The Prince of Mist by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

A quick rundown… A boy and his family move to a seaside town, where something very strange and Gothic is going on.

Strengths: Ruiz Zafon always tells original stories that have you captivated.

Weaknesses: This is meant to be a young adult book, but I found it a bit scary!

Why I read it: Loved The Shadow of the Wind.

Pages: 208

Published: 2010

Publisher: Phoenix

Setting: Spain

Rating: 8 out of 10

If you liked this, try: The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I absolutely loved The Shadow of the Wind with its Gothic elements and action-packed plot, so I eagerly bought this book when I saw it on sale. What I didn’t realise is that The Prince of Mist is intended for a younger audience and is a fairly quick read. However, the content of the book in my opinion is definitely not for children as it’s quite creepy and scary!
 
The story opens with similarities to The Shadow of the Wind, in that it is wartime in Spain and the protagonist is a young boy, Max. Max and the rest of his family move from the capital to a seaside town, but not all is as it seems. In the garden, there are strange statues that appear to be changing their poses daily. Max and his sister Alicia meet up with local boy Roland, who likes to dive down to a shipwreck that sank in mysterious circumstances. Their younger sister is later involved in a strange accident where the house seems to be playing tricks on them. However, Roland’s grandfather knows a lot more about how the ship went down and what’s wrong with the house Max lives in…
 
Once again, the translation from the Spanish brings out some beautiful prose and Carlos Ruiz Zafon certainly tells a intricate and detailed stoty (although not quite to the level of The Shadow of the Wind). However, I found this story quite scary as an adult (the changing of the statues to live beings was scary, as well the deals that Dr Kane was doing with young children)! Perhaps it is because the creepy Gothic angle may just have the possibility to happen…
 
I found this to be a very quick read and I hear that there could be a sequel in the works. Would I read it? Probably not – I’ll stick with the adult tales as the plot is less scary and more detailed.

Sister by Rosamund Lupton

In a nutshell… Bea’s sister is missing and Bea sets out to find the truth.

Strengths: very emotive, tense and gripping.

Weaknesses: Possibly too much of an emotional rollercoaster at times.

Why I read it: Cheap on Amazon.co.uk

Pages: 358

Published: 2010

Publisher: Piatkus Books

Setting: London, England

Rating: 9 out of 10

If you liked this, try: My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult; Beneath the Shadows by Sara Foster

Sister is one of those books that deserves to be read in big, greedy gulps. It takes the reader on a roller coaster of emotions – from worry to shock to horror and back again. Although I found this a harrowing and moving read, the emotion was beautifully raw and honest. This is a great book and an excellent debut from Rosamund Lupton. A little bit Gothic and a little bit thriller, this was a page turner for me.

Sister is the story of Beatrice (Bee), who returns home to London from New York when her sister, Tess goes missing. Tess is about to give birth, so where could she be? Exactly what was going on in Tess’ life before her disappearance? Who is the boy following her around college? What is the nature of the relationship with her teacher? When Tess is later found dead in a lonely ablutions block, Bee wants these questions and more answered. The police don’t seem to be terribly interested and Bee herself is getting into more and more trouble. But Tess is her sister and she’ll do anything to protect her…

The story is told in the first person from Bee’s point of view as a letter to her sister, moving back in time to when Tess disappeared and then forward to Bee giving her statement. This is an interesting plot device, as you know that something will be resolved by the end of the block. The real twist however, is how the past joins up with the present – certainly original and something I did not expect in the slightest. Very well done. The only confusion I had with the jumping back and forth in time was that it was occasionally difficult to put the scene into context – possibly another font could have been used for the present, but I think this may have detracted away from the Gothic eeriness that envelopes Sister. Some of the medicine used is too futuristic for today, but thankfully this is explained in the author’s notes at the end.

The love between the two sisters is clearly evident in this book. Bee does everything out of love for Tess, even when she knows she is dead. The feelings are portrayed beautifully and I admire Bee’s fierce determination to seek the truth about Tess’ death through her grief, even if nobody believes her. You may think I’m giving too much away about the plot, but I’m not. This book is more about the search for justice for Tess’ death and how it came about rather than if she is murdered or missing. The characterisation is also very well done – Bee is certainly not without her faults (although her clear love for Tess redeems her somewhat) and the supporting characters are alternately charming or the right side of nasty.

A great book and gripping read. Can’t wait to read Afterwards (the author’s new book).

Beneath the Shadows by Sara Foster

I picked up this book (well, downloaded an ebook) as Sara Foster lives locally and there was a lot of press and book signings surrounding the release of Beneath the Shadows. (Sadly, I didn’t get to attend due to work, but maybe next time I’ll be
luckier). This is her second book and after reading this, I look forward to reading her first work of fiction, Come Back to Me as it includes Perth (hopefully Australia) as a setting. I always like to see how authors portray Perth (Cloudstreet
by Tim Winton comes to mind as a great tale of post-war Perth), but I digress.
When I read Come Back to Me, I’ll talk about it more. Unless it’s Perth, Scotland of course!

Beneath the Shadows is difficult for me to categorise – it’s well written fiction with a distinct Gothic flavour. The Gothic parts are subtly written, so most of them could be skimmed over by a speed reader, but for aficionados of the genre, there’s lots of little hints – the ghost book, the eerie neighbours etc.

This is the story of Grace, whose husband disappeared without trace in a Yorkshire winter. Did he commit suicide? Was there foul play or did the new father simply escape to a quieter lifestyle? Why was Grace’s child found on the doorstep? When Grace returns to the village the following winter with the aim to pack up the cottage and sell, her stay turns strange almost immediately. Why is Meredith, her neighbour, taking an odd interest in her? What’s her motive? Why does Grace dream of terrifying dogs? And most of all, what happened to Adam, her husband? She makes a friend in Ben, but Ben has his own problems. The tension rises to a crescendo when all is revealed – or so you think. The author still has a few more twists and turns in this one!

I found this book very well written and I read it quite quickly. It was tense and eerie. The characters I can still clearly picture – from the lovely Ben, to Grace and her daughter Millie. I really wouldn’t want to meet Meredith alone on a dark night though! Highly recommended, I’ll be watching for Sara Foster’s next book (and may even organise time off to hear her speak!)

Read this if: you like a clever, Gothic thriller.

9 out of 10.

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

I bought Northanger Abbey as one of the Popular Penguins series. I had seen the television miniseries and thoroughly enjoyed it, with its parody of the Gothic novel.

Catherine, a young lady with not much fortune but an appetite for Gothic novels and a wild imagination, goes to Bath with friends.  There she meets Mr Henry Tilney and falls instantly in love with him. She also meets Isabella, who becomes a close friend. Isabella’s brother, John, falls for Catherine but she finds him odious in comparison with Mr Tilney. Isabella then becomes engaged to Catherine’s brother, but this is broken off when Catherine finds someone with a better fortune. Catherine leaves Bath to stay with the Tilneys at Northanger Abbey, where she romanticises many Gothic elements about her room and the deceased Mrs Tilney. She is then sent home in mistaken disgrace due to malicious gossip from John but everything is soon righted.

I enjoyed this, in particular the parody of the Gothic elements (the mysteriously dead wife and the secrets in the bedroom at Northanger Abbey) and that there were some truly awful characters in Isabella and John. There’s a lot of bite to this novel, it’s not just sweetness, pretty gowns and perfect romances. Austen pokes a lot of fun at her ‘heroine’ (as she often calls Catherine) and at her overdramatic and silly nature. (She is only 17 after all). Henry has a lot of insight into Catherine’s character and is the balance that she desperately needs.

I would have been interested to find out the ultimate fate of John and Isabella – did they get what they deserved?

Read it if: you like your classics with some bite

8 out of 10.

The Diving Pool by Yoko Ogawa

I’ve often been tempted to try Yoko Ogawa’s books – my work colleague has repeatedly told me that The Housekeeper and The Professor is a must read and I’ve picked up her books in bookshops many times, yet put them back due to price. I was pleasantly surprised that my local library had a copy of The Diving Pool not only on the shelf but in a condition that suggested nobody’s lunch had ever been spilled on it! (Always a bonus).

The Diving Pool contains three novellas and can easily be read in a day. The first story, The Diving Pool, is about a girl who lives with many foster brothers and sisters. Every day, she watches her foster brother practise diving. Unfortunately, she is not as nice to her other siblings…

The second story, The Pregnancy Diaries, is a diary of a young woman living with her sister and her brother-in-law. The diary starts as the sister announces she is pregnant, but the sister has all sorts of strange things going on…

The final story, Dormitory, is about a young woman about to depart for Sweden. She reminisces to her cousin about her college days in a dormitory. He goes to live there when he starts college, but mysterious things are happening. The caretaker is a triple amputee and the students are disappearing…

All three stories are written beautifully and sparsely, leaving you to make up your own mind to what may have actually happened. All facets of human nature are laid bare from jealousy to cruelty. There’s an element of the gothic or horror to each story. When trying to explain this book to a friend, her response was ‘you read weird stuff’ but I think Japanese literature is a lot more brutally honest in its assessment of the human psyche.

I look forward to reading one of Ogawa’s novels soon.

Read it if: you enjoy the slightly creepy and can handle people doing strange things.

8 out of 10.

I read this as part of the Hello Japan! January Mini-Challenge, which was to try something Japanese that I haven’t before. Yoko Ogawa was a new author for me, with a great result!

The Distant Hours by Kate Morton

(This is what the Australian book cover looks like – I’ve already passed my book on, so no photograph).

The Distant Hours was a Christmas present I was really looking forward to. I loved both The Shifting Fog (The House at Riverton) and The Forgotten Garden – both were multilayered stories combining present day, history and a touch of the Gothic.

The Distant Hours doesn’t disappoint on that front – we have modern day Edie who finds that her mother was sent as an evacuee from London to Milderhurst Castle, where she was looked after by the Blythe sisters – Persephone (Percy), Seraphina (Saffy) and Juniper, who is known to be a bit ‘odd’. The Blythe girls’ claim to fame is that their father wrote the all-time favourite children’s book, The True History of the Mud Man. Like any good castle, Milderhurst comes with a tragic past. Edie can’t work out why her mother is so reluctant to talk about her time there and why she reacted so to a long lost letter.

Fortunately, Edie works for a publisher and becomes entangled in the lives of the three sisters, trying to work out what happened during the war years. This is told by past recollections of Meredith (Edie’s mother), Percy, Saffy and Juniper. The story unfortunately ends in a cliché.

I didn’t feel this book was Gothic at all – was it because I read it in the middle of summer? Is it because I’m getting used to Morton’s format? (Current day moves to past moves to secret moves to solving in the present day). I felt like there were many unexplored themes (Juniper’s mental illness is poorly portrayed, changes in heartbeat do not cause madness) and many loose ends. The characters didn’t feel fully fleshed nor did the castle – I feel like a have a simple sketch in my mind, rather than a perfect picture. Saying this though, the book needs a damn good edit. There are far too many adjectives to make sense of sometimes and I found myself rereading sentences to work out what they meant until the penny dropped, ‘Oh! She means the sky is grey today!’ I found myself falling asleep over this book, which occurs rarely!

I really wanted to like this, but I feel there’s better examples of the historical/Gothic genre. Look to Morton’s other books, The Shadow of the Wind or Daphne du Maurier (such as Jamaica Inn).

Read it if: you received it as a Christmas present or you haven’t read the other books I’ve mentioned above.

6 out of 10.

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I honestly don’t know where to start for this review- this book is brilliant, gripping, fantastic and addictive. I’ve heard it described as a book for booklovers, but I don’t think that this does The Shadow of the Wind justice. I loved it so much that I went out and bought The Angel’s Game by the same author before I’d even finished this book!

The Shadow of the Wind is translated from the Spanish and follows Daniel, a young motherless boy who is taken by his father to The Cemetery of Forgotten Books where he is to pick a book and treasure it forevermore. Daniel chooses The Shadow of the Wind by Julian Carax, an author who he can find out very little about. Carax’s books are disappearing, being bought by someone who chooses to burn them all. Despite being offered a substantial amount of money, Daniel protects his book and because of it, makes new friends such as Clara and Fermin. The book follows Daniel as he grows up and tries to find out more about Carax, which leads to events with shadowy characters and a fantastical backstory that will have you endlessly repeating ‘just one more chapter’. Although the ending solves most of the characters’ problems, it’s not cheesy.

This book has some great Gothic elements and would appeal to Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights fans (don’t worry, there are romances in this book too). The translation is fantastic and Fermin has a lot of truly funny one liners. The imagery of the buildings and the feeling of Spain in the post-war era is tangible- I feel like I’ve visited Daniel’s book.

The Shadow of the Wind would have to rank as one of the best books I’ve read this year. 

9.5 out of 10.