Review: The Ten Thousand Doors of January

The Book: The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

The Blurb:   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 artifacts that decorate the halls: carefully maintained, largely ignored, and utterly out of place.  Then she finds 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 turn reveals impossible truths about the world and January discovers a story increasingly entwined with her own.  (Blurb courtesy of GoodReads)

The Review:  The cover of this book is a doorknob and when opened readers are swept into a journey through world after wondrous world created by Harrow through the evocative use of sensory detail. It is gritty soil between fingers, moisture hanging thick in the sea air, and the cracked feel of aged leather as January explores the collection of relics in the imposing mansion that confines her.

Opening Harrow’s book at random I read the lines “The woman’s mouth closed in an ugly seam . . . her cigarette glowed and crackled. White smoke streamed from her nostrils in a sigh.” Her descriptions engage our senses using dense, rich descriptions to conjure the scene until readers hear, feel, and even taste the world as January does. It is this power that most compels readers through the book. Harrow’s ability to make readers fully present with her character through a million tiny, compelling observations makes this not just January’s story but our own. 

Pick up your copy at Amazon or IndieBound

Next Up on Betsy’s To Be Read Shelf: With Fire On High by Elizabeth Acvedo