The Book of Doors is the sensational debut novel from Gareth Brown, a Scottish author who has been writing unpublished novels since he was a teenager.
Cassie Andrews lives an ordinary life in New York City working in a family-owned bookshop. Everything changes when one of her favourite customers, Mr. Webber, a charming old man, dies right in front of her. Just before his body is taken away, Cassie notices the last book he was reading. But this is no ordinary book. It’s titled “The Book of Doors” and is inscribed to Cassie by Mr. Webber. Inside the book are enigmatic words and mysterious drawings, and it promises Cassie that any door is every door, and she just needs to know how to open them. When she returns home and converses with her roommate, she begins to feel a strange sensation while holding the book. Suddenly, a door in their apartment opens to a street in Italy that they were just discussing. Cassie and Izzy spend the following hours exploring the power of the book and travelling to different places. Soon after, they’re approached by a gaunt stranger with a Scottish accent who calls himself Drummond Fox. He claims to be a librarian who keeps watch over powerful and dangerous books. The tome now in Cassie’s possession is not the only book with great power, but it is the one most coveted by those who collect the books. Drummond warns Cassie that she’s now being hunted by those few who know of the special books, and they’ll stop at nothing to take her book. Suddenly Cassie and Izzy must decide if they will help the mysterious Drummond protect the Book of Doors and the other books in his secret library’s from those who will do evil. When one of the bookhunters unexpectedly attacks them, Cassie realizes she has no choice but to join forces with Drummond. As Cassie learns more about Drummond’s hidden library and what led him to be on the run for the last ten years, she realizes just how dangerous the bookhunters are. The most dangerous of all is a sadistic woman who yields great power through her malevolent special books and who will stop at nothing to take possession of Drummond’s library.
This is a highly original and fascinating fantasy thriller. The book is fast-paced and includes several interesting characters, with multiple POVs throughout the story. The prominent and most enjoyable POV is definitely Cassie, the woman who is originally gifted the book of doors and who sets the whole story into motion. Cassie is a well-developed character that is easy to emphasize and root for. She’s had a difficult life, losing her patents at a young age and then losing her grandfather, who raised her, to a horrific death with cancer. Her return trips to the past to see her grandfather again are heartwarming, memorable scenes that give the book a deeper meaning. Drummond Fox, the keeper of the special books, is shrouded in mystery from the onset. As the story progresses, it’s revealed how much he’s lost and sacrificed to keep the special books safe from evil hands, and he becomes more of a heroic figure.
Brown presents some very polar opposite good vs. evil characters in the book, the most malevolent of all being The Woman, the sadistic figure who does everything in her power to get her hands on the special books and make others suffer. In the end, we learn more about how she came to be so wicked, and although her actions in the book are heinous and inhumane, there’s also a very tragic element to her life. The complex magic capabilities of “The Book of Doors,” including the time travel element, were brilliantly thought out and executed in this book. At first, we are given just enough information to understand what this special book is able to do, but as the story unfolds, the complexity of the book’s origin and how powerful it really is become astonishingly apparent. The story concludes with a fascinating conclusion that you may not completely wrap your head around. In fact, this is a book that you might want to read or listen to a second or third time to be able to understand and appreciate its full content.
Narrator Miranda Raison does an exceptional job narrating all the characters and maintaining a suspenseful, captivating tone throughout the novel. Raison’s portrayal of Cassie is extremely convincing, with well-placed emotional outbursts and dramatic flair. The auction scene where much drama unfolds is especially well narrated, especially considering all the characters involved, and Raison keeps the audience on edge for the entirety. Overall, this is a super impressive debut novel that has many in the book world discussing it and is definitely one of the “must reads or listens” of the year!