Castle of the Cursed
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected Jul 30, 2024
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- $11.99
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- Pre-Order
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A delicious and dark gothic romance from bestselling author Romina Garber!
THE HOUSE IS ALWAYS HUNGRY…
After a mysterious attack claims the lives of her parents, all Estela has left is her determination to solve the case. Suffering from survivor’s guilt so intense that she might be losing her grip on reality, she accepts an invitation to live overseas with an estranged aunt at their ancestral Spanish castle, la Sombra.
Beneath its gothic façade, la Sombra harbors a trove of family secrets, and Estela begins to suspect her parents’ deaths may be linked to their past. Her investigation takes a supernatural turn when she crosses paths with a silver-eyed boy only she can see. Estela worries Sebastián is a hallucination, but he claims he’s been trapped in the castle. They grudgingly team up to find answers and as their investigation ignites, so does a romance, mistrust twined with every caress.
As the mysteries pile up, it feels to Estela like everyone in the tiny town of Oscuro is lying and that whoever was behind the attack has followed her to Spain. The deeper she ventures into la Sombra’s secrets, the more certain she becomes that the suspect she’s chasing has already found her . . . and they’re closer than she ever realized.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
An orphaned teen uncovers her family's terrible legacy in this bumpy Gothic fantasy from Garber (Cazadora). While Estela Amador and her parents are riding the N.Y.C. subway, smoke obscures Estela's vision, followed by a "starry burst." When Estela's sight returns, she's surrounded by corpses. Authorities blame a gas leak, but Estela insists otherwise, earning her a hospital stay at the Rainbow Center, "a treatment facility for children of the elite." Estela's parents never mentioned relatives, so it's surprising when Beatriz Brálaga writes from Oscuro, Spain, claiming to be her aunt and inviting Estela to live in Castillo Brálaga. Upon arriving, Estela discovers Beatriz isn't the castle's only inhabitant: a vampire named Sebastian appears nightly, calling her "bruja" and threatening death unless she ends the spell blocking his memories and binding him to this realm. Estela fears she's hallucinating, but soon learns that the truth about her new home is far stranger than she imagined. An appealingly sinister start is dampened by puzzling and seemingly arbitrary plot twists. Half-baked worldbuilding and the unearned central romance aside, Estela's tenacity and fortitude lend the tale moxie. Major characters read as white. Ages 13–up.
