rather the kind of book that slowly trickles over your self-conscious allowing you to think about the story from the prospective purely from the characters' angle. In this case, it starts off with January almost in a memoir style, telling you the story of herself at an earlier age in a world that almost seems half-veiled to her. It could be because she is a child or because she is bi-racial or both. It lends mystic to the story, a sense of unknown.
As the story progresses and more of the world around January is revealed, you'll find yourself beginning to wake with this sense of wonderment and mystery. Questions churn in your head and pages will fly under your fingertips. World-building, hah! Dimension-building is occurring within these pages.
I will warn you though. This book may not be for everyone. January is not a brave girl. She is in her own words "a good girl." She is a teenager brought up and manipulated to believe certain things, though it made me frustrated with her, even angry. She is weak. Her father is weak. I find that I have to remember she is a child who wants to please and believe that people love her, no matter how bad they are or how bad they treat her. Look at abuse victims. Don't lose heart; circumstances can sometimes strengthen even the weakest of us.
Overall, this is a book that opens eyes to believing and minds to possibilities.

** I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving a review. **

The Ten Thousand Doors of January opens with such magic that I was entranced after the first three paragraphs. “When I was seven I found a door,” January begins, then speculates she really should capitalize that ‘d’ so readers could understand it was not an ordinary one. And then she explains there are doors to other dimensions, hence the title.

But there is very little of the magical in January’s early life. She lives with her guardian, a wealthy collector of antiquities while her father travels the world seeking them out. Her guardian is a dour man who insists on obedience and quiet. After she found that door, he was even stricter. The one exception is her dog, a gift from the grocer’s son. Her father hires a woman to serve as her companion and protector.

But when she finds a book she believes is a gift from her father, she learns that door when she was seven was real and so much more, leading her on adventures that are harrowing, but leading her to learn so much more about her family and herself.

I loved The Ten Thousand Doors of January. In spite of the many evil characters and some of the malignant powers they had, overall there was a sweetness to the story that we seldom see done with so little sentimentality. January is a strong character, a magnificent one in fact, despite her youthful submission. She was a bit slow to identify one of the malign influences, but that makes sense in terms of how the characters knew and interacted with each other.

The only weakness was at the end, the wrapping up and tying the threads together. This happens often with fantasy books when a character comes fully into their power. The story was their discovery and development. Once the power is fully realized, it becomes too powerful for real jeopardy to continue, so authors wrap things up off-stage, so to speak. It’s not unusual and doesn’t ruin the story at all.

The Ten Thousand Doors of January will be published September 10th. I received an e-galley from the publisher through NetGalley.

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow is a modern day fairy tale. January is an in-between girl. She and her father, Julian Scaller, live with Mr. Locke, a collector of the world’s rarities. Mr. Scaller is away a lot, traveling to collect these things that Mr. Locke hides from the world. This is a story of words, and of stories, and the doors to other worlds that stories allow us to see into. At first, the storyline was a little confusing, but once I understood what this book was really about, I loved it! It’s fantastic and fantastical. It was engrossing and charming. The story was deep and insightful.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced e-copy of this book. All thoughts are my own. #netgalley #thetenthousanddoorsofjanuary

Thanks to Redhook Books and NetGalley for providing an eARC of this book!

I loved <i>The Ten Thousand Doors of January</i>. It is a love story, a growing-up story, and just the kind of fantasy I love. January and the people surrounding her are interesting characters, who are brave and restless. I think other fans of portal books, from <i>The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe</i> to <i>Every Heart a Doorway</i> and <i>The Golden Compass</i> will enjoy this book.

This is a historical fantasy, set around the turn of the 20th century. The structure is interesting, alternating between January's narrative from childhood to early adulthood/late teens and a book within a book, the titular Ten Thousand Doors. This book recounts the story of Adelaide Lee Larson, a woman who finds many doors, but is looking for a particular one. These portions of the book is written by an otherworldly scholar and are read by January in several moments of extremis. I liked how this narrative within the narrative unspooled slowly, revealing more about the doors and the worlds adjacent to ours. These chapters were some of my favorite parts of the book - Ade is so single-minded and smart in her pursuit of the right door.

Harrow's writing is lovely and she depicts the reality in early twentieth-century America of being a mixed-race girl (January) and black man (her father). She also uses other worlds to show that this reality in our world was by no means natural or inevitable.

I was a bit vague in my description of what happens in this book, but I think that is for the best. Read this book for the fantasy and the writing and for January, who is a great character. Know also that (minor spoiler) although there is a stressful time when you might not think this is true, the dog Sinbad "Bad" is OK.

An interesting book with a lot of fantasy and witchcraft mixed in. A tiny bit Alice Hoffman ish. I did enjoy the name of January and the ability to escape. Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

One of my favourite reads of the year thus far. The Ten Thousand Doors of January is a lovely, cosy book featuring an in-between girl on the hunt for her missing father, hidden doors leading to other worlds, and a very good dog named Bad.

January Scaller is a young girl who's not quite orphaned, but might as well be, as her father regularly leaves her behind as he gallivants the world on expeditions. One day, news of his death reaches her ears, and her tenuous relationship with him is ripped wholly asunder.

Set in early 1900s America, life is not particularly kind to a girl of mixed heritage, whose skin colour is too many shades apart from white to make her palatable to society. But the discovery of a book—a mix between an academic treatise on the existence of magic doors, a captivating romance, and the mournful journal of a man lost in a brand new world—sets her life on a different course, one that galvanises her search for her supposedly dead father.

Harrow's prose is charming and vivid throughout the book, and she achieves an almost Ghibli-esque rendering of the multi-coloured, multi-faceted worlds within. There's a heartwarming love story, a touching tale of complicated familial love and loss, and a well-done internal journey of the main protagonist as she learns to find herself amidst her in-betweenness.

This is very much a book for people who love books—if this doesn't make sense, read the book, and then you'll understand what I mean. I'll be gladly following Harrow's career from here on out.

(Also, the cover is gorgeous. Even though I was lucky enough to receive the ebook ARC, I'll definitely run out and buy a hardcopy upon release just so I can have this cover on my bookshelves.)

I’ve seen this book described as a love letter to storytelling—and that’s spot on. It starts out familiarly enough, a plucky young girl raised by a wealthy benefactor at the turn of the century, and while I enjoy some of those stories, they can feel a bit stale after a while. Even though it was immediately apparent Alix Harrow was an exceptional writer, I didn’t expect to be so enraptured by the world she has crafted and shared with us.

There’s adventure and intrigue, there’s mystery and mysticism. There’s magic and contests of wills. There’s so much heart poured into this book that I often found myself very moved. It gave me a feeling deep inside that anything is possible. If I read this as a child I might have believed it to be secretly true, even if I knew better, similarly to how I felt about The Chronicles of Narnia.

I don’t want to overhype and then have it not meet someone’s extraordinary expectations, but I can’t imagine that anyone who picked up The Ten Thousand Doors of January could be disappointed. This one’s more than just a pretty cover.

Books are portals and The Ten Thousand Doors of January is no exception. Its beautifully crafted worlds, complex characters and exquisite writing will leave you utterly enchanted.

When you look at the premise; magical doors, multiverse you immediately think of works like Narnia and the more recent Wayward Children series. So how does it stand out? It’s atmosphere. There’s something so familiar about the way this book makes you feel when you read it. Like being a kid again and feeling that pull towards a seemingly ordinary room or spot in the trees and knowing down in your very bones that there’s something not quite right about it but you cant place it. This is one of those titles that make you recall that spark that made you fall in love with reading of wanting a story of your own like it.

The cast of characters is so diverse and the way their stories all intertwine is incredibly well crafted and thought out. Being mostly set in the turn of the 20th century America, there’s racism, class-ism, gender-role expectations, all of this was respectfully and tactfully approached. Something to be aware of if any of these topics bother you.
This is a phenomenal read that I encourage people to pick up. For a debut novel to be this exceptional I think we can expect great thing from Harrow in the future.

*E-Arc kindly provided by Author, Redhook Books via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a book, about a book. A very original story about doorways through time, true love, family dynamics, and finding the strength inside yourself to overcome obstacles. It is also an adventure story. It kept your interest throughout, wondering how January was going to survive the situation she found herself in. I really loved this book and recommend for any fantasy fiction reader.

*Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for providing me with an early copy in exchange for an honest review.*

DNF @ 15%

I've discovered that portal fantasy/magical realism books are not my thing. They take so long being clever they forget to move on with the story. "Beautiful" writing is not a reason for me to read a book. On top of that, the plot went nowhere in the part that I read, and I came to dislike the heroine.
I made a note in my Kindle that says "This is one of those books that's full of itself and takes forever to get to the point."
I'm going to include a few quotes that illustrate just how full of itself this book is. *These quotes were taken from an uncorrected copy so it might not be the same as the published version.*

I ought to introduce Mr. Locke properly; he'd hate to wander into the story in such a casual, slantwise way. Allow me to present Mr. William Cornelius Locke, self-made not-quite-billionaire, head of W. C. Locke & Co., owner of no less than three stately homes along the Eastern Seaboard, proponent of the virtues of Order and Propriety (words that he certainly would prefer to see capitalized--see that P, like a woman with her hand on her hip?), and chairman of the New England Archaeological Society, a sort of social club for rich, powerful men who were also amateur collectors. I say "amateur" only because it was fashionable for wealthy men to refer to their passions in this dismissive way, with a little flick of their fingers, as if admitting to a profession other than moneymaking might sully their reputations.

Sometimes I feel there are doors lurking in the creases of every sentence, with periods for knobs and verbs for hinges.

Calluses knotted her palm like a topographical map of a foreign country.


1) Who looks at a P and thinks, "Yes, surely it is a woman." Why can't it be a cowboy resting his foot against a saloon wall? A bugle? A kettle? Or just an upside-down b?

2) I pooped. Yep, there's a door in there.

3) I, too, look at calluses and immediately think of foreign countries. Also, maps that show hills and valleys can be on paper, so are her hands actually smooth? The author should have said globe or model or changed the simile completely.


If you read those sentences and think they're mesmerizing and perfect, go ahead and read it. I prefer books that let me see how clever they are without feeling the need to desperately throw "gorgeous" and "lyrical" trash at my head.

This was so good. It was almost so so so so so good but couldn’t quite open the Door all the way.

(Get it? The book is about… Doors. I write these reviews for free, okay? Don’t come here expecting high quality jokes.)

Know what was high quality, though? The writing. Every sentence is an absolute gift, a little treasure to hold, squeezing so tightly it’s hard to breathe. You can play that game where you close your eyes and randomly flip to a page and point your finger at any sentence and you’re guaranteed to read a line to take you to another time and place and feeling.

Where the writing falters is in its characterization. I didn’t love any of the characters because they felt flat to me, and I think I was supposed to fall in love with them just because this is the sort of grand, sweeping romance and adventure book where you’re supposed fall in love with the characters. They had no trouble insta-loving each other, though. Usually this ruins a story for me, but this time it seemed like “true love” fit into the magic and wonder of the world. Of course, that could be because of how non-existent their personalities were….

If the characters had been more real and well rounded, I could’ve ignored the cliché plot easier. Even though nothing in this story is particularly original, it’s all incredibly well done. I couldn’t put the book down, despite knowing exactly where we were going. I’d go back again: any time, any Door.

A vividly imagined, gorgeously magical story.

I’ve seen a lot of Night Circus comps for this, but I’d liken it more to The Explorers Guild in spirit.

The magical system isn’t really anything new (the concept of the doors is a fantasy trope we’ve all seen before in various iterations), but it still feels clever and the richly-imagined world makes up in likability and atmosphere what it lacks in complete originality.

Our heroine is also a familiar type, but you’ll love her anyway, and most of the secondary characters are compelling in their own right, especially Bad and Samuel.

The structure felt a little jumpy because of the manner in which January’s story and the story in the book within a book shift back and forth, but they come together satisfyingly in the end.

In all, this was less moving and emotionally evocative than I expected, but it’s fun and clever and the ending will put a bounce in your step and a smile on your face.

This was an absolutely fascinating read. A story within a story within a story. I couldn't put this book down. Excellently written, with beautifully described and deep characters. I found myself all I get to the story not wanting to get out. It truly is way different than any book I've ever read and I look forward to reading more from this author. I cannot recommend it enough!

I would like to thank the author/publisher/Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for a fair and honest review

A lovely book that packs a potent final act, "The Ten Thousand Doors of January" marks the advent of a remarkable new voice in fantasy. If it begins a bit slowly, well, that's not so much a weakness as it is a sign that Harrow does not take the direct and easy route to meddling with readers' emotions; she's comfortable with the slow burn and the relentless build of subtle emotional pressure, bursting into full flood and flower only when one has finally been lulled into the satisfied slumber of the reader who thinks they've read this story before—a story of oddball girls and doors portaling into green woods and onto salt sands. We've all stepped through the wardrobe. We've all unlocked the gate to Moria. Readers of contemporary fiction will probably also have struck matches off the woodwork alongside Seanan McGuire's wayward ones. How can an author possibly reinvent the wheel?

Without spoiling the magic underlying this winsome-throughout, surprising-at-the-last voyage into imagination, I can only tell you to hold your children close and make sure they know you love them, for there's a world full of hurt just waiting to close doors on them. The love of parents for their children and the yearning of children for their (emotionally or physically) absent parents sinks its fingers deep into the heartwood of this book, and it never lets go. The book also ticks other boxes, including A) side conversations about race and class issues in America, B) the gaslighting of trauma victims and the weaponization of mental healthcare infrastructure against those who really need it, C) an important LGBTQIA+ side character with a delightfully scrappy personality, and D) an ownership of all its tropes. This is not a book that shimmies around the margins of its own toolkit; Harrow knows what she's up to, and she isn't shy about tackling time-worn tropes and techniques to transport her readers. Just like January herself, Harrow looks her readers straight in the eyes and says: "Are you with me?"

The Ten Thousand Doors of January is not like an fantasy I have read. I think that's why I enjoyed it so much. It was a refreshing and charming read. Alix E. Harrow writes an intelligent book with a unique and endearing characters. With a too precious dog (Bad) I'm a sucker for animals in books especially spunky ones. the Ten Thousand Doors of January isn't just a magical book filled with fairy tales it also highlights racial and social discrepancy in society and the oh so prominent powerful white men will do anything to get what they want.

Overall The Ten Thousand Doors of January is a lyrical thoughtful book filled with unique characters, fairy tales and that also tackle some tough subjects. Highly recommend.