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    The Ten Thousand Doors of January
    The Ten Thousand Doors of January
    The Ten Thousand Doors of January
    Audiobook12 hours

    The Ten Thousand Doors of January

    Written by Alix E. Harrow

    Narrated by January LaVoy

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    "A gorgeous, aching love letter to stories, storytellers and the doors they lead us through...absolutely enchanting."--Christina Henry, bestselling author of Alice and Lost Boys
    LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER!Finalist for the 2020 Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and World Fantasy Awards
    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 spellbinding debut--step inside and discover its magic.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHachette Audio
    Release dateSep 10, 2019
    ISBN9781549124051
    The Ten Thousand Doors of January
    Author

    Alix E. Harrow

    Alix E. Harrow is an ex-historian with lots of opinions and excessive library fines, currently living in Kentucky with her husband and their semi-feral children. Her short fiction has been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards. Her full-length novels include The Ten Thousand Doors of January, The Once and Future Witches and Starling House.

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    Reviews for The Ten Thousand Doors of January

    4/5

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    • 4/5

      Jan 18, 2025

      I’m not a huge fan of fantasy but I really liked this book. The story was beautiful and original and its writing is like poetry. It can get a bit wordy and got tricky to get through at times, but if you love adventure and magic, this is for you.
    • 5/5

      Jan 7, 2025

      Incredible adventure! Left me laughing and teary eyed and on the edge of my seat leaning in on every single word. Danger. Excitement. Adventure! All of it. Wow what a ride! Loved every single page. Highly recommend if you love adventure and imagination.
    • 4/5

      Jul 30, 2024

      There are books that zoom like an express train, rushing ahead at top speed, leaving you breathless & eager to find out what lies beyond.

      There are other books that move at a snail's pace, meandering all over, with no end in mind, leaving just a trail of slime behind.

      And then there are books like this one! Books that make you want to rush ahead and yet proceed slowly! Let me attempt an analogy...

      Imagine you have been given a jigsaw puzzle. You have to put the pieces together but you haven't been given any reference image. So how exactly the pieces have to be fitted is entirely up to you. In addition, each piece is mesmerising. You get so absorbed in admiring each tiny clue that you forget the motive, the puzzle. But once you see signs of the picture emerging, you find it very difficult to stop and relish the individual pieces. You just want to reach the end asap so that you can appreciate the completed picture where each little gem fits in perfectly.

      That's The Ten Thousand Doors of January for you. It starts off nicely enough, with the narrative and the vocabulary providing you with enough soul-food. You read at your own pace, relishing the journey. But as the chapters move on, you find that your strides are quicker. Once in a while, you may still stop to appreciate the beauty within the words but the rest of the times, you just want to surge ahead to satiate your curiosity.

      This is not from my preferred reading genre. I read very few books on Fantasy. But this is a book I enjoyed to the core. The story is quite different from anything I have ever read. But more than that novelty factor, the command of the author over the language was terrific. I'm a sucker for books where words are used appropriately as per the situation, but most novelists today seem to have forgotten the art. This was a surprising exception. Alix E Harrow won the Goodreads Choice Awards for Best Debut for this work in 2019. Now that I've read the book, I'll just say it was completely deserved. Along with Gail Honeyman, Alix Harrow joins the authors I'll keep a lookout for in future.

      Special mention for the fabulous cover image! I could look at it all day!
    • 3/5

      Sep 5, 2024

      unique time travel book with alternating narrators -a device that sometimes made the novel's chronology (no pun intended !!) and plot lines a bit confusing. Original and almost dreamy in tone and details; I enjoyed this.
    • 5/5

      May 30, 2024

      When a young girl discovers a blue door in a field she views, another world, taking her into a path of discovery, destiny, empowerment, and love. I have read a couple of this authors later books so when I found this one at a book sale and that it was Alix Harrow's first book, I was curious to how much, if any, the writing had changed, plus it was a good price and I had liked the others that I had read...so I gave it a "home". The story centers on a young girl, January Scaller, who grew up under the watchful eye of two men...the wealthy Cornelius Locke who was her father's employer, and Julian, her father whose job it was to travel the world in search of the "odd" object and valuable treasures for his employer's collection. This strange collection is housed in Mr. Locke's sprawling Vermont mansion. January lives what could be considered a "charmed" childhood, but she feels stifled by the "good old boys" club that Mr. Locke and his friends belong to. They all treat her like she's a curiosity, which she kind of is. A lot of that is because she is a mixed-race child with a long, long precocious streak. She is forced to wear elaborate clothes, which she hates...and to show lady-like, docile behavior, which is certainly NOT in any way...her "thing"...nor is the many society gatherings she is forced to attend. Then when she's 17, her father just disappears, and January finds a book that will change her life forever. She has friends; allies, in the persons of Samuel, the grocer’s son; Jane, the Kenyan woman sent by Julian to be January’s companion; and her best friend ever...Bad, her dog. With them, January embarks on an adventure that will lead her to discover secrets about Mr. Locke, the world and all its hidden doorways as well as her own family. The method that the author uses to draw a "picture" of the door with words, was both clever and interesting. (From the book) “Sometimes I feel there are doors lurking in the creases of every sentence, with periods for knobs and verbs for hinges” Vivid imagery can be found on almost every page. The book also has quiet a diverse cast of characters with a very strong lead character. Though this portal is a huge part... actually the backbone of the story...it doesn’t take away from any of the things that help it succeed as an interesting, and well-done story.
    • 4/5

      Feb 7, 2025

      I greatly enjoyed this book. I loved how the magic of the story slowly unveiled and that at the core of it all was a family's love story.
    • 3/5

      Jan 27, 2025

      Where is the door that brings everyone together? This was a really well-written novel.
    • 3/5

      Jun 20, 2024

      The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow is an interesting book on magical realism about a girl's journey. It had a wonderful start with all the fantasy of a girl named January. Although I am not very fond of YA fantasy, the title was intriguing. I read it as a part of #52Booksin52Weeks in Hybrid Genre.

      Despite its charming start, it could not interest me further to finish it. The plot is too slow, and the scenes randomly hop from one to another without any real connection. Maybe I am too old to read this one. The characters also felt confused, sprouting suddenly. After reading more than half of the book, I felt it was not going anywhere. January's character was inspired by the same theme, where a girl wants to be free from a tyrant uncle, the same old trick. I would give the book only 3 stars.
    • 5/5

      Dec 29, 2023

      Adored all of it.
    • 5/5

      Dec 11, 2023

      Let me start by saying this is not my typical read. I never read fantasy, ever. I never even look at it. How this one slipped into my Barnes & Noble pile is beyond me --- I blame the gorgeous cover art. But, now that I'm through reading it, I'm rethinking my hard core stance against fantasy novels...because this was really good. I can't even bring myself to rate down one star for profanity, which I always do. It was just such a fantastic story.

      Addressing the profanity--- I usually rant about it because I see no reason to use it in most cases. Unless you're falling off a cliff, it serves no purpose other than to just be negative. The profanity in this one did serve a purpose, however. It continuously snapped me out of my beautiful reverie and back into reality --- which was unfortunate. This author truly has a gift for the glorious putting together of words. It made me sad to see her introduce profanities that so much cheapened it all.

      But beyond that... there were several places in the story I especially took note of.

      pg. 94-95: Ade is outside looking up at the treetops above her head.
      "in the absence of the old tree, there was a hole in the canopy above her. Ade began to suspect that, for the first time in her life, she was free."
      When I read that, I immediately thought about the way I felt after I lost my Dad in January 2022. Even though I had a husband and four sons to watch over me still, I felt a little more alone in the world without my Dad. When I first read this part in the story, that hole symbolized the loss of a source of protection. However, it also represented the freedom I felt --- no more guilt over not living my life the way he thought I should. No more guilt of not pleasing someone who will never be fully pleased.

      pg. 307: "I sat, watching the country turn rich and wet, the hills rising and diving like great emerald whales..." Aaah... that is so beautiful!

      pg. 349: "I'd grown up thinking of my father as fundamentally foreign, eccentric, unlike anyone else; now I saw he was just a man very far from home."

      I also saw a lot of social and political symbolism in the story. Some was obvious --- others I wondered if they were meant to be there. For instance, pg. 229 describes the doors being destroyed by "natural disasters" that obviously aren't natural. Explosions, fires, floods, landslides, etc. All I could think was Lahaina, East Palestine, cows, chickens, food production facilities... every day since March 2020 in one slow-cooking pot of frog soup.

      I'll be keeping an eye on this author for future works. It looks like her next one glorifies witchcraft so I'll need to avoid, but we'll see what she does after that! In the meantime, I might check out the fantasy section a little more closely...
    • 4/5

      Jan 17, 2024

      When January was a young girl, she found a door that opened to another world. But Mr. Locke (her father’s boss and essentially her surrogate father, since her own dad spent almost all his time traveling the world looking for treasures for Mr. Locke’s collection) severely punished her for having such fanciful thoughts, so she put it out of her mind and went on with the business of growing up. Now, at 17, she’s told that her father is dead, and things begin to happen to and around her that make her return to the idea of worlds behind doors…

      An excellent idea for a story, and the world(s) building is nicely done. I enjoyed the book just fine, but I fell just shy of *loving* it, mostly because the characters felt a little flat. I was interested in where the story was going, but I never felt fulling invested in the people involved. Still, a fun read.
    • 5/5

      Oct 31, 2023

      This book has made me seriously reassess how I rate books on Goodreads. Why? Because I can’t give this book more than 5 stars but have probably rated other books that are less worthy just as highly. I’ll be thinking more carefully about my ratings from now on. This book was audacious! Original, inventive, fantastical with beautiful lyrical language. Fantasy is not my go to genre but I really loved this book. It just transports you to other worlds.
      With thanks to my Goodreads friend, Krystal for this amazing book!
    • 3/5

      Aug 25, 2023

      Fairly predictable but some charming characters, particularly the dog Bad. Unfortunately, the protagonist January was not one of them. I got fairly annoyed with her after the third or fourth time she had to confront a bad guy, or stick up for herself, or show a little chutzpah but just wussed out. Yes, there turned out to be a plot reason for it, but that didn’t make this lack of spine any less annoying.
    • 3/5

      Jul 9, 2023

      I got sucked into this from the start but then had a bit of a loss of momentum and interest once the timeline started shifting and jumped to Ade’s story. I did regain interest and kept going until the end. Overall it’s a fun adventure story and I’m pleased to see another book with a spirited young woman protagonist.
    • 4/5

      Apr 21, 2023

      one of the best-written books i've read in the past six months... lyrical prose, interesting characters, unusual villains... i'd like to see a sequel or two in this universe with these characters...
    • 5/5

      Apr 4, 2023

      A really fun and sweet adventure story about stories.
    • 5/5

      Feb 16, 2023

      January has never felt like she has a place in this world, then she opens a door to another one. This fantasy novel feels similar to Starless Sea with the same slow-burn story that gains speed as we get to know the characters. I took it slow, savoring the descriptions and I know I'll return to it. The world-building is wonderful and the ending makes it all worthwhile. I loved so many of the supporting characters. It could have benefitted from some editing, but give yourself time to enjoy the portals into other worlds, secret society, diverse cast, epic love, and dangerous escapes and you won't be disappointed.
    • 4/5

      Feb 14, 2023

      On paper, this book is aimed straight for me. Fortuntely, it delivers. Portal fantasies! Sinister societies! True love!
      Along with a split narrative, complete with footnotes. Historical fiction that doesn't make me gag.

      The book follows the adventures of January Scaller, a young woman of color who is drawn to doors to other worlds, much to her guardian's consterntation. Takes place mostly in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
    • 4/5

      Oct 4, 2022

      this was entertaining, and even moving toward the end. it had interesting characters, and it had something to say in the corners about empires, opportunities, and discrimination. it had the makings of a Classic, and maybe over time it will become one - but it felt to me like it was one step, one door, one pass of the manuscript short of getting there. meanwhile, it's well worth reading and the author is definitely one to watch.
    • 3/5

      Sep 23, 2022

      3.0

      I flew through the first 56 percent of the book effortlessly. It seemed somewhat original as far as plot elements were concerned and I really liked the writing style. I picked it back up a day later and I just barely got through it. Suddenly it became a fairly predictable and drawn-out slog. I wish I could say I loved this one. I had high hopes. Unfortunately, I can only give this a slightly better than meh, rating.
    • 5/5

      Jul 9, 2022

      I hope this unusual and fantastic fantasy novel won a few awards because it is that SENSATIONAL!

      The Ten Thousand Doors of January pays tribute to the art of storytelling and the art of weaving words together like a finely woven Oriental carpet. Colorful, adventuresome, heartwarming and heart-wrenching. You will cheer the heroine on, you will laugh, and you will cry. You will fly through magic portals, and you will sail the high seas. And as you endeavor to experience this wild enchanting carpet ride, you will not be able to believe the creativity and talent Alix Harrow offers up in this marvelous novel! Standing Ovation, don't miss this one!
    • 4/5

      Mar 26, 2022

      I chewed through the last 30% like a mouse chews through anything blocking its way into my house. Wonderful experience. Feels like bloated YA. Conflicted about the style. I loved it at times and at times it slowed the story down. I do love the author's voice, though.

      Actually, that helped me put my finger on what kept this from being five stars. It's written in a mature, literary style, and the way the story unfolds with its book-within-a-book (popsugar should make that a prompt) and seemingly smart plot, you think the story is going to be meatier than standard YA. And it is, but only in the complexity.

      I liked that the story contained diversity. Loved it, actually. Something that drives me NUTS is books that pretend racism or sexism don't exist or don't affect people's lives, especially in 1910.

      Liked the other worlds. Wished to see more of them. Felt like it took way too long to get into that bit, and then there was never enough of it. Book could have used some more aggressive editing, IMO.

      Overall though, an amazing experience if you like fantasy, YA, portals, evil secret societies (come on, you know it's evil; that can't possibly be a spoiler), big lovable protective dogs, or any combo of the above, you'll probably enjoy this too.
    • 5/5

      Feb 23, 2022

      This book is a beautiful, fantastical journey…
    • 2/5

      Feb 17, 2022

      Can you classify a book as "smug?"

      Maybe fantasy is no longer my genre. I've heard comparisons of the genres that say that fantasy looks backward to stagnation, while science fiction looks ahead. Ten Thousand Doors seems to perfectly embody this characterization.

      I think I have a problem with schools of thinking that talk about the shapes of words, which seems like a particularly stupid branch of semiotics (thanks to a friend for knowing that that is a thing!). Especially when you change fonts and the shape of the word in question changes from there. I think the etymology of words or letters is a lot more interesting and realistic than semiotics. Those asides kept drawing me out of the book with how stupid and inane I thought they were, which ruined a lot of the rest of the plot that would otherwise be perfectly serviceable up to about the 70% mark.

      My other overarching issue with the book is hype-based, which shouldn't really be the book's fault, but still affects how I perceived it. I remember it being advertised as the ultimate transported-to-another-world book, and it....wasn't, for me. It didn't resonate with my memories and feelings of reading, so I felt in the dark and unincluded. Maybe this is just the product of having a book-positive childhood.

      It also feeds in to a problem I have with these passive kinds of protagonists, where them avoiding the problem (reading, in January's case) leads to them finding the solution. This one sticks in my craw because I have a bad habit of avoidance and it never works out for me, and I detest seeing stuff like this. It's kind of like I don't like those cringe humor sitcoms with the secondhand embarrassment - I say enough stupid shit on my own without needing to see it again on TV.

      Also, a quick highlight on how incredibly cruel January can be, from near the end of the book:
      (Ade is still easier to say than Mother; she doesn't correct me, but sometimes I see her flinch, as if her name is a stone I've thrown at her)


      I have some history problems with this book, but I'm putting them separately because it occurred to me that my opinion may be tainted by living in the American South and learning too much about Nazis in college. Calling a mulatto "in-between" doesn't work - January would just be labeled as black. Like, there is a whole lexicon of racist language of the early 1900s that is upsettingly easy to find. But then I wonder if I'm being too cruel when I put down a book like this, when it's more hopeful about the past than I would be. Is it bad that I'm this critical? Somebody could certainly hope that being half-black would earn a different classification, even though it doesn't really even a hundred years later.

      (I guess it means that the author has to do more research into their time period which I guess can lead to some upsetting discoveries. Alternatively, don't cover that topic?)

      The conclusions Julian presents - that change only comes from without - seem too defeatist to me. This book is also extremely anti-science, and I don't care for the attitude (how you feel about something is more important than what actually happened, or a less intellectual view of something is more valid for the purposes of the narrative. This kind of happened in Uprooted, if that helps explain what I mean). If change and new things only come from outside, how did this book get written?

      I feel like magical realism books have something to say about the real world, and it upsets me when I think the author has made an invalid choice.
    • 5/5

      Feb 11, 2022

      What a magical book! So beautifully written and such an engaging story. I'm not a fantasy reader usually but I didn't start out really thinking this one was fantasy. I love all the allusions to other books (Narnia!) and the strong characters.
    • 5/5

      Jan 29, 2022

      Things that attracted me to this book: the title (I first saw it in January, around my birthday); the cover; and the blurb mentioning a book. I picked it up because the only books appealing to me right now are fluffy, preferably magical realism plots.

      This book was both and neither. I have no idea how to describe it. A grown-up fairy tale sounds too trite and too superficial, though its roots are firmly in myth and legend. The writing is lyrical, the tense is fourth-wall-breaking second person. It's a happy story, a heart-wrenching one, and a magical one all at once. It's both predictable and surprising; cynical and fantastically idealistic. It genuinely shocked the hell out of me because it wasn't at all what I expected.

      As the ward of the wealthy Mr Locke, January Scaller 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...

      It's both a perfect and perfectly inadequate description. The closest I can come is a story with very faint shades of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, only for grown-ups.
    • 5/5

      Jan 23, 2022

      I waited a long time to read this book and it was well worth the wait. It's one of those special books that takes you on a fantastical journey but that also portrays some deeper truths about life - truths about the power of words and of believing in yourself. Our protagonist is January Scholar, who we meet as a young girl in the care (mostly) of Mr. Locke. January discovers a door to another world - though at the time she hardly knows what it is - but her fanciful adventures are squelched by Mr. Locke, who hires a stern nanny to bring her in line. Her only glimmers of joy are during the rare times her father visits, or when the neighborhood grocer boy secretly visits or smuggles comic books to her. He even manages to gift her a dog, Bad, who becomes her constant companion. As she grows in stature and understanding, she comes to realize that there are deep secrets hidden at Locke House, and especially among the society members that Locke consorts with. Her father sends her a companion, Jane, and she is rid of the stern Nanny - but it is not until she is mysteriously given a book written by her father that the full truth comes into focus for her. She learns who she truly is, and she also learns that she must escape Locke and his society members in order to find her true power and purpose in the world.
      This books is an adventure to be savored, and the audio version was fantastic. The language is also wonderful and has much to say about the power of words to change the world and the importance of connections between worlds - no matter how different they may be. I highly recommend it to anyone, especially to fans of fantasy and coming of age stories.
    • 5/5

      Jan 10, 2022

      This was awesome!
      At first, I was confused by the story-within-a-story format, but it all started to gel and the way things were laid out made the full story even sweeter.
      You get a bit of everything: fantasy/horror/romance/adventure/gothic/multi-culturalism/historical fiction.
      I listened to the audiobook and, so perfectly, it is narrated by another January, actress January LaVoy!
    • 5/5

      Jan 1, 2022

      An imaginative and highly readable take on the "doors to other worlds" genre. I will look forward to reading the author's other books now too!
    • 4/5

      Dec 31, 2021

      The Ten Thousand Doors of January tells the story of a young January Scaller, who is raised as the ward of Mr. Locke, an early twentieth century rich industrialist who employs January's father as a traveling artifact broker. Throughout her life, January discovers doors to other worlds, and must constantly balance her urge to find and explore these doors with the need to be a good, civilized girl for Mr. Locke. When she inevitably discovers that her heritage is deeply intertwined with the doors, and the Locke and his secret society is actively trying to destroy the doors, her struggle to free herself from Locke begins. The book provides an interesting commentary on Victorian-style colonialism and white supremacy, and often the reader feels more intimidated by that than otherworldly horrors. This was a good read.