No Hay Luz En Oscuro

I recently finished reading Castle of the Cursed by Romina Garber. This is OwlCrate's August YA book.

POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT

  Rating: 3/5 stars

"After a mysterious attack claims the lives of her parents, all Estela has left is her determination to solve the case. Suffering from survivor’s guilt so intense that she might be losing her grip on reality, she accepts an invitation to live overseas with an estranged aunt at their ancestral Spanish castle, la Sombra.

Beneath its gothic façade, la Sombra harbors a trove of family secrets, and Estela begins to suspect her parents’ deaths may be linked to their past. Her investigation takes a supernatural turn when she crosses paths with a silver-eyed boy only she can see. Estela worries Sebastián is a hallucination, but he claims he’s been trapped in the castle. They grudgingly team up to find answers and as their investigation ignites, so does a romance, mistrust twined with every caress.

As the mysteries pile up, it feels to Estela like everyone in the tiny town of Oscuro is lying and that whoever was behind the attack has followed her to Spain. The deeper she ventures into la Sombra’s secrets, the more certain she becomes that the suspect she’s chasing has already found her . . . and they’re closer than she ever realized."

Going into this book I had expected a YA darkly gothic romance with supernatural elements due to the trigger warnings and blurb, and whilst this book did have all of that, it didn't feel the way I'd anticipated. 

This isn't a bad book, it's enjoyable but just felt scattered and a lot. The beginning chapters hook you, making you question what is going on, but then the pacing fades out and nothing really happens for a while. We get introduced to Estela's estranged aunt and the castle she owns in Spain. There's an odd town and even odder residents, and I enjoyed the atmosphere. 

When the story begins to unravel and more questions and characters pop up around 30 percent in is when things become confusing. There's a lot of mystery and a whole magic system to learn, Estela is a flawed character which I liked, but she also makes some dumb decisions despite her having a 'detective' mindset. In the middle, the plot begins to focus on the romance with a mysterious figure trapped within the castle, known as Sebastiàn. 

The romance sadly wasn't my favorite part, it's enemies to lovers but felt rushed and sudden. Within two weeks the characters are madly in love with each other and willing to do anything, whilst this worked for the resolution and getting it done within the book, I personally felt like forced. 

The last quarter of the book is...a lot. We get a massive info-dump along with some plot twists I didn't expect but didn't really care about, at this point my brain was kerfuffled. It kind of goes a bit sci-fi with different dimensions and timelines and such, and it just felt out of place for a gothic novel. 

The ending seems to wrap up everything quite easily, but it does hint at a possible sequel with some troubles still unresolved. Overall this was entertaining and had the moody vibes, but I personally felt like it wasn't what I anticipated and was led to believe.

Check out Castle of the Cursed, and discover what happens when the house is always hungry.

Happy Reading :)