48 Hour Book Challenge - Book 2: The Prince of Mist by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

From the moment I picked up Carlos Ruiz Zafon's debut YA novel The Prince of Mist (finally out in the United States) from the library this afternoon, I've been dying to read it.  The moody, mysterious cover totally sucked me in, and the blurbs from just about every reputable book review source on the back increased my enthusiasm.

And then I started the book.  And I understood the power of masterful storytelling.  That's exactly what's going on here.  The skeleton of the story sounds familiar to anyone who appreciates a good mystery or horror story.  A family packs up all their belongings, relocating to a huge house by the ocean.  Huge houses by the ocean don't come easily, or cheaply, and so it's not completely surprising to learn that the young boy who lived here died, and soon after, so did both his parents.

Max, along with his two sisters, and mother, is sort of creeped out by the place when they arrive.  It seems like it hasn't been touched in ten years, but every now and then, he gets a glimpse of what a grand place it must have been.  And then he's getting glimpses of something else.  In the expansive yard, he finds an overrun garden with statues, of circus performers, all pointed toward a clown in the center.  His dad finds some old reels of film and plays them for his family on the wall (it's the 1940s, and that's how it was done back then).  One of the reels has footage of the statues, except they aren't posed the same way.  And the weird thing is, Max's sister just had a dream about the statue the night before.

This is a tale where nothing's quite as it seems, and Max has to do a fair bit of research and unraveling to get at the bottom of everything, in a race against time before the Prince of Mist returns for what he believes belongs to him.  This one has all the atmosphere, creepiness, and cinematic flair to draw in readers of all ages who like a good, spooky, creepy tale.  This is precisely the kind of book younger me would have loved (of course, current me loved it too) because I did go through a phase in which I was fascinated by this sort of paranormal stuff.  Werewolves, vampires--not so much, but give me a good "ghost" story or something with an oracle doll or possessed doll house, and I was there.

This one will definitely appeal to Stephen King fans, but that's not to say it's straight-up horror.  Mystery and supernatural fans will find much to admire as well.