The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown

Because some doors should never be opened.

New York bookseller Cassie Andrews is not sure what she’s doing with her life. She lives quietly, sharing an apartment with her best friend, Izzy. Then a favourite customer gives her an old book. Full of strange writing and mysterious drawings, at the very front there is a handwritten message:

This is the Book of Doors. Hold it in your hand, and any door is every door.

Cassie is about to discover that the Book of Doors is a special book – a magic book. A book that bestows extraordinary abilities on whoever possesses it. And she is about to learn that there are other magic books out there that can also do wondrous – or dreadful and terrifying – things.

Because where there is magic there is power and there are those who will stop at nothing to possess it.

Suddenly Cassie and Izzy are confronted by violence and danger, and the only person who can help them is Drummond Fox who has a secret library of magical books hidden in the shadows for safekeeping, a man fleeing his own demons. Because there is a nameless evil out there that is hunting them all…

Because this book is worth killing for.

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Cassie Andrews is working as a bookseller in New York when she is given a strange book by a customer one evening – the titular Book of Doors.  With it, every door becomes any door, and if you can visualise where you want to go, it will take you there.  And it works from pictures, too – meaning you can visit places that you’ve never seen with your own eyes.  It’s a truly powerful object, and it’s one that brings Cassie to the attention of some powerful individuals – some of them more pleasant than others – who have their own special books, and who would like to add to their collection, one way or another.

The idea of these books is a deceptively simple one and Brown has some fun with it.  As well as the Book of Doors, other books exist which can inflict (or take away) a person’s pain, some provide health, others can affect a person’s memories, one can be used to create illusions.  While the books themselves are neutral, those who seek them out may not be, and this novel brilliantly illustrates how any power can be dangerous in the wrong hands.  Through this idea of special books, the novel celebrates the joys of books and reading.  Books are indeed doorways to other places, and I love the way in which this idea has been made literal in the novel, as is a books ability to evoke strong feelings in the reader. 

Told from multiple perspectives (of good and bad characters alike) the reader soon becomes familiar with the key players, their intentions, and the book(s) they have in their possession.  The majority of the novel is told from Cassie’s perspective and she’s a character that I immediately warmed to.  She’s a little quiet but a genuinely nice person, and she gets put through the wringer in this novel, having to dig deep for courage at times, but she proves to be braver than you expect when you first meet her.  I loved her relationship with her flatmate, Izzy, who is a bright and vivacious individual who also gets caught up in these events.  They are there for each other throughout, and I think that everyone should have an Izzy on their side.

While there are good and bad characters, and some who fall into the distinctly grey area in between, all of them are nuanced.  One of the first bad guys we come across is Doctor Hugo Barbery, and while he very quickly shows his colours, we get to know a little more about him as the novel progresses, and he has an interesting character arc.  Similarly, the main antagonist, referred to mostly as “the Woman” (she does have a name and we do discover it, the moniker is simply because people know of her – and are rightly terrified of her – without knowing anything about her), also has a back story and an explanation for what drives her actions. 

It’s not very often I say this, but I felt that Gareth Brown wrote his female characters particularly well, making them strong individuals but not simply as a token gesture or tick box exercise.  There is true equality, books aside, in the novel and while that shouldn’t be noteworthy, it is.  Cassie and Izzy feel very realistic and relatable, and I love that the Woman is a pretty, young woman, albeit with some psychopathic tendencies. The men don’t have saviour complexes, or belittle the women or assume they aren’t capable, and I’m here for it.

The Book of Doors is a wonderfully emotive novel. It made me laugh, and it made me cry as it pulled at the heartstrings – something that is rare for me, but not entirely unheard of. The novel may sound a little whimsical – being able to travel somewhere by imagining it and then walking through a door is a lovely idea.  What did take me by surprise was that the novel is also brilliantly and brutally dark in places in ways that both shocked and delighted me. There are also some wonderful twists in the narrative with events that I never saw coming, even when I thought I had a grip on where the story was headed.

I went into this novel expecting to enjoy it, but wasn’t prepared for how much it would blow me away.  At some 500-ish pages, it’s perhaps a little longer than the average novel, but it didn’t feel like it – at no point does the story drag its heels.  And those who like to know where such items come from and have everything explained by the end of the novel are in luck – every little detail, some of which seem inconsequential at the time, is explained by the end, including one small aspect that I thought might be forgotten.  I adored it, and I can’t wait for Gareth Brown’s next novel, The Society of Unknowable Objects, which is currently due out in August.