Castle of the Cursed

April 1, 2024
An orphaned teen uncovers her family’s terrible legacy in this bumpy Gothic fantasy from Garber (Cazadora). While Estela Amador and her parents are riding the N.Y.C. subway, smoke obscures Estela’s vision, followed by a “starry burst.” When Estela’s sight returns, she’s surrounded by corpses. Authorities blame a gas leak, but Estela insists otherwise, earning her a hospital stay at the Rainbow Center, “a treatment facility for children of the elite.” Estela’s parents never mentioned relatives, so it’s surprising when Beatriz Brálaga writes from Oscuro, Spain, claiming to be her aunt and inviting Estela to live in Castillo Brálaga. Upon arriving, Estela discovers Beatriz isn’t the castle’s only inhabitant: a vampire named Sebastian appears nightly, calling her “bruja” and threatening death unless she ends the spell blocking his memories and binding him to this realm. Estela fears she’s hallucinating, but soon learns that the truth about her new home is far stranger than she imagined. An appealingly sinister start is dampened by puzzling and seemingly arbitrary plot twists. Half-baked worldbuilding and the unearned central romance aside, Estela’s tenacity and fortitude lend the tale moxie. Major characters read as white. Ages 13–up. Agent: Laura Rennert, Andrea Brown Literary.

May 15, 2024
After surviving an apparent gas leak that killed 25 other people on the New York City subway, including her parents, a 17-year-old moves in with her estranged aunt in a castle in northern Spain. Estela Amador has spent the seven months since the tragedy in a mental health facility, but upon learning the truth about her origins, she has little choice but to travel to the place her parents actively lied to keep her away from. Beatr�z Br�laga, her maternal aunt, is brooding and remote, just like castillo Br�laga, the family's ancestral home. Beatr�z, who's a doctor, gives Estela shriveled black pills instead of her usual medications. Estela learns about the history of the castle and nearby town from Felipe, her Spanish language tutor. Desperately curious to learn more, she experiences nighttime hauntings by a shadow beast as she explores the castle against her aunt's express orders. After a menacing first encounter, Estela and the beast, Sebasti�n, form a partnership to uncover more of Estela's past--if her past doesn't destroy her first. Elements of Dracula meet "Beauty and the Beast" to create a dark, engaging atmosphere. While the romantic moments with Sebasti�n often interrupt the story's genuine tension, and some of the family revelations veer into melodrama, the intriguing setting with its well-wrought details will keep readers engaged. A brooding romance with a compelling, gothic setting. (author's note, mental health resource, link to content warnings) (Fantasy romance. 14-18)

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June 1, 2024
Grades 9-12 The closest thing Estela has to a home is her family, but when a mysterious accident on a subway car kills all 25 of the other passengers, including Estela's parents, her home vanishes. For more than six months, she's housed by the government in a mental-health facility, convinced that she hallucinated the black smoke that filled the subway car just before disaster struck. It's not until Estela gets a letter from an aunt she's never heard of that she learns she was born in Spain at her family's ancestral home--Castle Br�laga, nicknamed La Sombra, or the Shadow, by locals. But something about the castle--and the way the villagers worship it--feels off to Estela. She doesn't trust her new home or her cold and scheming aunt, but if she leaves La Sombra, she may never learn the truth about what happened to her family. Garber (Lobizona, 2020) manages to pack an enormous amount of material into this romantasy, some of it wildly original. While the book struggles with plot holes and inconsistent characterization, paranormal-romance readers will fall for this bloody Spanish gothic novel.

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August 1, 2024

Gr 9 Up-The only survivor of a mysterious attack that killed 25 people on the subway, including her parents, 17-year-old Estela Amador is nearly swallowed by her grief, until a letter arrives from an aunt she's never heard of inviting her to come live in their family's Spanish castle, la Sombra. When she makes it to Aunt Beatriz in the small town of Oscuro, things are clearly strange-her family seems to be revered in the area, and the secrets the castle begins to reveal cause her to question everything her parents told her about who she is (which apparently wasn't much at all) as well as her own grip on reality. The appearance of a magnetic boy with silver eyes who may be a hallucination definitely doesn't help, and as Estrela uncovers the truth of her own history, la Sombra's supernatural hunger turns out to be the tip of the iceberg of strangeness. A different, darker sort of happily-ever-after awaits. This moody, darkly emotional Gothic romance weaves threads of untimely death, family secrets and betrayal, bloodthirsty haunted houses, spells, vampires, and a passionate heated love story more or less successfully; a lot is happening over the course of the book, but a quick pace and plenty of drama keep the pages turning even if the plot gets a little muddy. Along with a strong infusion of Spanish culture and language, Garber's skillful sensory descriptions bring the setting and characters to life. VERDICT A convincing and darkly romantic YA, even if slightly scattered.-Allie Stevens

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