*HIGHLY RECOMMENDED by Ash The story revolves around a grieving boy, Daniel who lives with his father in the war- torn city of Barcelona in 1945, as the city itself suffered sheer distress from haunting memories of the Spanish Civil War that took place. As the city recovers from its war wounds, so is Daniel, silently grieving yet gradually recovering, trying to cope with the loss of his mother. However, Daniel finds solace in a strange book, ‘The Shadow of The Wind’ that manages to steal his attention away. As Daniel drowns himself into the covers, he decides to search for the author’s other works, that only leads Daniel to a shocking discovery – a mysterious individual has been trying to destroy the author’s previous works, and Daniel may have the last copy of book belonging to the author himself. Who is this author ?. Who would want to defame and damage his works? Why are his works destroyed and wanting to be destroyed ? Is the content of the author’s work an act of plagiarism ? Was the author a murderer of the past ?. This puts Daniel on a predictably shocking and somewhat dangerous mission towards what he might discover. This so far has been my favourite book. It’s deep diving content and actively narrative writing style and sheer descriptive phrases intoxicated my mind and left me stagnant on each page. Zafon creates a successful story knowing how to capture the hearts and minds of the readers by expressing the feelings of the characters of the novel. Thus, it affords to provoke the readers mind to proceed the novel till this end. Zafon manages to build an interlocking relationship between the readers and the characters of the novel through the descriptive writing of expressing the characters feelings, intense thoughts that triggers the hearts and minds of readers developing emotional and mental sensitivity towards the characters emotions and feelings, in someway making the readers feel part of the story. The Shadow of the Winds has received excessive amount of positive critics and reviews from magazines all around the world and has stood on the Spanish Bestseller’s list for 2 years, and remained on the New York Times bestsellers list for a few years. The plot and unforgettable content of The Shadow of the Wind has made it difficult for a reader like me to put down.
