Summary from GoodReads:

In the heart of Calcutta lurks a dark mystery…

Set in Calcutta in the 1930s, The Midnight Palace begins on a dark night when an English lieutenant fights to save newborn twins Ben and Sheere from an unthinkable threat. Despite monsoon-force rains and terrible danger lurking around every street corner, the young lieutenant manages to get them to safety, but not without losing his own life…

Years later, on the eve of Ben and Sheere’s sixteenth birthday, the mysterious threat reenters their lives. This time, it may be impossible to escape. With the help of their brave friends, the twins will have to take a stand against the terror that watches them in the shadows of the night–and face the most frightening creature in the history of the City of Palaces.

My Review:

Carlos Ruiz Zafon is one of my favorite authors for a reason – he knows how to start a story out, how to give it “flavor”.  The beginning of The Midnight Palace has a deadly chase, a set of babies crying and the backdrop of Calcutta in the early 1900′s.  Mix in rain, a good dose of mystery and a smattering of horror and you have a perfect beginning to a book.

Sheere and Ben are twins, but they do not know of one another due to an incredible tragedy in their background.  Both are raised in different styles, Ben in an orphanage and Sheere as a sort of gypsy, but their worlds collide on their 16th birthdays.

Something that Zafon does so well is create gothic settings and they were in abundance in The Midnight Palace. From the house Sheere has been searching for to the old train station, I never stopped feeling as if I needed to look over my shoulder.  This isn’t sweet romance-y paranormal young adult fiction, this is a bit edgy, ghost-horror stuff.  And it’s thrilling.

While I didn’t enjoy The Midnight Palace (Niebla #2) as much as I did The Prince of Mist (Niebla #1), I did enjoy it and found it difficult to put down – even at night when every little sound had me looking around the room.  My only regret is that I’m unable to read the books in the language they were originally written.  That said though – the translation is magnificent, as all of Zafon’s books are, and there is more than one phrase that had me reading and re-reading it, enjoying the beauty of the writing.

Though this is an older book in its original language, it’s fresh and something new to read in the YA genre and I welcome it.

Check out these review(s):

ARC Tour hosted by Dark Faerie Tales