This is a hybrid time travel/portal fantasy. When I started reading, I wondered if that was just a metaphor for mental illness. That is what the titular character, June Farrow, thinks as she documents her condition, trying to make sense of what's happening to her. But it turns out that the Farrow women have an inherited condition? Talent? Freaky ability? To see doors which transport them to a different time, but the same community.
June is understandably confused when her Gran's BFF advises her to quit ignoring the doors and just go through the next one she sees. It seems this older lady knows more than she does, prompting her to do as she has been advised. And she lands in the middle of a mess, living with the man that future-June has married and has a daughter with. If that wasn't bad enough, her family is mixed up in a murder investigation and not in a good way.
While living in her original timeline, she had vivid dreams of future-June's life. Now, in that timeline, she has visions of her potential life had she stayed where she was. Can there be a love triangle if the men are separated by generations? This question made me think of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander, except her Claire had no hesitation about getting involved with Jamie in the past. June has qualms, as does future-June's husband. Why did future-June leave him?
These doors that appear really need a notice on them, like the doors in Seanan McGuire's Every Heart a Doorway: Be sure. If you go through, they disappear and there's no going back. At least June gets to keep her clothes when she transitions, unlike Henry in The Time Traveler's Wife. Mind you, he doesn't get a door or a choice either. Despite finishing the book, I have questions. Why is June's great-grandmother Esther seemingly immune from the doors? Did her grandmother Margaret ever go through one? How can they know the “rules” that govern this phenomenon? Where did the inherited locket come from?
The ending is good, I guess. Everything seems settled. And while I usually love a messy ending, this one has so many unanswered questions that I feel a little cheated. Either explain or tell nothing. Blurgh!
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