The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

From Goodreads

In the early 1900s, a young woman embarks on a fantastical journey of self-discovery after finding a mysterious book in this captivating and lyrical debut.

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.

Lush and richly imagined, a tale of impossible journeys, unforgettable love, and the enduring power of stories awaits in Alix E. Harrow's spell binding debut - step inside and discover it's magic.

My thoughts

This is an unusual debut novel, with an interesting premise. The doors in the story within the story allow the characters to escape into other worlds and situations. At times it was magical and at other times I felt like I was a little lost, but was I lost in the story or was I lost trying to get my head round the story and the plot? You (the reader) need to be able to suspend belief and be able to immerse yourself into this story.

It has taken me a few days to think about the rating that I would like to give this story. After having thought about it I have decided to give this a 3.5 stars or 7/10. I will be interested to see in which direction  the Author decides to go next with her writing.

Maybe I am sitting on the fence a little with my rating, but other reviewers have received this story with mixed views and that's how I feel if I'm honest. I really wanted to love it, but yet it didn't completely grip me, but I didn't hate it either. Sometimes if we read a book at a different time then we would feel differently about it and this is one of those books, that I feel I would have felt differently about at a different space in time.

Do please grab a copy for yourself to see what you think of it, as it should be widely read. I feel that this would make a great read for discussion due to the nature of the story. How many of us would love to go through a door and enter another time? I know that I would quite like to escape real life sometimes. I just wish I had the same opportunities that January had in the story.