An excellent and atmospheric historical thriller. I loved it

An atmospheric reconstruction of Barcelona at one of the pivotal points in its history. A gothic thriller of great inventiveness.

An enjoyably over-the-top gothic thriller

If you loved The Shadow Of The Wind, pop this on your reading list. A gripping adventure, packed with action and atmosphere.

There is madness, selfishness cruelty and corruption, concluding in a bizarre grand guignol of Lovecraftian horror. There is a weird, Gothic feel to the novel, a sensation that the characters are in ethereal and disturbing times. It is an enjoyable, racy read.

You’ve never seen Barcelona this way before – gothic, dangerous, romantic and diabolical. A breath-taking, genre-busting enigma for fans of The Shadow of the Wind.

What is perhaps most impressive about Jordi Llobregat’s debut novel is how it manages to be a cracking slice of Spanish gothic in its own right as well as wearing its influences openly. One can spot Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, and the world of penny dreadfuls between its pages alongside the spectre of Jack the Ripper haunting the text. The translation from Thomas Bunstead gives the prose a fin de siecle feel with a lyricism that ensures even the most violent of descriptions have an uncomfortable beauty to them. The characters are all fascinating, but it is tum-of-the-century Barcelona that is the star of the show. Measured yet exciting, brutal yet poetic, Llobregat has crafted a great novel.