The Book of Doors introduces us to Cassie Andrews, a kind, but reserved, clerk as a bookstore in New York City. Cassie shares an apartment with Izzy who is delightfully commonsensical and tough. A favorite customer dies at a desk in the bookstore, leaving Cassie a book with strange scribblings and sketches. She discovers that it has the magic power of transporting her from door to door.

When Cassie and Izzy appear and disappear from the roof, Drummond Fox notices her and immediately knows what book she has because he is the heir to the Library of magical books, a library he has hidden away because wicked people seek the power of the books. The most coveted book, though, is the Book of Doors. Several malefactors are trying to capture it and they don’t much care what happens to people in their way.

The Book of Doors does an excellent job of creating a complex plot full of time travel. The intricacy of Cassie’s exploits with the Book of Doors to weave a clever plan in the past and present. Of course, the risk of changing the past is considered and then sort of solved in a not-quite-convincing way. I liked the characters and the plot, except for the malefactors who are one-dimensional and giving us insight into how they became one-dimensionally evil doesn’t really address the fact that they are one-dimensional.

This has the construction of a series introduction. We have met a cadre of friends who have a goal, a magical entity needing protection. There is a potential for quests, for more books, to find more people using books for ill. To be honest, I hope Gareth Brown resists the temptation. One of my personal peeves is a lot of meeting and greeting and catching folks up. There was already some in this book, I can’t imagine book five.

I received an e-galley of The Book of Doors from the publisher through NetGalley