there just aren’t enough words. top 5 all-time for me. the twists and turns are delectable. so full of soul and a true psalm to all lovers of books and the joys of reading them.

Foreboding
Mysterious, atmospheric and compelling!

n   “I still remember the day my father took me to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books for the first time. It was the early summer of 1945 … ‘Daniel, you mustn’t tell anyone what you’re about to see today,’ my father warned.” n

This fantastic opening sets the scene for an eerie and mysterious story that changes the air you occupy and brings goosebumps and chills as you weave through the adventure Daniel embarks on.

The tradition for those that are fortunate to visit the ‘Cemetery of Forgotten Books’ for the first time is that they get to adopt a book. Daniel, on his first visit, chooses ‘Shadow of the Wind’ by Julian Carax. Or the book picks him! Daniel, along with his father, his father’s friend, Barcelo, and Barcelo’s niece Clara, investigate the background of the author, only to realise that this is a heartbreaking story of doomed love and grief. Their research uncovers the dramatic events that befell Julain Carax and his beloved Penelope, and this copy of the book may be the last surviving version of ‘Shadow of the Wind’.

Years later, out walking one night, through a misty, chilling Barcelona, a mysterious rasping voice calls Daniel from the shadows and offers any amount of money for the book. By match-light, Daniel sees a burnt, grotesque, and mutilated face demanding the book be handed over, and for his sake and the sake of his friend Clara he better give it to him. When Daniel asks what he wants to do with the books, the voice croaks “Burn them”.

Daniel keeps the book and searches for the truth and secrets that lie behind it and its author. Shadow of the Wind is a wonderfully written story with subtle complexities and layers, creating a blanket of chilling apprehension as you follow Daniel uncovering the good, the bad, and the ugly retribution surrounding Carax. The characters offer depth and range, and you’re not quite sure what intentions are genuine and where your sympathies will lie at the end. The hot, misty, atmospheric Barcelona is exceptionally well characterised and seems to seep through the skin, which adds to the mood of suspense and mystery.

A masterpiece and one of my favourite books of all time. While the series is outstanding this first book is the crème de la crème. I would highly recommend this book.

riveting. mysterious. haunting. imaginative. charming. sentimental.

the list of adjectives is endless. and whilst this book is all of these, the one thing that i will forever remember about this book is how it makes me appreciate the art of storytelling. i didnt feel like i was reading a novel; i felt as if someone very dear was sitting next to me and telling me their favourite tale. i was enamoured with the nuances of the language and swept up with all the action. it was an absolute pleasure to experience such a well-told story. truly a masterpiece in every way possible.

↠ 5 stars

Exquisite is a word I have reserved for that extra special gem and the “…enchanted sense of promise” that comes with stories like “The Shadow of the Wind”. I savoured the pages, and was mesmerised and captivated with this book that will remain in my mind for a long time. With its beautiful writing, and gorgeous storytelling, it is a story of love, of hate, of tragedy and the dreams that live and disappear in the shadow of the wind.

The Plot

An antique book dealer takes his son Daniel to the secret and mysterious cemetery of Forgotten books, a labyrinth of obscure and forgotten book titles that have since gone out of print but have soul that live on in the people that read them.

“… you only see in them what you already have inside you.... Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it.”

In choosing a book called the Shadow of the Wind by Julian Carax, Daniel embarks on a dangerous path of discovery, when he makes a chilling encounter with who he believes is Laín Coubert the name of a character in the book he has just read; and it is the name of the Devil himself. Faced by this strange and dark person from the shadows, Daniel refuses to give up or sell the book and so a ten-year journey begins and a literary hunt for the Carax’s story and those he loved and lost. The story takes us to Barcelona, into towering mansions and eerie back-streets, and to Paris where Carax wrote most of his novels whilst longing for his lost love, and then back to Spain for the climatic ending.

Review and Comments

The Shadow of the Wind is an impressively accomplished and stunning novel that captures your imagination and carries you through a story or passion and hatred, of heart and soul, of beauty and of longing with an abundance of anticipation, adventure and thrill as Daniel seeks to discover the life and story behind the author Carax.

The standout quality of the book has to be the authors writing style and his extraordinary command over language. There is a dreamlike quality to the writing, that was so enchanting and beautiful, I felt totally captivated and almost bewitched by the story and trapped inside the world the author created for us.

However, the attributes of the book don’t stop there, the characters are superb, so well developed and compelling, that they come alive in the storytelling and with well-crafted dialogue. The plot is superb, however, if there was one negative to add, the flow of the book and structure of the book was not perfect in my opinion because it wasn’t always clear who was narrating the story. Yet any negative is certainly overshadowed by the book’s brilliance, the soul and enchanting but heart-breaking story linking two generations.

I love the quote, “books are like mirrors, you only see in them what you already have inside you”

I could not recommend highly enough. I would give 6 stars if I could.

There's probably nothing much I "learned" in the introspective sense, but this is a novel like a novel ought to be. This is an epic film on paper, gloomy and engaging, smokey, noir with crumbling ruins, young love, disfigurment, lust, torture...the stuff of Dumas, DuMauier and, as of late, The Historian. I woke up at five a.m. and had to sweet talk myself back to sleep: all I wanted to do was read. One Friday, after work, I took sanctuary in The Hotel Biron, those little tables in the dark, pages flickering with candles and drank a glass of wine in solitude, completely enthralled in the world of 1940's Barcelona.
I walked home from the train at night and found myself saying the characters names beneath my umbrella, hoping no one would hear me talking to myself, but they were, quite simply, too beautiful to ignore: Julian Carax, Daniel Semepere, Beatriz...Tomas, Penelope Aldaya and Nuria Monfort.
In a movie this would be too many people, but for this novel they were perfectly seamed, each point of view more entralling and taxing than the one before.
Most refreshing, clearly the author wasn't poisoned with the desire to simply keep the reader in the dark: instead this story, with attention, was something you could figure out--because that's the way life is. The mystery itself isn't supposed to shock you intensely into thinking a book is good, that's a dirty trick. Instead, the STORY carried you. You cared about the story and it was a tragity and mystery all the same, simply because you were invested in these people and what became of them. To know them so intimately from childhood to adulthood and old age, to know them through various degrees of point of view seperation--to hear there is no Penelope, and then to know she is a sister, a love, but to some non-existant...well, it's gothic literature at it's very best.
With a book like this I am almost, ALMOST tempted to give up my most pedantic and pretentious thoughts, paralells and character development--this story is a story and it's just that good. It is the Phantom of the Opera, those dark tunnels and pressure points, a lake with candles or drawing rooms with no fire in the grate and crazy wives being stored in attics over head. This is, quite literally a timeless tale, and yes, reading it will make you smarter, more interested, more cultured (the back of the book includes a walking tour of Barcelona. I missed Barcelona but I am quite determined to go now, with my copy of A Shadow of the Wind in hand, just like wanting desperately to visit Eastern Europe after I finished The Historian and see it all), but more importantly real life simply fades to black as you become completely, totally and fantastically helpless and wrapped up in the lives of others.
While there are fun hybrids--Crash Topics in Calamity Physics, for one, which combine a courses, authors, quotes and plot lines from a thousand famous novels, this book really makes that unnecessary. This is a classic without any help, no cheat cheats necessary. Read it. Read it. Read it.

**I write on books and other stuff at www.snapshotnarrative.tumblr.com

Oh, this was dreadful.

To be fair, and I'll say this up front: I am NOT the right reader for this book. I shouldn't have been allowed within a ten mile radius of it, let alone read it. This was a function of being invited to a book club at my place of work, and my very first time as a participant in an in-person reading group.

I know this book is widely beloved and is an international best seller. That's a fact.

What's also a fact, is that it's ridiculously melodramatic, unbelievable, and sickly-sentimental. I can't stand the way it's written. I'll stop talking for a minute, and let the writing say it all:

"Childhood devotions make unfaithful and fickle lovers."

"Undressing a woman for the first time is like peeling a hot sweet potato on a winter's night."

"That woman is a volcano on the point of eruption with a libido of igneous magma with a heart of an angel."

"He was both funereal and incandescent."

"The servant glided away at the slightest order from the master with the efficiency and submissiveness of a body of well-trained insects."

In addition to many other quotable quotes such as the above, there's a scene in which a father and son bring a beggar into their home and the two of them bathe and towel him off. For what possible reason? Can't the beggar, an adult male, bathe himself? It takes two adult men to clean him?

And: one of the (unidimensional) female characters "insists" on describing her own eyes as "emerald and sapphire", NOT light blue. Who does this? Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't emerald and sapphire two totally different colours?

I couldn't bear all the backstory, the endless backstory. The stilted dialogue. The ending, in which the mystery is solved by the convenient discovery of a letter which answers each and every question you could possibly have, if, by the end of the 500+ pages, you still cared.

I'm sorry! What a crank I am! What a snob! Not book club material, as it turns out. And now if you'll excuse me, I'll do you all a favour and return to my solitary literary pursuits.

The gold standard predetermined to rule historiographic metafiction

Characters, world, and deeper meaning combined in astonishing density and quality
Some rare books have a certain something, the perfect combination of many good qualities that are rarely found in one novel and it somehow reminds me of John Irving and Dan Simmons too. It´s all so perfectly fitting together, so clever, deep, witty, add some more positive adjectives if you wish, there are just so many worth mentioning.

Big history
By using different periods of Spanish history, the author draws a living Ken Follett style history picture that especially points the finger at how all the periods are interconnected and what caused which problem. One of the essential tools for this is the

Mysterious book
This single plot device enables Zafon to make credible main story arcs and construct an amazing panorama of Spanish culture. Of course, he doesn´t just point the finger at the evil protagonist, but at the ideologies that made them monsters, which has certainly led to the one or other conservative outcry when it was published and became an international megaseller as an extra bonus. It could also be that it was the authors' intent to push the sales by especially aiming at this effect.

Inception style story within a story
Maybe one of the best uses of this trope I´ve ever seen, linked with family history. While the book is the main physical red line, the backflip retrospective time loop effect makes the character development more suspenseful and always opens questions about the many different options the story could push forward, leaving the reader no time to rest together with the great characters.

The perfect dose of sadness
There is absolutely no overkill of emotions or tragedy, it always stays in the acceptable dose range and, very probably, is credible too. See, I´ve some kind of problems with objectively assessing how good emotional descriptions are, because I tend to rate plot and ideas over characters in most of my reading (and am dead and cold inside) and novels like that are exceptions in my schedule to camouflage my totally über cool weirdness and try to understand human relationships and emotions. But with incompetent subjectivity, I deem it sweeping without escalating towards soap opera for just any moment.

Fascistic dictatorship until 1977
This historic anomaly, with the extra bonus of hardcore conservatism and Catholicism, is what makes Spain a European exception. A socioeconomic and epigenetic subject that is certainly in full focus of many humanities, as it shows the longtime effects of such terrible management styles in all fields of society. For Spanish readers, it adds the reading bonus of nonfiction facts and a move towards reappraisal and a culture of remembrance that uses objective measures just as in all other countries haunted by fascism. It´s extremely disturbing to think about the fact that Francos' terror continued for 3 decades after all other European dictatorships had been crushed in WW2.

The love for and magic of books
Many philosophical and metaphysical options to talk about imagination, the power of fantasy, or just living in fictional universes, but no matter what one picks, it´s a declaration of love for the best hobby to rule them all. And, of course, accelerate the, hopefully not backlashy and incestuously degenerating, course of history by spreading wisdom, enlightenment, and progressive ideas.

Easy to enter for all groups of readers
One of these novels everyone, no matter what genre preferences, more in character or plot focused works, should read, because the ingenuity of unique pieces like that lies in taking anything that already worked well in creative writing and endless amounts of tropes, postmodern deconstructed stereotypes, and mechanisms to assemble them to such an unforgettable reading fun.

The role of women in dark times
With full focus on how the sick, conservative, and sheer evil ideologies torture women, Zafon creates intense and sad pictures of the ultimate consequences of alpha male dominance. War and murder are the big picture, but what is often forgotten are the unknown and uncounted numbers of abused and raped women, who were forced to abort their unworthy mongrel babies, because of Christian charity and autocratic governments working together to create real life hellhole prison states.

There is no substitute
I could endlessly talk about what makes it great, but instead, I will encourage everyone to read it, and Irving and Simmons I already mentioned of course too. In all three cases, I ask myself how long it takes to write such works and how it´s even possible, although I would agree with Stephen King, who said he is envious because Simmons writes like a God. And probably all of the three are half-Gods, alien human hybrids, or something, I could find no serious scientific literature dealing with this theory, but still deem it an option.

Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...

Wow. I don’t know who I was before this book blew into my life like a storm wind, but I don’t miss that person.

Where do I begin? This is by far my favourite book of the year so far and I have already bought the second in the series so I can quench my obsession with Carlos Ruiz Zafon's gorgeous writing.

The story begins in Barcelona just after the Spanish Civil War, a young boy named Daniel lives alone with his Father and helps run the family bookshop. One day Daniel's Father takes him to a place knows as 'The Cemetery of Forgotten Books' - a labyrinthine place completely packed with beautiful and rare books. Daniel is allowed to spend some time there and pick out one book that he can to keep, this is how he come across 'The Shadow of the Wind' - a gripping novel written by one Julian Carax.

After falling in love with the book Daniel sets out on a mission to find out more about it's illusive author, he also discovers that a mysterious cloaked figure is hell bent on destroying any remaining books by Julian Carax, including the one that Daniel now owns. We are then thrown into an epic adventure with twists and turns at every corner, Zafon tells such a brilliantly thought out story that you won't want to put down!

The themes explored in this novel are too many to list but some more prominent ones include; forbidden love, murder, adultery and family ties. Zafon spins such a intricate tale that won't fail to surprise! I laughed, I cried and also found myself longing to be working alongside Daniel as he uncovers the mysteries surrounding 'The Shadow of the Wind'.

Zafon's writing has to be one of the most beautiful I have ever read. I was constantly finding myself sitting back from the book just to take in the profound nature of what was written on the page. I was taken aback by the flow and poetic feel that permeates this novel, this all the more surprising as this book was originally written in Spanish, I can't even begin to imagine how striking this novel must be to those who can read it the way the Zafon intended it to be.

The characters were fantastically built up, my favourite would have to be Fermin, Daniel's partner in crime, who aids his younger friend in his quest - Fermin has to be one of the most intellectually funny characters that I have ever read.

The conclusion of the story was great and I can't wait to read the next in this brilliant series of books. A definite five out of five and I highly recommend to anyone who is a lover of books and literature surrounding books!

Galactic Wanderer:
کتاب «سایه باد» برای اولین بار در سال ۲۰۰۱ چاپ شد، بعد از استقبال گسترده مردم اسپانیا، سایه باد به بیست زبان زنده دنیا ترجمه و به یکی از شاخص‌ترین کتاب‌های اسپانیایی تاریخ تبدیل شد.

گاهی اوقات برای معرفی اثری از تلاقی سبک نویسندگان مختلف استفاده می‌کنیم، مثلاً می‌گوییم تصور کنید پاتریک رافوس کتاب قیام سرخ را نوشته باشد، و کتابی کاملاً متفاوت را به شخص مورد نظر معرفی می‌کنیم، در مورد سایه باد اگر بخواهیم دست به همچین عملی بزنیم باید بگوییم تصور کنید بهترین عاشقانه‌های خواهران برونته، با بهترین نوشته‌های گابریل گارسیا مارکز ترکیب شود و در کنار خود نمادپردازی شگرف آثار آمبرتو اکو به همراه رازآلودی و وهم‌انگیزی (کتابخانه بابل) بورخس را داشته باشد...، فکر کرده‌اید تمام شده است؟ نه به نظرم اندکی صبر کنید، در کنار تمام مواردی که ذکر شد تصور کنید سایه باد از چیرگی شخصیت‌پردازی‌ داستایفسکی و نثر روان و بی‌آلایش روژه مارتین دوگار هم بهره‌مند باشد، تصور نهایی که سایه باد چگونه کتابی هست را کاملاً به شما واگذار می‌کنم.

من از قدیم‌الایام به واسطه دوستان خوبی که در حوزه کتابخوانی داشتم با سایه باد آشنا بودم ولی دو نفری که باعث شدن تصمیم بگیرم در نهایت به سراغ سایه باد بیام عزیزانی بودن که در گودریدز تب و تاب عجیبی در من برانگیختن که دیگه چاره‌ای برام به غیر از خوندن کتاب باقی نموند.


سایه باد نمایشی تمام‌عیار از نبوغ و استعداد نویسنده‌ای به نام کارلوس روئیث زافون هست، واقعاً برام سوال هست اگه بیماری خانمان‌سوز سرطان جان شما را در سه سال پیش نمی‌گرفت در حال حاضر مشغول چه کاری بودید؟


داستان از تابستان سال ۱۹۴۵ آغاز می شود. روزگاری پس از پایان مصیبت های جنگ داخلی اسپانیا، روزگار پایانی قحطی و بیم از شعله های جنگ جهانی دوم و روزگار آغازین وحشت و خفقان بزرگ مردم اسپانیا زیر سیطرۀ چکمه های دیکتاتوری نظامی ژنرال فرانکو. شخصیت اصلی و راوی داستان کودکیست ده ساله به نام دانیل سمپره، فرزند یک کتاب فروش که تخصص و شهرتی ویژه در خرید و فروش کتاب های دست دوم دارد. دانیال سمپره در طی کتاب به دنبال مأموریت از جنس یافتن حقیقت رهسپار می‌شود، ماموریتی که برای همیشه و به کلی زندگی او و اطرافیان او را تغییر خواهد داد.


شخصیت‌‌های زافون به زنده‌ای آدم‌هایی هستند که در اطراف خود می‌بینید، همگی دارای نقاط ضعف و قوت خاصی هستند که آن‌ها را می‌سازند، آن‌ها شوخ‌طبع هستند، عاشق می‌شوند، عصبانی می‌شوند، در اکثر اوقات منطقی و متناسب با آموخته‌های خود عمل می‌کنند و صد البته در برخی مواقع اشتباه می‌کنند و در کمال تعجب همگی دوست‌داشتنی هستند.

سایه باد به هیچ عنوان کتاب خسته‌کننده‌ای نیست، به روایت از کتاب دوست دارم نقل کنم: «کتاب‌ها خسته‌کننده‌ان.»، خولین گفت:«کتاب‌ها آینه‌ان؛ ما در کتاب‌ها فقط چیزهایی را می‌بینیم که فقط در وجود خودمان هستند.»
تشکر ویژه از آقای زافون که کنایه‌ای به زندگی‌های ملال‌آور ما خوانندگان بدبخت‌ زدی ولی خیالت راحت باشه سایه باد برای من ذره‌ای خسته‌کننده نبود.

نکته بعدی راجع به سایه باد دقت در جزییات آن است، قبلاً فکر کنم بقیه دوستان اشاره کردند ولی من صرفاً گامی بر تاکید همین موضوع برمی‌دارم، داستان‌گویی‌ از طریق جزییات در دامنه‌ی مهارت‌های زافون می‌درخشد، به هنگام خواندن سایه باد ردوبدل شدن شکلاتی نعنایی، کهنه، پوسیده بین دو شخصیت نیز مهم هست و ممکن هست در آینده به واسطه همین اتفاق نازل و کم‌اهمیت نکته‌ای عارض شود که شما کوچیک‌ترین ایده‌ای از چگونگی انجام آن نداشته باشید، پس چهار چشمی به کتاب خیره شوید و لحظه‌ای روی برنگردانید، حتی اگر غذای شما روی گاز در حال سوختن هست پیشنهاد می‌کنم به خواندن کتاب ادامه دهید و کماکان چشم برندارید، در نهایت پشیمان نمی‌شوید.

فضاسازی سایه باد نه تنها در نوع خودش بی‌نظیر هست، بلکه به مانند آن تا به لحظه‌‌ای که در حال نوشتن همین نوشته هستم مشاهده نکردم، گاهی اوقات از ترس کتاب را می‌بستم نه به خاطر اینکه با صحنه‌ای ترسناک و دلهره‌آور روبه‌رو شده بودم، بلکه به خاطر اینکه حس می‌کردم دارم از واقعیتی که در زندگی واقعی خودم جاری و ساری هست جدا می‌شم و به داخل کتاب کشیده می‌شم، زافون بار دیگر ثابت کرد که فضاسازی صرفاً شرح حال نیست.

در پایان کتاب نتیجه‌گیری زافون برق از سرم پراند، سرنوشت یک به یک شخصیت‌ها با شرح و بسط کافی توضیح داده شد، در باب اینکه منظور از تمام شخصیت‌‌ها چیست، تصور کنید شخصیت‌های اصلی داستان در کافه‌‌ای از صاحب آن‌جا لیوانی آب می‌گرفتند، زافون در کمال آرامش سرنوشت شخصیت‌ صاحب کافه را برای شما شرح می‌دهد.

بسیار به ندرت پیش می‌آید که من کتابی بخوانم که روح و جانم به چالش کشیده بشود، ولی کلمات، جملات، شخصیت‌ها و فضاسازی‌‌های سایه باد همواره در یاد و خاطرم خواهد ماند و مهم نیست که توی زندگی‌ام چند تا کتاب بخونم، فیلم ببینم، چقدر آموزش ببینم و تجربه کسب کنم، همیشه از سایه باد به عنوان الگویی نیکو و تاثیرگذار یاد خواهم کرد.

شخصیت‌های کتاب راجع به کتابخوانی درست می‌گفتند، کتاب خوندن همیشه برای من یکدونه آئین درونی بوده، من وقتی کتاب می‌خوانم این کار را با تمام روح و جسمم انجام میدهم، این کتاب‌ها هستند که روح و جسم ما انسان‌ها را به هم پیوند می‌دهند، و از ما انسان‌های بزرگی می‌سازند، انسان‌هایی که در نهایت شاید به آدم‌های بهتری تبدیل بشویم.

ممنون سایه باد و ممنون آقای زافون، عجب ماجراجویی‌ای بود.

۳۰ فروردین ۱۴۰۲


@GalacticWanderers

The best book club in the entire Bay Area (proud to be part of it) picked this book for Sept. ---Its FABULOUS.......
I'm loving-loving-loving it!!!

I give this book 5 stars---No question its a masterpiece ---(a book hard to ever forget)>>>even with lots of characters!

However---If I could ---I'd really give it 4.5 stars ---not the 5 ---(but its close)

There were a few areas of the book ----that I felt were a 'little' weak --- (the way it unfolded towards the end-- some of it was 'dragging' to me). I was like "come on already".... Ever have that experience when reading a book? Especially when its long and you've been waiting to wrap things up?

......I think I've seen too many movies--often I was 'looking' for trouble in places where there wasn't any ---and then later, it bugged me! lol I thought I would be 'so smart' (ha ha)


This is a GOOD BOOK!!! NO QUESTION

Rereading the series in preparation for one of my most anticipated releases of the year, The Labyrinth of the Spirits.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<><>~~~~~~~~~~

ALL THE STARS.
⭐️ ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Welcome to The Cemetery of Forgotten Books.

** Hauntingly beautiful.

** Gothic & atmospheric.

** A book about the love of books.

what more could a reader ask for?

** And the best part? This book was never even on my radar until I heard someone talk about it by chance. I was intrigued by what they said and bought it that same day. Four days later I’m sat dumbstruck, simultaneously satisfied and heartbroken.
It’s a beautiful thing when fate intervenes. Isn’t it?

Thus, I come to you half a year later - that's right, it took me half a year to get here- BUT worry not for I remember every detail as if I read it yesterday.

-- Set in Barcelona, in the summer of 1945 - following the Spanish Civil War, the novel tells the story of Daniel Sempere, who is taken to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books by his father, a secondhand book merchant.
The Cemetery of Forgotten Books is a secret place, where a huge collection of books that have been forgotten or have fallen into oblivion is kept.
Daniel selects a book called The Shadow of the Wind by Julián Carax, an author who seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth and so have all his published books. Daniel's copy of book seems to be the only one left in existence.
So begins an incredible journey that carries Daniel through a gothic city filled with fantastic bookstores, exotic cafes, abandoned mansions and spirit-haunted graveyards.

-- The book itself has two main stories: that of Julian Carax and Daniel Sempere, written in the first person by both. And as the story threads its way into Daniel's life, the lives of both begin to intertwine. Daniel sees, bears uncanny resemblances to that of the protagonist in The Shadow of the Wind but in order to uncover the mystery as to how and why he'll have to dig deeper into Carax's biography. Zafón spins a web of intrigue so thick that it ensnares the reader from the very beginning.

-- The characters were exuberant, well-written and larger than life in their tragedies as in their joys and desires. The book is populated with a cast of characters filled with dark and mysterious pasts, the tortured souls, guilt-ridden lovers, doomed and solitary eccentrics and more. But the most interesting part —second to Carax’s past— was discovering how all of their stories were interwoven together.

Daniel isn't what you’d call heroic, but he's a sympathetic figure and very human in his failings, and beneath the novel’s colourful facade is also a touching story of Daniel’s relationship with his father, the proprietor of a highly respected bookstore that is barely surviving as readers are decreasing at an alarming rate. I loved his father and their bond so much that I was constantly terrified that something would happen to jeopardise their relationship.

Fermin Romero de Torres was definitely one of the most interesting characters in here. Imprisoned and tortured for being on the wrong side of the war, he was saved from beggary by Daniel through a ‘random’ encounter and becomes Daniel’s advisor, protector and confidante - as well, help him dig into the murky past of the people connected Carax.
He's eccentric, clever and charming and his deep friendship and loyalty to Daniel, combined with his sharp wit and cunning are the comic relief of the dark and gloomy tone of the book.

Julian Carax’s story, in my opinion, was the most heartbreaking of all (and there are plenty of depressing stories here, I tell you). He had the odds stacked against him right from the start that the poor guy didn’t stand a chance. His dark, mysterious character takes monumental twists and turns as his story slowly unravels to be one of tortured past and full of heartache.

And then there’s Fumero, the villain of ages. Thinking about him gives me chest pains much less writing about him. Just know that he plays a big role in the lives of many of the characters and... he’s the devil’s spawn. Suffice it to say, I loath him.

TSoTW is an atmospheric book full of passion and revenge, heartbreaking love, grave disappointments and mysteries whose layers peel away ever so slowly. The world is corrupt and cruel where the scum come out at the top and the inexorability of human destinies are grimmer than any ghostly stories... it's also about a bit of redemption.

Read it is all I can say, my friends. READ. IT.