Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Jul 2014
336 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
"We all have a secret buried under lock and key in the attic of our soul. This is mine."
When Fifteen-year-old Oscar Drai suddenly vanishes from his boarding school in Barcelona, no one knows his whereabouts for seven days and seven nights.
His story begins when he meets the strange Marina while he's exploring an old quarter of the city. She leads Oscar to a cemetery, where they watch a macabre ritual that occurs on the last Sunday of each month. At exactly ten o'clock in the morning, a woman shrouded in a black velvet cloak descends from her carriage to place a single rose on an unmarked grave.
When Oscar and Marina decide to follow her, they begin a journey that transports them to a forgotten postwar Barcelona - a world of aristocrats and actresses, inventors and tycoons - an reveals a dark secret that lies waiting in the mysterious labyrinth beneath the city streets.
Carlos Ruiz Zafon's haunting Marina has long been a cult classic in Spain and is now an international bestseller.
"Starred Review. With elements of romance, mystery, and horror, none of them overwhelming the other, this complex volume that hints at Mary Shelley's Frankenstein manages to weave together three separate stories for a cohesive and eerie result." - School Library Journal
"Starred Review. Zafón is a master of both the subtle simile and the outrageous image... Unlikely discoveries in mysterious, half-ruined mansions alternate with spine-tingling action sequences to create a grotesquerie that will delight horror fans. Ages 12 and up." - Publishers Weekly
"High-quality gothic genre fiction with a classic Mary Shelley sensibility." - Kirkus
"Originally published in Spain in 1999, this sweeping gothic mystery from Zafón (The Watcher in the Shadows, 2013) delivers gritty atmosphere, perilous action, propulsive storytelling, and ghastly body horror, all tempered by a bittersweet romance." - Booklist
This information about Marina was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Carlos Ruiz Zafon, author of two critically acclaimed and internationally bestselling novels, The Shadow of the Wind and The Angel's Game, was one of the world's most-read and best-loved writers. His work, which also includes prizewinning young adult novels, has been translated into more than fifty languages and published around the world, garnering numerous international prizes and reaching millions of readers. He died from colon cancer in June 2020 aged 55.
The House on Biscayne Bay
by Chanel Cleeton
As death stalks a gothic mansion in Miami, the lives of two women intertwine as the past and present collide.
The Flower Sisters
by Michelle Collins Anderson
From the new Fannie Flagg of the Ozarks, a richly-woven story of family, forgiveness, and reinvention.
The Funeral Cryer by Wenyan Lu
Debut novelist Wenyan Lu brings us this witty yet profound story about one woman's midlife reawakening in contemporary rural China.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
