Castle of the Cursed by Romina Garber, is in the words of its author, "a tale about grief. The narrative addresses suicide, mental health issues, death of a parent, sex, and violence..." to which I would add that it also contains black magic or witchcraft, as the reader wants to call it.
Although it is also the chronicle of an impossible love that in the end, becomes possible, a story of hope and a reminder that there is always light in the darkness.
A description and, at the same time, a warning for readers who do not feel like facing a story full of both positive and negative feelings, but worth reading.
And the biggest enigma of the book is right at the end! Although it does not matter if an impulsive and impatient reader decides to cheat and read the last chapter, the taste will never be the same as if you enjoy the entire ride of this roller coaster called Castle of the Cursed.
I thank the authors and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.
The opinion I have expressed above is based solely on what I think and feel about this book.

Romina Garber’s Castle of the Cursed is a chilling descent into a gothic labyrinth where every shadow tells a story and every whisper holds a secret. I was captivated by Garber’s blend of a darkly enchanting atmosphere with a compelling narrative that twists and turns with breathtaking precision.

Set against the backdrop of the spooky Spanish castle, La Sombra, the novel follows Estela Amador Brálaga, who is thrust into a world of grief and mystery after surviving a tragic attack that claimed her parents' lives. The castle, with its hidden passages and ominous history, is as much a character as the people within it, adding a palpable sense of dread and wonder to the unfolding tale.

Garber’s writing is lush and evocative, painting vivid scenes that immerse readers in Estela’s journey. As she grapples with her profound loss and the weight of her family’s secrets, Estela evolves from a grieving survivor into a formidable force driven by a quest for truth and self-discovery. Her interactions with Sebastián, a mysterious and alluring vampire bound to the castle, add layers of complexity and emotional depth to the narrative. Sebastián’s own journey, marked by lost memories and burgeoning compassion, mirrors the novel’s themes of transformation and redemption.

The romance between Estela and Sebastián is both tender and intense, evolving organically alongside the book’s intricate plot. Garber balances their growing bond with the novel’s darker elements, ensuring that neither overshadows the other. Their relationship is a highlight of the story, adding both warmth and tension as they unravel the mysteries surrounding La Sombra and the attack that changed their lives.

One of the book’s most impressive achievements is its seamless integration of Spanish language and culture. The bilingual elements bring authenticity and depth to the story, enriching the reading experience. Garber’s attention to detail in depicting the castle’s eerie beauty and the novel’s supernatural elements further amplifies the immersive quality of the tale.

In conclusion, Castle of the Cursed is a mesmerizing and unforgettable read that solidifies Romina Garber’s place among other dark YA fantasy authors. With its hauntingly beautiful setting, intricate plot, and deeply resonant characters, it is a book that will linger in your thoughts long after the final page. If you are a fan of gothic romance and paranormal mystery, this is a must-read that will captivate your heart and mind.

Castle of the Cursed is a fun read with just the right amount of creepiness mixed in. The magic system is interesting and so is this unique take on vampire lore. This book is perfect for fans of supernatural mysteries.

The book follows Estela, who after the mysterious death of her parents, has to go live with an unknown aunt in Spain. Estela’s aunt Beatríz lives at la Sombra, a castle that just happens to be their ancestral home. The castle harbors many secrets, one of which is that Estela and her parents used to live there when she was younger. The only problem is that Estela doesn’t remember her time there. Estela soon believes that la Sombra may even hold the key to finding out more about her parents’ deaths.

Since Estela doesn’t know Spanish, Beatríz arranges for her to have tutoring sessions with a local boy named Felipe. Estela would rather learn more about la Sombra, than learn Spanish. As it turns out, Felipe is an unofficial expert on la Sombra and Estela’s family. The mores Estela learns, the more she begins to distrust her aunt and the castle itself.

One night while exploring the castle, Estela meets a mysterious stranger with glowing silver eyes. She calls him her shadow beast. He claims that he is trapped in the castle and he believes she is the one that trapped him there. Estela learns the shadow beast is named Sebastian and he arrived in the castle the same night of her parents’ deaths. Now she definitely feels like there is a connection to la Sombra and what caused the death of her parents. Estela and Sebastian begrudgingly decide to work together to see if they can get to the bottom of whatever happened that brought them together.

I really enjoyed this book, especially how the mysteries just kept coming. For every solution, a new problem would arise. The unique take on the vampire lore was pretty cool. I also think the secluded setting helped add to the spookiness of the story.

The only part that I didn’t like is that this story takes place over just two weeks. A lot happens and it just seems a little unbelievable at times. I like the enemies to lovers aspect, but in the short amount of time that passes it was just a little too fast.

Overall I would recommend this book to anyone who loves supernatural mysteries, vampires and cursed castles.

So, I want to start this review with a little bit of a warning. I don’t want my review To scare anyone away from reading this book. If it’s something that you are interested in on the synopsis intrigues, you give the book a shot. You could totally have a different opinion than me.
Now let’s get into it.
So we meet a girl who, after her parents die she gets a letter from a Relative that she knew nothing about to come live with her in the family castle in Spain. Of course, there is a dark history and that shadow esque character That gives shadow daddy vibes.
This book honestly, for me was a really big letdown. The main character I honestly didn’t really care for her at all, and she came across as very annoying. Her interest ended up being basic and 2-D And honestly, very interesting.
When it comes to the plot, I feel like this book could have been spread out over two book series. I really wanted to get to know more about this world and was left Unsatisfied. Everything wrapped up so quickly and was honestly honestly kind of a mess.
It just felt really disjointed and rushed. Especially with all of these conflicting elements of dark emotions, family, betrayal, and a pretty basic ending..
Overall, I would give Book a two star rating. It had one shocking part that had me interested, but it took about 200 pages Get to that point. And the book is 280 pages.
Overall, I wouldn’t recommend this book because there’s a lot of other books that I feel like that do this genre a lot better. But for sure, if it’s something that intrigues you, give it a shot. You could have a different opinion of me and love this book.
I would like to thank the folks at NetGalley for an ARC of this book. It was for sure and honor to be able to even read this book early Or in my case, pretty much on time..
My review is an honest reflection of my feelings towards this book

I wanted to like this book because it sounded intriguing, and the cover is beautiful. But it was too over-the-top, and the characters and their actions felt trite and stereotypical.

Estela is the only survivor on the train car that held 26. Coping with the loss of her parents, she finds herself struggling with the family history that begins to resurface during the investigation. When an aunt in Spain reaches out to her, she makes the move to be with her only known family and the hope to learn more about why her parents fled in the first place.

Castle of the Cursed reads like a PG-Gothic Horror. It introduces you to morbidity, curses, and monsters while maintaining an eerie presence as the story unfolds. The author does a great job building the world and Estela's place in it.

I highly enjoyed the story telling aspect of this book as Estela works to find herself and unravel the mystery that led her to where she is now. I liked Bastian as well and it was interesting to see how his character started and what encourage him to change.

I did NOT like Felipe or Tio. Felipe in particular gave off sleezy vibes the whole time and was too eager.

I enjoyed the Spanish language in the later parts of the book, but felt that it caused a disconnect with no translations in the beginning. I can see how it could be used to build the uneasiness as Estela also did not understand, but it just had me googling the translations which took me out of the story.

I also felt that the Romance sub-plot was sweet, but that some scenes were unnecessary. Also, the timeline for them falling for each other was wild considering everything else that was going on, BUT the epilogue was super sweet and made more sense with the time jump.

Overall though, I highly enjoyed this book and would be interested in reading other works by this author.

This book is everything I love in books! Gothic genre is my favorite, so I maybe a bit biased, but this book has me hooked from the first page. I love the writing style. Castle of the Cursed takes place out of a tragedy, is set in a castle in Spain, has dark twisted family secrets, small town, eerie atmosphere making it such a fulfilling read. Oddly enough I will taking a trip to Spain myself next year, so this was a really fun treat to get excited over.

Great gothic YA. Atmosphere was perfect the castle the mystery surrounding it all the story and the characters. I am currently learning Spanish so it was fun trying to figure out what was being said along with the main character.

Trigger warnings in the beginning made me feel as though this would be a very depressing book but it was definitely not that. It starts with a bang then slows to t.ell the story with increasing suspension. The romance throughout is not too much which I appreciated but it was enough to make me want some of the characters to end up together. A little confusing at the near end but it all comes around in the end and I loved it and wanted more.

i, like estela, felt very detached, so maybe the author is just a genius? the plot was wild, but the wildest thing had to be her spanish tutor’s lesson plan, which was to just start reading to her from books, with zero context

ok to be real, i feel like every time i didn’t care about an aspect of the book, even though it felt like i was being told that i should buy into it, that very thing was handled carelessly by the end, proving that i was right to not care. e.g. almost all her relationships, but especially the “romance,” and even estela’s own view of herself, so again, maybe genius?? or just subverting every theme for shock value?

thanks netgalley for the arc tho 🙏🏼

I really wanted to like this one, but this book was all over the place. It was trying to do everything all at once. All the popular tropes, every scenario, every realm of existence. Too much trying to happen in the span of 300 pages.

I really did not like the romantic relationship. I really wanted to like our love interest (he's a vampire! I love vampires), but their relationship made no sense. <spoiler> He tried to kill her 3 times, then randomly fell in love with her. Then they got vampire married... in a span of 2 weeks?! And what were those "spice" scenes? Completely unnecessary, came out of no where, added NOTHING. They would start something then abruptly stop. There was no point. They were there because of BookTok. No other reason. </spoiler>

While this book was not for me in the slightest, others have really enjoined it. If you're on the fence about reading it, I say give it a shot. You might like it!

Thank you to NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Castle of the Cursed draws you into a gothic world with its dark, mysterious castle and eerie atmosphere. The setting is beautifully described, and Estela’s exploration of the castle’s hidden horrors had me intrigued. The gothic elements—looming gargoyles, haunted rooms, and unsettling secrets—are well-executed, creating an immersive vibe that’s perfect for a spooky read.

However, the story itself didn’t quite meet my expectations. The romance between Estela and Sebastián felt rushed, lacking the depth needed to make it convincing. The dual timelines were confusing at times, with abrupt shifts that made it hard to keep track of the story. The pacing also dragged in places, making it a bit of a struggle to stay engaged through some slower parts.

While the book had a lot of potential with its unique world and gothic tone, the execution didn’t fully deliver. If you enjoy atmospheric reads, Castle of the Cursed might be worth a try, but it left me wanting more in terms of character development and plot cohesion.

Castle of the Cursed was a great and eerie read. I enjoyed all the paranormal aspects of the story and they paired well with the mystery and crime case at the beginning. It was a great upper YA supernatural book just in time for fall and spooky season!

Thank you NetGalley and Wednesday books for the ARC!

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.

Once I started reading, I could not put this book down!! Gorgeous writing, a FMC that I connected with, and a wonderfully unique story that kept me enthralled until the last page. This will be one of my top reads of the year.

Thank you for the opportunity to read in advance!

Castle of the Cursed - Romina Garber. This book was so weird! The story was gothic and fabulous and had such a unique storyline. After Estela’s parents are killed, she thinks she is alone until she finds out about an aunt she didn’t know existed and who lives in a house that needs something unusual to keep it alive.

Pulling back the layers on Estela’s life was fascinating to unfold. I wasn’t a massive fan of the romance in it. I think it would have been soooo much better without it but that's a personal choice. I think the author could have gone darker and more in depth on the house and the magic and it would have been one heck of a read. 4 stars

TW: Death of a parent, lots of death

Wanted to give a heads up to those who may struggle reading those topics! But let's dive into this book. Where to begin:

Castle of the Cursed is the over the top, fast paced book that makes me think of a telenovela, but add in vampires, dark undertones, and fantasy elements.

I'm glad my Spanish is still going strong and I barely had to use a translator. But as the book goes on, it translates more for the reader, just like Estela learning Spanish.

My overall opinion:

Loved it! I barely had time to read anything at the beginning of the month, but once I had time, I did not want to put this book down. If I could have called off work this week to read, I would have!

I love gothic things, vampires and telenovelas. So all those things combined was perfecto 👌

𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰 𝘕𝘦𝘵𝘎𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘺 & 𝘚𝘵. 𝘔𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘯'𝘴 𝘗𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘥𝘷𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘱𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬.

Wow. This was... something else: part magical realism, part gothic creepiness, part science fiction, all mixing together to create a very fevered story that was hard to follow and even harder to enjoy.

Estela spends the firs 20% of the book wishing she was dead. Something awful has happened to her, and her will to stay alive just leaves. She has suicidal and harmful thoughts and urges. The mental health representation - while strong - made it difficult to connect with Estela, only because we didn't have any concept of her personality or who she is when the story begins. We go straight into her suicidal head. It was rough (and dark).

The castle, her aunt Beatriz, the spooky feel of the town, and the mysteries of the castle kept me initially interested. However, a lot of the scenes once Estela is in the castle have a stilted feeling. We jump from scene to scene with little explanation, dialogue feels out of place, and emotions crop up startlingly. There were some issues with the flow of writing.

More than that, though, was the romance and the science fiction elements that felt extremely out of place. Some people might love the dimensional twists the author takes with elements of the story, but I wholeheartedly did not. Also, regarding the romance - someone needs to put Estela back in a medical institution because she somehow equates "scary" and "wants to kill you" as "yes, I should be attracted to him." I get the whole "enemies-to-lovers, shady little love interest, dark-hearted boy who you just want to lust over" is a whole trend right now, but it did NOT work in this story.

Also, vampires (kind of). I forgot that part.

Honestly, I read about 40% and then skimmed the rest. What I saw made me glad that I didn't waste any more time on this story. Sure, the black magic finally came into play and some action went down. The romance got more graphic than a YA should. There were some plot surprises that I wish I could have been excited about cause it was actually kinda sneaky.

Less gothic, more eclectic fever-dream is what Castle of the Cursed ended up being.

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and Wednesday Books for this advanced copy. You can pick up Castle of the Cursed now.

As spellbinding and captivating as this book sounds, I found myself unmotivated to pick it up and not as invested as I would've liked. I honestly think that has more to do with my current reading mood than the book itself, so it wouldn't surprise me if I chose to pick this up again later, when I'm in a gothic, spooky mood. But at the moment, I find myself tuned out while reading it and not absorbing it as much as I'd like to.

But from what I've read so far, if you enjoy atmospheric, gothic, paranormal delights, this book is up your alley!

This book is a maybe for me. There were elements of the book that I really liked and found creepy or slightly unsettling while there were other parts that simply fell flat. Overall it is a decent story/read that I would recommend to a specific type of reader.

The setting and tone is what really sold me on this book. I thought the description of scenes and the emotion that I felt is what made this book so captivating. The castle being alive added another element that was unique and brought the story to life as well.

Other than that, this book wasn't my favourite. Estela was a bit bland for my liking. I wish her not speaking played a bigger, or longer, role in the story. It was such a huge life event she went through and it was made to seem like her refusal to speak was a big deal, but she started speaking only a little while later.

Her relationship with Felipe was nice in the beginning, but as soon as he started to turn, I couldn't understand why Estela kept forgiving him and allowing him close again. The rest of the relationships in this book also developed in strange ways. She went from hating her aunt to being extremely close. I thought the addition to the lore about twins in the story felt forced, and when the uncle arrived, I was surprised, but didn't care enough to be shocked.

In the beginning of the story, it seemed like Sebastián was older, and he was described as being in his teens or early twenties, and knowing Estela was only seventeen, I didn't love that detail. Again, this relationship turned fast, going from enemies to lovers, and cringy love at that.

Much like with the uncle, I wanted to care about Estela's twin, but once it was revealed that she had turned evil, I lost interest. I had hoped their relationship would have been a good one.

Overall, I enjoyed the gothic, dark aesthetic of this book, but the actual plot and relationships were boring and frustrating.