Interview: Gareth Brown, author of The Book of Doors

Welcome to Fantasy Book Critic! Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us, could you please tell us a little bit about yourself?

Of course! I am Gareth Brown, author of The Book of Doors. I live near Edinburgh in Scotland with my wife May and our two Skye terriers, Dougal and Flora. To be honest Dougal and Flora rule the place, and we are just the human staff. I have been writing since I was a teenager, but The Book of Doors is my first published novel. I also work full- time in the NHS in Scotland.

How would you describe your book, THE BOOK OF DOORS, to our readers in just three adjectives, and then in just three sentences?

Wow… great question. Three adjectives: Thrilling. Adventurous. Terrifying.

Three sentences: This is a book about magical books that can do amazing and dreadful things. This is a book about stumbling into a secret world full of danger and darkness. And this is a book about friends and family.

Booksellers are always romanticised because most readers feel like being one would simply be heaven. On behalf of Cassie, your protagonist, I ask you, what would she tell us about being one that would shock us? What does she love about it, and what is she indifferent to?

‘Hi, Cassie here. You want to know what it’s like being a bookseller? Okay. Um. I love all the books. Maybe that’s obvious. But even just being around lots of books all the time, it’s like being smothered in your favourite warm blanket. I am pretty indifferent to most of the customers. They are fine, I guess, and some of them are very nice, don’t get me wrong.

But I would quite happily spend my day doing stock control and tidying the shelves. I don’t need to be working the cash register to have a good time. Oh, and what would shock you? Rents in this part of town. And how many books the store has to sell just to stay in business. We probably make more money from our coffee shop than from the books we sell.’


Your book also features a secret library. What is that, in your opinion, that makes readers love libraries in books, and particularly those in unsuspected existence?

If you are a reader, you probably love libraries, right? Many of us discovered our love of books through libraries. And there is something special about them… they are temples to books. Quiet, cosy, a place of community and good intentions. Who wouldn’t want a library of their own, that nobody else knows about?


What other elements do you have soft spots for, why? And what of them can we expect to see in this book?

I love travel, and The Book of Doors has a lot of travel in it. The novel came about during the Covid pandemic when I hadn’t travelled for a few years, and I really wanted to go places. So that features heavily in the book. (That is what The Book of Doors is, in reality, a way to go wherever you want without having to deal with airports and long-haul flights!)

I also like cakes and pastries. There are probably too many cakes and pastries in the novel.


It’s easy to wish for the central concept of the book, a book that can take you anywhere, to be true. If you had it, when and where (locations real or fantastical) would you love to visit? What were the initial locations you dabbled with, for options as to where Cassie would be transported, that did not make it into the book?

I have thought about this a lot. I would love to be able to open the door of my study and just go somewhere warm, maybe Malaysia where my wife is from. We could go get some laksa for lunch at the place on the beach in my wife’s home town. I’d also love to be able to visit Tokyo or Hong Kong for an evening walk, just as the day is getting dark and the lights of the city are sparkling. That is the best time in any big city.

There were a few other locations in the book that ended up not working. At one point I had Cassie and Drummond visiting Rio de Janeiro. One abandoned sub-plot also had them visiting a war-torn country in Eastern Europe, but that subplot didn’t work. I also had Cassie and Drummond going to Singapore for lunch at one point, but that was just wish fulfilment on my part, because I wanted to go to Singapore for lunch, and it didn’t serve the story at all.


There's a really cinematic and fun, but at the same time, mad time travel element in the book. This can be quite tricky to work into the plot. When and how did you come up with the idea, and how did it change from draft to final copy?

I think the time travel element was always there, right from when I first thought of the idea of the book. That is because I really wanted my main character to be able to do something lots of us would love to do - to be able to go back and visit a dear relative who we have lost. That to me was always the heart of the novel and the time travel element was necessary to allow that. As it happens the time travel became more important to the second half of the book as I wrote it, and I found myself having a bit of fun by letting our heroes use time travel as a tool to defeat the main antagonist. That was not something I had worked out at the start, but it came quite naturally as the plot unfolded, and I did like the idea of revisiting scenes from earlier in the book and seeing them from a new perspective. I love it when that sort of thing happens in fiction, when you learn something new about something you've already seen and thought you understood. It's like the reveal at the end of a magic trick, the surprising and delightful think that makes you stop and think, 'Wow!' I hope the Book of Doors does that for people.

Given all the work that needs to be put into writing fiction, has it changed how you react to other books as a reader, and how?

I think I have always been very understanding of how hard it is to even write a book, never mind get it published. I have always been loath to criticise any book, even ones I don’t like. It’s such a subjective thing; just because I didn’t enjoy a book doesn’t mean it has no value. I don’t think that has changed at all. Probably what has changed is an understanding of how the finished book is something that multiple people have had a hand in – the author does most of the work, but editors and agents have such important roles in making books better.

Before we wrap this up, I want to talk about you as a reader. What are you currently reading, and which of your recent reads made a positive impression on you? Are there any that you are looking forward to, or anything that’s already published that you hope to squeeze into your reading, and how do you discover these books?

I have just finished reading The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean, which was superb. I had heard good things about it but it exceeded my expectations. I can’t wait to see what Sunyi does next. I also recently read an advance reader copy of The Day Tripper, by James Goodhand, which was right up my street. Definitely one to pick up when it comes out later this year if you like time jumps and mind-bending plots. I haven’t yet read the second book in Richard Swan’s Empire of the Wolf series, and I know the third has just been published. The Justice of Kings was superb, and I hear the second and third books lean more into horror, which I am absolutely here for. Looking forward to reading both of those this year. In terms of discovering books, the best thing that has come out of the last eighteen months is meeting other authors and getting more connected into the book world on social media. I have learned about so many great books I wouldn’t otherwise have known about. In the past I would usually just browse in bookshops and pick up things I
liked the look of, but I don’t get to bookshops much these days, so getting recommendations from people who know much more than me has been great.


In closing, do you have any parting thoughts or comments you’d like to share with our readers?

Buy my book! Please? I need to pay for my serious biscuit and cake addiction. Actually, even if you don’t buy my book, just buy any book, preferably from independent booksellers. Booksellers are the best so please help them stay in business.