I absolutely loved Alix E. Harrow’s first novel – The Ten Thousand Doors of January, so I was excited to read this as the hype around it promised a return to form.
I did enjoy it, very much in fact, but… I guess I just wasn’t completely blown away like I hoped I would be. It’s not a retelling of beauty and the beast, but has nods to it, and I like that the male character was not super handsome, I can’t be doing with books (or TV shows for that matter) where all the characters are drop dead gorgeous – apart perhaps from some nerd or villain, who actually really is gorgeous, they just wear weird glasses.
Anyway – Opal was left to raise her little brother after the death of their mother, and she would and does do anything for him, including work several demeaning jobs. She is drawn to the creepy old house in the woods with a reputation for being haunted or cursed or both, and ends up getting a job as a cleaner there and that’s when her life gets seriously weird.
There’s clearly something spooky going on, and she seems to be somehow connected to the eerie mystery. Also some very bad people are putting pressure on her to spy for them in the house and she is torn between protecting herself and her brother from them and the sense of loyalty she feels for the house and the man who lives there.
It really is a fun book to read, and I think maybe I judged it harshly because I have hyped up in my mind just how good The Ten Thousand Doors of January was.
One thing I did really like in the book was the shift in the dynamic in the relationship between Opal and her brother as he grows up – she is so focussed on having to take care of him that she doesn’t see that he can take care of himself, and even her. As a parent of grown children, I remember well that feeling which is a strange mixture of pride and loss when you realise that your children don’t need you in the same way that they once did.
Sarah Wray Writer 