January Scaller is the 10 year old ward of the wealthy Mr. Locke, and lives in his large mansion in Vermont. Mr. Locke is a collector of rare and exotic artifacts, and member of the very stodgy Antiquities Society, amongst whom the mixed-race January feels particularly alienated. January’s father is one of his employees, leaving January behind to travel the world procuring strange objects on Locke’s behalf.

January stumbles across her first Door in a field in Kentucky when she was 7, while accompanying Mr. Locke on a business trip. Running through the Door she finds herself in a Mediterranean seafront town. She hears Locke calling for her and heads back through the door, but not before picking up a coin she finds on the ground. Locke chides her for running away and making up stories about Doors.

As January grows up, her father’s expeditions become longer with time at home short and far between. January is soon accompanied by Jane, a mysterious African woman who is sent by her father to be her governess. After Jane’s arrival January discovers a book in a mysterious chest in Mr. Locke’s library The Ten Thousand Doors, a narrative which validates her mysterious experience with the Door in Kentucky and makes her start to question Locke, his Antiquities cohorts, and his unusual collection of objects. When Locke tells her that her father has died, she and Jane escape the Vermont enclave to find the truth about her father, and the Ten Thousand Doors narrative.

A very enjoyable read, with a little bit of historical fiction entwined with fantasy. I give this book 4👍 out of 5👍.