1943. Amidst his life in a war-torn city, Max Carver’s father, the local watchmaker and Max’s namesake, announces that he is immediately uprooting his family to live in a dilapidated old mansion on the coast. Max, a city boy, is not at all pleased with his father’s decision, and his gloomy attitude grows ever darker as he soon discovers that his new house is steeped in tragic history. Upon Max’s discovery of an overgrown garden filled with eerily familiar stone statues, Max and his sister, Alicia, are propelled directly into the path of the mysterious, fog-shrouded being known as The Prince of Mist. Along with their new friend, Roland, the grandson of the local lighthouse keeper, the three friends set out to uncover the mystery of the creature, and his connection to the old estate, a mystery that all seems to center on the tragedy of one little boy who drowned there over a decade ago.
This book was the first published by one of my favorite authors, Carlos Ruiz Zafon, and it shows. The book grew disappointing fairly early on, when it became apparent that the plot lacked any rhyme or reason. As the characters moved through solving the mystery at the heart of the novel, their minds continuously surmised that the clues would eventually “fall into place and make sense.” However, though I faithfully waited, holding to the promise of a satisfying conclusion, I was sorely disappointed.
Though the well-known and loved Carlos Ruiz Zafon of the Shadow of the Wind gothic archetype tries to emerge from the depths through some of the atmospheric descriptions, the book still reads more like a short story passed around in a creative writing class, rather than a novel. The complex plot seems too-simply written, even for the Young Adult genre. “Susie said ‘hello’ to Sally. Sally sat down next to Susie.” This happened, and then this. Boom, boom, boom. Check and mate. I was so annoyed with the plot by the time that the tenth chapter rolled around, that I honestly was not surprised with, nor did I care about the outcome. In fact, I felt I was given very little time to care about any of the characters at all.
As I said before, the book has an overly complex plot, creating so many questions, and leaving its readers with very few of them answered. At times it seems as if the reader is flung head-first into a scene, with very little to grab onto. One idea after another was strung together, with very little to connect each detail to the next. In short, this story could stand to be more developed.
Carlos, oh Carlos, I still love you. And I am bearing in mind that this was your first novel. For a love such as the one I have for your books doesn’t hold on to the past. So, that being said, your past is exactly that, in the past, and now that I’ve read it, I’m going to leave it there.
Stories with soul. Strategy with spine. 
