The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

(Please click the link to go to my blog to read the entire review! Thank you!!)

Ruiz Zafon is one amazingly talented writer. The translator, Lucia Graves, I would say is equally as talented.  Which makes for one beautiful experience.

I loved The Shadow of the Wind - top book for me.  If you have not read it, remedy this immediately by ordering a hard copy (or paperback) from your local bookstore (#supportlocal!).  You may as well order them both.  I would not say Angel is a sequel so to speak, but if you are going to read them both, which you are, please read Shadow first.  You'll thank me later.

Angel is again dark, sinister, twisty, and a bit dreamlike.  Our main Character, David, is once again a writer and he is also introduced to The Cemetery of Forgotten Books.  He is commissioned by a mysterious figure to write a new book - one that presents a new religion.  David is of course also in love with a woman he thinks he cannot have, and feels his progression towards a tragic end as he and his dogged assistant write said book and become more and more suspicious of his new boss' intentions.

I got a little bit slogged down in the last third of this novel.  It became a little too similar to Shadow - or so I thought. But slog on friends, to an ending you will NEVER see coming and which will make everything clear.  Clear as mud.  Karma is a bitch, but I am left wondering if David really deserved what he got, or if he was an innocent victim of circumstance.  Or of a conspiracy.  This one redefines tragic.  But it is not totally sad either.  Mysterious indeed!!!

Moody, beautiful, atmospheric - you can almost see the mist in the movie covering the streets of Barcelona in the early 20th century.  Not a quick read, but a good one.  The author splits his time between Barcelona and LA.  Hmmmm, I wonder if there is a Cemetery of Forgotten Books in LA????  Book Three, perhaps??  I am IN.