Castle of the Cursed

• Author: Romina Garber
• Genre: Fantasy
• Publication Date: July 30, 2024
• Publisher: Wednesday Books

Thank you to NetGalley, Wednesday Books, and Macmillan Audio for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

CONTENT WARNING: grief, death of parents, trauma, PTSD, anxiety, depression, mutism, suicide attempt, bullying, violence, murder

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.

I couldn’t wait to dive into another Romina Garber book, and this time I brought Julie @ One Book More along for a buddy read. It was the best way I knew to show her the wonder and magic of a Romina Garber story, and this book didn’t disappoint. I was approved for both the ebook and audiobook versions of this ARC, and Ana Osorio did a wonderful job with this narration, effortlessly switching between English and Spanish at the drop of a hat. Her Spanish pronunciation is beautiful to listen to as well.

To start with, Garber’s writing is fantastic. She has this amazing ability to paint a wonderfully detailed picture using her words, and sets a scene that makes me feel as though I’m right there with the characters. In this story, the castle that Estela stays at, la Sombra, almost becomes a character in itself, lending to the gothic-ness of the story. Even the name of the castle, which translates to ‘the shadow,’ and the name of the town it overlooks, which translates to ‘dark,’ add their own ominous pall to the story.

One of my favorite parts of buddy reading is that it forces me to slow down my reading and analyze the book with another person, allowing me to come up with some creative theories about what could happen next in the story. I was surprised when some of my theories came true, although most of them were pretty far from the mark. But Julie and I loved exploring the complexities and idiosyncrasies of the characters in the story, and what we thought their motivations were, as well as whether we thought they were going to turn out to be heroes or villains.

We quickly developed some strong thoughts on the major players in the story. Estela has only known life with her parents, never staying too long in one location. All she knows is that they don’t talk about their past in Argentina, but the family policy is that they don’t keep any secrets. So when they are killed along with 23 other people in an unexplainable accident that leaves Estela as the only survivor, she is left with survivor’s guilt that affects her mental health so severely she is hospitalized. While she is there, the officers investigating the accident give her information that leaves her with more questions than before. An opportunity comes from an aunt she never knew about, to live in a family castle she didn’t know existed, in Spain, and Estela jumps at it. I can’t blame the girl, it sounds a lot better than what she was leaving behind.

When she gets to la Sombra, it isn’t anything like what she expected. Her aunt Beatriz is all the family she has in the world, and no matter what she’s like, she’s a stranger. In addition, Estela recently learning that her parents omitted some important information about her own past and theirs, leaves her with a deep sense of betrayal that isn’t easy to overcome. It makes it even more difficult for her to trust new people, and everyone in her life is new to her. It doesn’t help that she’s also been having some old, forgotten memories begin to resurface, but she doesn’t have anyone to turn to that can help her understand and place these memories, since she doesn’t trust anyone enough to go to them.

One of the joys of Garber’s works is that when she puts a twist into her story, it is almost guaranteed to go in an unpredictable direction. I never know where the storyline is going  with one of her books, and she used that technique to marvelous effect here. There were so many plot twists and they were all so surprising that Julie and I would just gush over how surprising the twist at the end of each section was, because there was a mini cliffhanger every time we stopped to discuss, giving us plenty to chat about.

Ultimately, this book turned out to be so exciting and unpredictable, with a romance that doesn’t outshine the fantasy and mystery aspects of the story. There’s some action, but a lot more uncovering of family secrets, and some of those affect the town as well, since there’s an interconnected dynamic between the castle and its residents and the town. I loved how layered the relationships between all the characters were, and how their unique experiences influenced the way that they connect to others. While it ends as a stand-alone, it could also potentially become a series (hopefully). This was a fantastic read, and reinforced Garber’s place on my must-read author list.

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