AN ZAF A.- The Watcher in the shadows, Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Weidenfield & Nicolson, 2013

Note : Grrrrr

The Story
(editor's  executive summary)

When fourteen-year-old Irene Sauvelle moves with her family to Cape House on the coast of Normandy, she's immediately taken by the beauty of the place--its expansive cliffs, coasts, and harbors. There, she meets a local boy named Ishmael, and the two soon fall in love. But a dark mystery is about to unfold, involving a reclusive toymaker who lives in a gigantic mansion filled with mechanical beings and shadows of the past.

As strange lights shine through the fog surrounding a small, barren island, Irene's younger brother dreams of a dark creature hidden deep in the forest. And when a young girl is found murdered, her body at the end of a path torn through the woods by a monstrous, inhuman force, Irene and Ishmael wonder-has a demonic presence been unleashed on the inhabitants of Cape House? Together, they'll have to survive the most terrifying summer of their lives, as they try to piece together the many mysteries and secrets hidden in a town torn apart by tragedy, amidst a labyrinth of lights and shadows.

My point of view
Interesting story but the beginning is a little bit too long. I'm agree that it's a good gothic novel in the tradition of the nineteenth century, but the fact that the principal action takes place in France during the second World War is the cause of lot incoherences, that a french people notice at the first sight.