Welcome to the first of my ‘Calendar Chaos’ posts, in which I take the books I received in my 2024 book advent – each cover representing a different period of time – and review them for you!
Up first in January is JANUARY and the book is The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow.
Read on to find out more…
Blurb: ACCORDING TO JANUARY SCALLER, THERE’S ONLY ONE WAY TO RUN AWAY FROM YOUR OWN STORY, AND THAT’S TO SNEAK INTO SOMEONE ELSE’S . . .
In a sprawling mansion filled with peculiar treasures, January Scaller is a curiosity herself. As the ward of the wealthy Mr Locke, she feels little different from the artefacts that decorate the halls: carefully maintained, largely ignored and utterly out of place.
But her quiet existence is shattered when she stumbles across a strange book. A book that carries the scent of other worlds and tells a tale of secret doors, of love, adventure and danger. Each page reveals more impossible truths about the world, and January discovers a story increasingly entwined with her own.
Review: This beautiful and suspenseful take on the classic portal fantasy stories had me entranced from the first word to the last.
The book is a celebration of stories, writing and the importance of imagination, capturing the magic of the childhood belief that anything is possible and wonder – or horror – is round every corner, and prolonging it into adulthood for those of us who still haven’t given up hope.
Main character January is very relatable, as she tries to squash herself down to fit into the box that the adult (male) world wants to impose upon her, and is lucky enough to find a couple of loyal friends – Bad and Samuel – amid all of the dangers she faces, who love and appreciate her exactly as she is and will support her with their very lives.
Whereas in complete contrast, the ‘bad guys’ are terrifying in both the horror sense and in the sense of humans doing terrible things in the belief that their personal interests are important and put them in the right.
Not only did I love the characters, I loved the whole concept of the doors, and the Threshold, and the Written (where I would definitely be happy to live!) and I love how the story spans out then all comes neatly together for a very satisfying ending, and the beautiful, evocative writing… Basically, I love this book and wholeheartedly recommend it!
About the author:
A former academic, adjunct, cashier, blueberry-harvester, and Kentuckian, Alix E. Harrow is now a full-time writer living in Virginia with her husband and their semi-feral kids.
She is the Hugo Award-winning and NYT-bestselling author of THE TEN THOUSAND DOORS OF JANUARY (2019), THE ONCE AND FUTURE WITCHES (2020), a duology of fairytale novellas (A SPINDLE SPLINTERED and A MIRROR MENDED), and various short fiction. Her next book, STARLING HOUSE will be out on Halloween 2023.
Newsletter: https://writtenworld.substack.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alix.e.harrow/
