“Cassie Andrews works in a New York City bookshop, shelving books, making coffee for customers, and living an unassuming, ordinary life. Until the day one of her favorite customers—a lonely yet charming old man—dies right in front of her. Cassie is devastated. She always loved his stories, and now she has nothing to remember him by. Nothing but the last book he was reading.

But this is no ordinary book…
It is the Book of Doors.

Inscribed with enigmatic words and mysterious drawings, it promises Cassie that any door is every door. You just need to know how to open them.

Then she’s approached by a gaunt stranger in a rumpled black suit with a Scottish brogue who calls himself Drummond Fox. He’s a librarian who keeps watch over a unique set of rare volumes. 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 them.

Now Cassie is being hunted by those few who know of the Special Books. With only her roommate Izzy to confide in, she has to decide if she will help the mysterious and haunted Drummond protect the Book of Doors—and the other books in his secret library’s care—from those who will do evil. Because only Drummond knows where the unique library is and only Cassie’s book can get them there.

But there are those willing to kill to obtain those secrets. And a dark force—in the form of a shadowy, sadistic woman—is at the very top of that list.”

Series Info/Source: This is a stand-alone book. I borrowed this on ebook from the library.

Thoughts: I really enjoyed the premise of this book and the adventures that Cassie and Izzy have, especially in the beginning. As the book continues, things get a lot more dangerous and complicated for our characters. I did struggle to engage with these characters some, and struggled a bit with the idea of how these special books came into being. Additionally, this story involves a lot of time travel which is something I always have difficulty with logic-wise.

Cassie works at a bookshop, struggling to make ends meet when one of her favorite customers dies leaving her a strange book. As Cassie and her friend start to examine this strange book, they realize that this isn’t an ordinary book; it can open doors to any doorway anywhere…as long as you can picture the doorway in your mind. What Cassie doesn’t know is that these books are in great demand by some very not nice people. By having this Book of Doors Cassie has a huge target painted on her back. Suddenly, Cassie finds herself fleeing for her life with the help of the mysterious Drummond Fox. Drummond is the owner of the Fox Library and tries to hunt down these books and keep them out of the hands of evildoers.

This book has a fun concept, and I enjoyed the initial adventures Cassie and Izzy have. The writing is well done and easy enough to read. As the story continued I found some of the things in here felt a bit cobbled together and unbelievable. For example, the origin of the books seemed odd and contrived. Also, I always find it hard to enjoy time travel stories because I start to dwell too much on the details of how the past effects the present and how someone from the future affects the past, etc, etc. I generally try to avoid time travel stories and if I had known what a big part time travel played in this story, I probably wouldn’t have read it.

I also had difficulty engaging the characters. They are so busy dashing from place to place and running between new disasters that you never really get to know or understand them. This is definitely not a character driven story but more of an idea driven story. The characters weren’t bad; they just feel distanced from the reader.

My Summary (4/5): Overall I enjoyed this concept and some of the adventures our characters have but also struggled with some aspects of the story feeling contrived and unbelievable. I thought the characterization was a weak as well. Still, this is an intriguing little story and I am not sad I read it. I don’t know that I will seek out more books by Brown in the future.

Review – The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown (4/5 stars)

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