The best things that I’ve received in my inbox this week is a newsletter from Carlos Ruiz Zafon, stating that his first ever novel, the novel that launched his writing career, will be available (in English) in May!
Lo and behold: The Prince of Mist!
Hmm, Amazon US says on May 4th (that’s Little, Brown) but Amazon UK (Orion) will release theirs on May 27th (this was also the date on the newsletter, as Zafon is UK based for the moment). The UK edition is so much prettier than the US edition though…
I fell in love with Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s writing after reading The Shadow of the Wind, and again after The Angel’s Game, so I’m definitely looking forward to getting The Prince of Mist as soon as it’s out (the wait is agony!).
The original Spanish, El Principe de la Niebla won the Edebé literary prize for young adult fiction in 1993.
Here’s the summary of the book:
Max Carver’s father – a watchmaker and inventor – decides to move his family to a small town on the coast, to an old house that once belonged to a prestigious surgeon, Dr Richard Fleischmann. But the house holds many secrets and stories of its own. Behind it is an overgrown garden full of statues surrounded by a metal fence topped with a six-pointed star. When he goes to investigate, Max finds that the statues seem to consist of a kind of circus troop with the large statue of a clown at its centre. Max has the curious sensation that the statue is beckoning to him. As the family settles in they grow increasingly uneasy: they discover a box of old films belonging to the Fleischmanns; his sister has disturbing dreams and his other sister hears voices whispering to her from an old wardrobe. They also discover the wreck of a boat that sank many years ago in a terrible storm. Everyone on board perished except for one man – an engineer who built the lighthouse at the end of the beach. During the dive, Max sees something that leaves him cold – on the old mast floats a tattered flag with the symbol of the six-pointed star. As they learn more about the wreck, the chilling story of the Prince of the Mists begins to emerge.
Julia Eccleshare of The Guardian describes it as “a powerful and atmospheric story of a mysterious character, whose sinister business is the granting of gifts in exchange for souls.”
The “Prince of Mist” sounds a lot like Andreas Corelli from the Angel’s Game, which makes me wonder if this book ties in with Zafon’s Cemetery of Forgotten Books series.
It’s also particularly interesting because it’s a young adult novel, and apparently in the UK, two editions will be released: a collector’s hardback, and an edition for younger readers (I wonder what editions the local bookstores will have here). Orion books is giving away 5 pre-publication proof copies, but it’s only open in the UK (boo!); I’d have loved to try my luck at that contest.
Nevertheless, I’m totally sold. Can’t wait to get my hands on a copy of this book!
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I can’t wait to get my hands on this one, but I still need to get my hands on a copy of “The Angel’s Game”! Someday …. someday soon. :)
Hi Scott, didn’t know you were a Zafon fan too! :)
Angel’s Game has a different feel to it compared to Shadow of the Wind, but still good, though, and it’s a series of four books, so it’s really a must read :)
May can’t get here soon enough!