3.5 stars
Wellll ... that was weird. The synopsis of Castle of the Cursed makes it seem like a pretty straightforward haunted house novel. Going into this book, I was really into the premise, and unsure as to why there were so many mixed reviews. And the start of this book is pretty basic. I really enjoyed the plot and found it easy to follow for the first third of the book. I also liked the romance - it reminded me of Crimson Peak. Then, the first twist hit. Then another, and another, and another. And all of a sudden this story had transformed into something so complex and bizzare. I understand why some people don't like how the story progressed. It is admittedly quite weird, and sometimes the plot becomes muddy. That being said, it was also so unique and intriguing. Once I wrapped my mind around the plot, I really enjoyed it. My only other complaint was that the romance felt a little rushed. Overall, I would recommend this book, but perhaps only to a certain demographic - self-proclaimed weird girls who love spooky, alien vibes.
Thank you to the publisher and MacMillan Audio for the arcs in exchange for an honest review!

Castle of the cursed pulled me in right from the start. A cursed castle and a silver eyed boy only Estela can see had me wanting to know all the secrets. After experiencing the mysterious loss of her parents, Estela begins to lose touch with reality. When she receives an invitation from an estranged aunt to a castle in Spain she accepts. The longer she is there the more strange things happen. Estela starts to uncover the secrets of her family. She is not sure who to trust. I loved the story. The mysteries were so good. I did not want to put the book down. The narration was so good. Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the audio arc in exchange for my honest review.

Parts of this book were really intriguing, however, as a whole, it went on way too long. I loved the gothic horror of it all, but there were several mini plots, that this could have been several novelas.

Estela is the lone survivor of an attack that killed her parents and several strangers. She is sent to live with her estranged aunt in Spain in a castle called la Sombra. Estela quickly realizes something is off, and the castle is harboring secrets that may help solve her parents’ murder.

I thought this would be more mystery, and it definitely starts that way at the beginning. This is where the book was most engaging for me. I was interested in the death of Estela’s parents and figuring out how the mysterious black smoke played a role. I also enjoyed finding out more about la Sombra through Estela’s lessons in the library with Felipe. But the middle gets way more into the supernatural/fantasy realm than I was expecting. Admittedly I’m not a big fantasy fan, so this is more of a personal preference than a problem with the book. The romance is super cringey, though, and the age gap made me feel uncomfortable. Also the pacing was really off at times, especially the more the plot twists and turns. I don’t think I was the target audience for this one. Thanks to NetGalley, Macmillan Audio, and Romina Garber for this free ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Always such a bummer when your new boyfriend is eating all your friends.

As you may have guessed, this is at its core a vampire novel, though it has some originality to the way that figures into the plot.

Conceptually this was a very good idea for a book, though the execution is a bit rough in ways that are hard to ignore. I’ll echo other reviewers in saying that I thought the instalove situation wasn’t great, though I mostly didn’t care about the romance at all. The family mystery was better thought out and more interesting, though it had a lot of structural problems and felt a bit half-baked, especially once the story gets into a wonky parallel world situation.

The atmosphere is decent and I liked the protagonist well enough, though she’s more likable than she is unique. I truly did think the premise was solid and original, and would have loved to see what could have been done with it had the book been more structurally sound and more tightly edited. In all, a bit messy and hampered by some issues of quality, but an entertaining read that at the very least, had some new ideas about how to imagine a vampire story.

I don’t normally find books that I can’t connect with, and even more seldom do I read a book that I cannot describe or book talk later. Unfortunately, this book was a fail for me. The first part was intriguing but then the plot lost me. The characters didn’t suck me in and things seemed forced and rushed and confusing. Several times I had to circle back and figure out what I had missed (and sometimes I couldn’t find it at all). One of my main issues was Estela’s age. When the book begins, she seems to be a younger teen, but by the end she’s 18? Her actions and dialog were all over the place for her age. I loved the cover, but that was about it.

First: shoutout to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio. I wouldn't be able to read and love as many new released books as I do and rant on books such as this one without you giving me access.

SPOILERS because this is not so much a review as it is a critique.

About 40% of the way through, I debated DNFing this book. From the first page, I loved Estela's character. She had a fun Holmesian mind and was faced with a mystery that could not be explained away by simple deduction, dear Watson. I thought she would use that beautiful brain to deduce the heck out of what happened to her parents and we would be along for the glorious ride. But then...her character turned Bella-Swan-flat from one page to another. Literally, at one point, my mind posed, "what in the twilight is going on here?"

Speaking of: I would really like to move away from the Twilight trope: MMC wants to kill FMC and tells her as much. Next interaction: MMC threatens FMC, "But he is so hot and I'm so inexplicably drawn to him." Repeat for a few interactions. MMC suddenly does something very nice for FMC and now FMC refers to MMC as "her boyfriend" and makes him her entire life. That was the main focus for the first part of the book, and I just cannot do that trope anymore. I was sitting in a line waiting on a gas pump after having rolled my eyes so much that I worried about my vision being affected, when all of a sudden the story changed.

Hello introduction of a new character whose story was way more interesting than Estela's: Antonela's. I'd "ship" Antonela and Bastian any day. I said what I said. Antonela was a BA. She faced seemingly insurmountable obstacles. She machiavellied her way out of a bad situation just for her whiny sister to half-heartedly say, "don't do that!" Antonela had much more chemistry with whatever vampire-type of creature who wrestles blue bears Sebastian was.

But also: the whole thing with her aunt leaving her was just too convenient so that Sebastian and Estela could endure forced-proximity with no discernable obstacles. Literally, the aunt is a medical profession and just disappears. She is all "you have to take this pill," and then just peaces out. Doesn't leave any food. Doesn't pass down ESSENTIAL information about the garden or literally anything. I get her reasoning at the end, but still.

And ALSO: the ending was really confusing and the fight was like a fever dream that I couldn't quite wake up from. What the heck was actually going on with the they/them grandpappy/grandmammy?

This is all very harsh, and for that, I apologize and will leave off of this discussion with something positive.

Ana Osorio continues to be a rockstar audiobook performer. 5/5 stars.

Castle of the Cursed by Romina Garber

Thank you to @macmillan.audio for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my #honestbookreview! This is available now in physical, audiobook, and ebook format.

This was the perfect book to kickoff the spooky season transition with! I knew I also really loved that this started with a content warning. It’s got paranormal, fantasy elements, and a solid psychological mystery as well. This hooked me right away and took me on a fun adventure. I highly recommend for someone looking for a mystery wrapped in a fantasy!

TWs: spicy scenes, loss of loved ones, ab*ndonment, g*slighting, su*cide, more

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - 4/5

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Young Listeners for this ARC Audio Copy! 3.5 Stars

The Narrator did a great job of telling this story, and was able to really capture the characters in a way that keeps you hooked from start to finish.

I enjoyed this story, it was not what I expected but it was interesting, especially once the character makes it to the family castle.

The start of the book took a bit for me to really get into and it feels like all the trauma experienced was not really resolved for me, and character that we get to know in the beginning of the book doesn't really carry over to the character who we get to know later on.

If you are able to look past the sudden resolution of a character being so traumatized that she has gone nonverbal , to a girl who suddenly acts like nothing ever happened and all that matters is solving a mystery, then then this story really did have a lot of potential and the creepy castle was done really well.

This was such a fantastic read! The synopsis had me interested, and that beginning had the intrigue high for me! Estela losing her parents like that-and being the only survivor-was a huge mystery. But finding out what her parents left behind and what was going on in the castle, I had to know more!

There were multiple points in this book where I thought I knew where it was going, and then it turned out that there was still a good portion of the book left to go. And oh, the places that this story went, it kept building and building!

Estela is traumatized, she is the only one who survived this attack that killed her parents. To find out that she has an aunt in Spain that she didn't know about, well, there's a bunch of family history that was pretty vital for her to know!

I loved watching the story build, of Estela learning about some of the family secrets, getting to know Sebastian, start to figure out what was going on-and just how many layers there was to the story! It kept going, and I loved where it went, while also dealing with grief and loss and falling in love, it all went together really well!

I had a great time reading this book, and I'd love to read more by Romina Garber!

Thanks to MacMillian Audio for access to an ALC for review purposes.

Castle of the Cursed started out strong. I liked the emotional beginning and the way in which Garber deals with grief and trauma. However, the story starts to add more and more on as it continues. What starts as a girl who loses her parents in a mysterious accident and returns to an Aunt and Uncle she never knew in a strange house with many mysteries. I really thought it had the potential to be interesting. But I just couldn't keep up with all of the twists and turns. It went from intriguing to absurd for me. While the two main characters were sympathetic, they weren't enough to hold the story together.

I will say the narrator does a great job of making the story interesting and incorporating the Spanish passages with ease. I enjoyed listening, even when I was fairly confused.

Castle of the Cursed pulls you into a dark, gothic atmosphere filled with mystery and unsettling secrets. Estela's journey to a haunted castle in Spain after a tragic loss creates an intriguing setup, and the eerie vibe of the castle, with its looming gargoyles and hidden horrors, sets the stage well for a gothic horror.

However, despite the promising setting, the story fell a bit flat for me. The romance between Estela and Sebastián felt rushed and didn’t have enough depth to make it believable. The plot also jumps between timelines, which often made it hard to follow, and I found myself struggling to stay engaged during the slower parts of the book.

That said, Ana Osorio’s narration was a highlight. She brought the spooky, gothic feel to life, making it easier to stay invested even when the story wavered. If you’re a fan of gothic horror, it’s worth a listen, but the execution didn’t fully live up to the potential.

I really wanted to like this one. It starts out alright, has some good mental health representation in the beginning; especially when our leading girl believes she is imagining the mysterious shadow man in the castle. Unfortunately it becomes a hot mess by about 65%. By 80% calling Castle of the Cursed a hot mess is being kind. I skimmed the last 50 or so pages. Honestly I don’t think properly reading them would have helped my understanding or buy-in to the story at all.

The overall issues that sucked the life out (and not in the good dark fantasy way) of Castle of the Cursed:
1) It’s 13 days from when our gal shows up at the Castle to the end. It needed to be 13 months! Everything just happens with no foreshadowing, no change management, or even a hint of what is actually going on. Had it transpired over a longer period of time then maybe the foreshadowing needed could have happened?
2) Almost every major event feels random. Without any build-up, foreshadowing, hinting, or even an idea of the ‘magic’ until it’s dropped on top of us I found myself feeling very skeptical. I needed Nicholas Benares to ease me into some of the concepts and plot points. The ‘twists’ didn’t feel like twists where I had any chance of knowing they were coming. They felt more like an asteroid that was dropped on top of me and I was supposed to try and climb my way out of the dense material I was coated in.
3) Castle of the Cursed needed direction and purpose. Too much happens that is disconnected; but the novel doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be. I’m all for genre spanning stories; but you still need to cement the story in a few places. It starts as a dark romance, gets awkward, introduces a ton of lore and magic, and suddenly we’re drowning in plot and the romance is mostly lost. Yet at the end suddenly that romance is super relevant again… it just didn’t flow or feel natural.
4) 13 days is not long enough to really know someone; never mind fall in love with them.
5) I never really felt enough of a connection with most of our characters to care if they lived or died. There are some well done aspects of a few side characters; but I needed more, especially from one of the twist defining characters.

Overall, this was a very disappointing novel. Had I not been curious to know the final ‘result’ (as it appears to be a stand alone novel) I would have DNF’d. Instead I skimmed the last few pages and brought myself to the ending; which ironically felt like it fit with the first half of the book. But somewhere between 65% and 90% all that story got lost in massive magical rules, lore, memory sequences, etc. It’s too bad as I liked some elements but overall execution is critical to the reading experience. Sadly this one lacks direction, cohesiveness, and foreshadowing.

Please note: I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. This is an honest and unbiased review.

A haunting story of an orphan, a curse, a vampire, a family betrayal, and a hungry castle. Estela is trying to solve the mystery of the death of her parents, but what she finds is much more than a simple murder. Her family is embroiled in a curse in an old Spanish town. She and her “shadow beast” must work together to unravel the lies and find out who their family actually is.

I was so impressed with how creative this story is! Very unique in the build up and the execution. I felt like all my guesses were incorrect as I tried to predict where the story was going. I really felt for Estela - but she was also a convincingly immature and frustrating teenager at times - without being so much so as to turn me off from the story. Will definitely be checking out more from this author!!

I'll be honest, I did not love this. I think the gothic vibes and the quality of the audio narration were the only reasons I could finish this read. I struggle when the story starts to feel like What else could possible happen to this character" and I got to that point pretty quickly.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Young Listeners for the Audio ARC.

I listened to the audio version of this book and the narrator did a great job. I was drawn to this book by its description. I was intially captivated by the gothic atmosphere within the castle and Estela’s nightly explorations of it. The writing is beautiful and descriptions of the architecture, of the looming gargoyles within the building, a mirrored wall and a purple room where something horrific took place all add to the novel’s gothic mood.
Unfortunately, the romance between characters, the execution of certain aspects of the story and the ending made it difficult for me to enjoy Castle Of The Cursed as much as I wanted to.
Estela is intially presented as being wholly mute and suffering from the severe trauma of her experiences, yet due to most of the story taking place rapidly over the course of thirteen days, she is dealt blow after emotional blow and yet is able to function and even fall desperately in love with the morally gray, memory-challenged and shadow-controlling vampire Prince Sebastián.
Because Castle Of The Cursed is meant for a YA audience, Estela is young and experiencing a whirlwind of emotions, I could almost excuse her shift from fear to overwhelming attraction.
The revelation of the main antagonist being Estela’s twin sister Antonela felt very jarring and while her background is somewhat sympathetic, her overall behaviors lack nuance.
I honestly stuggled with this review as I know that authors put so much time and care into their work and I loathe being negative. But perhaps I was just the wrong reader for this novel. I will probably purchase this book for our library because I think there will be students who love it.

Thank you NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press and Wednesday Books for providing access to this audiobook.

Thanks to Macmillian Audio for gifted access via Netgalley. All opinions above are my own.

I loved Garber's Lobozona series so I was excited to see what new unique fantasy world she had dreamed up in this one. Estela is suddenly orphaned after a strange attack that kills both of her parents. She is sent to live with a mysterious aunt in Spain who lives in a castle. The castle is responsible for the well being of the whole town but demands blood. Estela is curious to know about this family she never knew, this home that seemingly has a mind of its own and a mysterious boy of smoke that appears and she can't get enough of.

The magical world in this one was very unique. I loved the world building most of all. There is the fated mates, love triangle business that is so common in these types of stories but it does not play out in a predicable manner. I also felt in this case that the narrator was fabulous and kept me engaged even when the story had lulls.

This book had the beginnings of a great horror story. It was atmospheric with the descriptions of the Villa and the town. It was rich in lore and background. It was creepy and mysterious. But the last 20% of the book completely lost me. Adding the element of different dimensions, with a magic school that used blood and people as a power source was a lot. And the insta-romance was a lot, borderline toxic. It was not a simple horror story, it was a lot.

#CastleOfTheCursed:

In all honesty, I wanted to DNF this several times. But, something in the back of my mind kept saying, “just wait and see what happens” so I never did. Do I regret it? No, it was an overall good read.

Estela becomes an orphan thanks to a black smoke. She’s the only survivor, and they don’t know why she did. She finds out her past was not what her parents said it was, and she’s off to meet her living relative in Spain. She lives in la Sombra, a beautiful gothic castle, where everything also is not what it seems. She needs real answers about the past before it catches up to her.

There’s a lot of back and forth between timelines and places and piecing things together from the past and present to make sense. It was choppy in a sense that I don’t think it flowed well to really give it the effect we needed for surprise. Also, the romance was.. different? I felt like it was very fast and it was a “oh, we’re in love now?” I just didn’t feel like it fit with the plot tbh.

Ana Osorio is such a good reader, I loved her narration. She just gets the vibe and does it right. She brought the soooky, the creepy, the unsettling perfectly.

Definitely a slow burn gothic horror, I still wouldn’t sleep on this one. It’s different from Garber’s previous work, and I loved her previous work. But different isn’t a bad thing. This was a lot darker, more menacing, and Garber masters that kind of writing for her readers to truly feel the horror. Out now!

I was provided an ARC & an ALC of this title for free and am leaving this review voluntarily. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Castle of the Cursed was a decent almost edge of your seat paranormal gothic romance. The spooky vibes are very much giving, but the romance just didn’t quite hit the mark for me. Overall I enjoyed it but it wasn’t a standout for me.

Thank you to the author & NetGalley for the opportunity to read & listen early!