 The pacing of the novel is quick with plot twist after plot twist leading through Emili’s encounters with organized crime, love relationships, business accounts, and family and friends. His life is hectic and his ability to pay attention to the needs of others very kindly. This is a hero one can relate to, modern, a man of the world, but tender.
Reviewed by Sheri Harper
The Invisible City
Translated by : Emili Rosales
Alma Books, Ltd
ISBN: 978-1-84688-090-2
The Invisible City by Emili Rosales is translated by Martha Tennant from his native Catalan Spanish and carries an international flavor rich with history. The hero of the story, Emili Rosell is thrust into a search for a forgotten painting and the discovery of his own parentage by the arrival of a old biography. The biography tells the tale of the Invisible City by the architect hired by the King to design and build it. The reader is enchanted by the architect Andrea Roselli’s account of his journey to becoming Charles III’s architect interspersed every other chapter with the ongoing tale of Emili’s search for the painting.
The pacing of the novel is quick with plot twist after plot twist leading through Emili’s encounters with organized crime, love relationships, business accounts, and family and friends. His life is hectic and his ability to pay attention to the needs of others very kindly. This is a hero one can relate to, modern, a man of the world, but tender. The life of Andrea Roselli is equally hectic and his personality equally caring. You learn of his love for a beauty who changes and becomes politically oriented in court life, his encounter with temptation, his betrayal and ultimately to getting what he most wants in life.
The imaginative setting for the novel comes from the mysterious Invisible City which was planned by the King, work started, but all of a sudden halted, with all mention of the project “covered up”, i.e. mention in the history books, the local community is very minimal. The hero has played in the remnant of the Invisible City as a young boy with his other friends. Around this setting is painted city life around Spain and the court life in Russia.
What makes the story sweet is the juxtaposition of true love based on sexual and emotional attraction against partnerships based on political and financial bases. The ability of the hero and his true love to work out their difficulties leads to a happy conclusion that no matter what, this pair will find happiness. Many people that enjoy history, politics, art, will like this book, as will mystery lovers. Throughout, the reader is continually egged on by clues – the references to things the hero doesn’t want to deal with that he eventually has to address.
About the reviewer: Sheri Fresonke Harper is a poet and writer. She's been published in many small journals and is working on her second science fiction novel. See www.sfharper.com
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