My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars
In May 1980, fifteen-year-old Oscar Drai suddenly vanishes from his boarding school in the old quarter of Barcelona. For seven days and nights no one knows his whereabouts. . . .
His story begins in the heart of old Barcelona, when he meets Marina and her father Germán Blau, a portrait painter. Marina takes Oscar to a cemetery to watch a macabre ritual that occurs on the fourth Sunday of each month. At 10 a.m. precisely a coach pulled by black horses appears. From it descends a woman dressed in black, her face shrouded, wearing gloves, holding a single rose. She walks over to a gravestone that bears no name, only the mysterious emblem of a black butterfly with open wings.
When Oscar and Marina decide to follow her they begin a journey that will take them to the heights of a forgotten, post-war Barcelona, a world of aristocrats and actresses, inventors and tycoons; and a dark secret that lies waiting in the mysterious labyrinth beneath the city streets.
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Marina is the fourth book I have read by Carlos Ruiz Zafón (not counting The Rose of Fire since it’s a short story) and I think it’s probably the best I have read by him. This book has nothing to do with The Cemetery of Forgotten Books series. But I don’t mind that, it's refreshing to read something different. The story takes place in Barcelona just like The Cemetery of Forgotten Books does but this is years later and the story has nothing to do with forgotten books instead this is a love story. Or love stories, one in the present 1980’s Barcelona and one in the past, both tragic.
This is one hell of a well-written book with a story that really spoke to me; tragic love stories, revenge, scary dolls, experiments, murder and a mystery woman in black with a tragic past. I just wish I could find more books like this.
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