the midnight palace by carlos ruiz zafón

I have never returned to Calcutta, but I have always been true to the promise we all made to ourselves on the banks of the Hooghly River: the promise never to forget what we had witnessed. At the time, I didn't know I would never again see the streets of my childhood, the city whose spell has haunted me to this day. We had grown up there with no other family than ourselves, with no other memories than the stories we told in the small hours around an open fire in the courtyard of an abandoned mansion-a large, rambling ruin that stood on the corner of Cotton Street and Brabourne Road and which we'd christened the Midnight Palace. With each passing day we felt sadder and more fearful of the approaching summer, when we would all turn sixteen, for this would mean our separation and the end of the Chowbar Society, the secret club of seven members that had been our refuge during our years at the orphanage. Patrick's Orphanage was inching toward the final days of May 1932, leaving behind one of the hottest months ever recorded in the city of palaces. I 'LL NEVER FORGET the night it snowed over Calcutta. Never mind the number of candles on your birthday cake-for those in the know, it's what lies beneath them that matters! Enjoy.

So whether you are young or young at heart, I hope you will enjoy this ride into the twilight world of Calcutta in the 1930s, where the shadows of the night are thicker than blood. My intention when crafting these books was to create stories that would appeal to them also that they would hopefully be enjoyed by more mature and experienced fellow travelers for whom they might rekindle memories of the first books they had read, those magical tales of mystery and adventure that every reader hoards in the treasure chest of his or her brain. The Midnight Palace is the second in a series of novels I wrote for young adults in the 1990s, back when even I was probably more young than adult myself! Writing for the young, or the young at heart, is a risky business, and I learned that teenagers are a notoriously demanding and honest audience.

The midnight palace by carlos ruiz zafón