BookTrailer 101: The Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

The Prisoner of Heaven is the third novel written by Carlos Ruiz Zafon after the released of the previous books: The Shadow of the Wind and The Angel's Game.Zafon brings us again to the Sempere & Sons bookshop and the world of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. This novel also takes us into a dark, gothic Barcelona and creates a rich, labyrinthine tale of love, literature, passion, secrets and revenge.

The Prince of Mist - a first novel of the author of The Shadow of the Wind

AS SOON I FINISHED READING the second bookseller of Carlos Ruiz Zafon, The Angel's Game (which I previously posted an initial review), I decided to buy his English translated first Spanish novel, The Prince of Mist which is available at Tesco (UK) for half price ( hardcover, 6.49 pounds).

Just for a matter of two consecutive nights, I discovered why this Zafon's earlier writing was loved by "those who are young and those who are not so young." With 202 pages, the story begun when Max Carver's family decided to move from the city to the countryside along the beach. As soon as they occupied the wooden house, Max (13 yrs old boy) started to experience strange things - including the discovery of a walled garden, diving in a sunken ship called Orpheus, including the newly found friendship with Roland. Revealing the secrecy behind the life of Roland and his grandfather, Mr. Kay (the lighthouse keeper) leads to unexpected life-and-death encounters of the Prince of Mist, Mr. Cain.

When a debt is not settled, it gathers interest but that does not cancel the original debts.

The style of Zafon's storytelling reminded me of C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia. Unlike the two current novels (The Angel's Game and The Shadow of the Wind,) The Prince of Mist does not contain much of Zafon's poetic lines, but it does capture our imagination - a tale of adventure, magic and mystery which also embodied in the children books written by Lewis. Indeed a recommended summer read!

The Spanish version was released in 1993 and translated to English in 2010 by Lucia Graves.

My book appetizer...my current initial read!

I'M CURRENTLY READING THE SECOND NOVEL of Carlos Ruiz Zafon, The Angel's Game. Im now at the middle section of the book and Im not still excited to find out where the story is heading to.

Unlike the first novel of Zafon, "The Shadows of the Wind", I was already amazed of the storylines and the characters just only in the first few pages of the book; but in Angel's Game, it is a little bit slow and less surprises from the main characters!

More pages to go so Im expecting that the story will be intensed to a higher level of mystery! Some of the poetic lines from the first and second acts of the book that struck me most.

Faith is an instinctive response to aspects of existence that we cannot explain by any other means - be it the moral void we perceive in the universe, the certainty of death, the mystery of the origin of things, the meaning of our own lives or the absence of meaning.

All interpretation or observation of reality is necessarily fiction. In this case, the problem is that man is moral animal abandoned in an amoral universe and condemned to a finite existence with no other meaning than to perpetuate the natural cycle of the species. It is impossible to survive in a prolonged state of reality... we spend...our lives dreaming... when we're awake.

The day women are allowed to learn to read and write, the world will become ungovernable.