Translated by Lucia Graves
A gothic tale for readers of all ages from the author of the bestselling The Shadow of the Wind.
Barcelona, 1980. Óscar Drai finds himself drawn to an old dilapidated mansion where he meets the captivating and elusive Marina. She leads him to the cemetery to witness a mysterious ritual: on the fourth Sunday of every month, a veiled woman alights from a carriage and lays a single rose on an unmarked grave.
Óscar and Marina are swept on a journey into the city’s dark underground of labyrinthine sewers, corrupt policemen, ageing aristocrats, forgotten societies and criminal depravity…to a sinister tale of love, ambition and jealousy that will hold Óscar’s heart forever.
‘With flowing prose and a story-line that would entice any historical fiction enthusiast, Marina is a fine piece of well-crafted, intriguing, chilling literature. In many ways, it is similar to The Fault in Our Stars by John Green but, again, I would offer that even this popular teen-fic is superfluous to the beauty of Zafón’s writing.’ Guardian teen reader review.
Read the full review.
andMarina
‘Marina is one of those books that are meant to be devoured in one sitting’
‘A tale of love, revenge, corruption and death…What at the start seem to be a story about a schoolboy crush easily morphs into a horror story, Carlos Ruiz Zafon skillfully weaves the subplots together.’
‘High-quality gothic genre fiction with a classic Mary Shelley sensibility.’
‘A story both fantastic and macabre…a remarkable achievement, a kind of dark delight.’
‘A complex, multifacted story, richly drawn and atmospheric. Carlos Ruiz Zafon has an innate sense of imagery, and the time-worn, decrepit and decaying world of byzantine Barcelona is richly brought to life.’
