Book Summary of Caraval by Stephanie Garber

Check out a plot summary by chapter for Caraval, the first book of the Caraval series by Stephanie Garber. Jump into the magical world of Caraval, a carnival-like game filled with magical and the ultimate prize for the winner. 

This summary is to remind you of the main points of the book before you read the whole book review. If you haven’t read the whole book yet, I highly recommend it. Unlike reading the entire book, the summary doesn’t include the tiny details that make Caraval even more magical or the great slow burn of the romance. 

Chapter 1-2

On the tiny island of Trisda, Scarlett Dragna writes multiple letters over the years to Caraval’s mastermind organizer, Legend, asking him to bring Caraval to her island. Caraval master Legend finally writes back to give her three tickets to the next magical game of Caraval in three days. When Scarlett goes to tell her younger sister, Donatella, Scarlett finds her with a sailor, Julian, who then tells them he can sail them to Legend’s island. 

Then, their abusive father, Governor Dragna, finds them with Julian and thinks Scarlett was the one kissing Julian. Their father hits Donatella to punish Scarlett. Then, he tells Scarlett her arranged marriage to the Count, who she’s never met, will be in 10 days. 

Chapters 3-4

After their father leaves, Julian offers to sail both of them off the island for free, and Tella accepts. Scarlett tries to convince her out of it and tells her that Scarlett’s marriage is their way out. Tella won’t listen, so Scarlett leaves a note for Julian to meet her on the beach in the night. 

Scarlett is trying to protect Tella from their father who has been abusing them since their mother disappeared years earlier. That night, Scarlett tries to bribe Julian to leave without Tella with the Caraval tickets. But Tella appears behind her while Julian holds a cloth over her face, and she looses consciousness. 

Chapters 5-6

Scarlett dreams of their grandmother telling the story of Legend asking to become the greatest performer to win his love, Annalise. Legend and his performers become magical, but Annalise leaves him because she thinks he’s changed. She wakes up on a rowboat with Julian rowing her towards Legend’s private island, where Tella supposedly already is.

When the boat starts sinking, Scarlett and Julian have to swim towards shore. Julian ends up having to cut off Scarlett’s dress in order for her to swim. 

Chapters 7-8

On the island, they find a little town with odd and unique shops that are all closed with no people around. They enter the only open shop, a clock shop, to find clothes and food for both of them with a note from Legend welcoming Scarlett. After they change, they find Legend’s giant house and the gate to enter.

A girl on a unicycle welcomes them as Julian introduces himself as Scarlett’s fiancé. The girl warns them that this is all an elaborate performance and not to get sucked in to the world of Caraval as they walk down the path to play. 

The Night of Caraval Eve

Chapters 9-10

Outside Legend’s mansion, Julian, who has taken to calling Scarlett ‘Crimson’ instead, tells her that he’s played before. But he won’t tell her why he’s really there. When they enter the house, they’re on a balcony overlooking an entire village. 

A performer, Rupert, comes to make them sign a contract that’s too small to read and tells them they’re staying at La Serpiente de Cristal. Half the roads in the village are water, so they take a boat to their inn before curfew starts at sunup. As the sun rises, Julian pushes Scarlett into the inn but gets locked out himself. 

Chapters 11-12

After the innkeeper says Julian can’t play now, Scarlett convinces her to let him by saying she’s Legend’s special guest. Scarlett is still looking for Tella when they get to their rooms that’s actually the same room even though they go through different doors. While Scarlett is worrying over only having one bed, Julian finds their first clue on the pillow. 

In the clue envelope is red rose petals and a green glass key with a black ribbon and a slip of paper with Tella’s name on it. Because the key has a #5, Scarlett tries to open that door, but Tella and a man’s voice tell her to go away. 

Eventually, Scarlett collapses asleep in the hallway to be woken by a very handsome man with a black rose tattooed on the back of his hand. The man, Dante, offers her his room while he sleeps in his sister’s, and asks Scarlett to dinner. She politely declines dinner but takes the room because Dante seems very trustworthy. 

Night One of Caraval

Chapters 13-14

When she wakes up, Scarlett goes to Tella’s room to find it destroyed, but other people going through it taking her things. Julian shows up and shows her the rest of the clue from last night says whoever finds Tella wins Caraval and a wish. In the ransacked room, Scarlett finds a playing card with a castle on it that did not belong to Tella thinking it’s the second clue. 

As they’re leaving for the castle, Dante runs into them which makes Julian tense, but Dante leaves when Julian introduces himself as Scarlett’s fiancé. Julian also tells Scarlett that Dante won Caraval last time he was here. Then, they take a boat to the castle, Castillo Maldito, on the card located on a small island where time moves faster and lots of unique merchants have tents selling things. 

Chapters 15-17

While Julian goes to look for the next clue, Scarlett goes into a fortune teller tent where the man tells her that her fiancé is not really a good man. Then, in exchange for Scarlett telling him who she fears getting married, the man tells her to follow the man with the black heart. Next, Scarlett goes into another merchants booth and buys a bottle of Elixir of Protection. 

Thinking she finally sees a glimpse of Julian, she goes into an empty courtyard and presses on the Caraval symbol on a fountain revealing stairs down. After taking the stairs down, Scarlett hears a woman screaming, but one of the boat workers shows up and makes her leave saying she shouldn’t be down there. Scarlett hurries back to the inn thinking Julian already made it, but he’s not there. 

Scarlett can’t sleep when Julian suddenly stumbles through the door with blood on him. As she helps to clean a wound on his head, Scarlett tells Julian about her time in the castle, and Julian gives her back a pair of her earrings that another contestant took from Tella’s room. Scarlett thinks Julian is about to kiss her, but then he leaves the bedroom without telling her how he got hurt.

Night Two of Caraval

Chapters 18-19

As Scarlett is waiting in the tavern for Julian, she sees Dante leaving and the black heart tattoo on his arm. Following him through the streets, she keeps running into a boy selling cider, so she finally has some. The cider turns the world black and white except for a notebook carried by a girl and a scarf on a mystery man.

Going after the girl with the notebook, the girl, Aiko, says she’s a histographer, and she’ll show Scarlett her notebook if Scarlett buys three dresses at a dress shop for the next three nights. To pay for the dresses, Scarlett agrees to pay two days of her life, but doesn’t realize until after that it means the next two days. Aiko helps her into a boat to get back to the inn as she starts dying. 

Chapters 20-21

Dante roughly helps Scarlett into the inn asking where his sister is because she’s also missing, but suddenly Julian punches Dante. Julian carries Scarlett to their room as she tells him what happened, and in a panic he gives her one day of his life. Now, they’ll both die for just one day. 

While she’s dead, Scarlett sees Tella who shows her a young version of their grandmother at Caraval when a man calls her Annalise. Then, Scarlett sees the funeral of Rosa, and overhears that Rosa left her fiancé and flung herself out the window when she fell in love with Legend at Caraval. At the funeral, Scarlett sees the fiancé is Dante, and Julian appears to be Legend.

Day Four of Caraval

Chapters 22-23

When she wakes up and walks out of her room, Scarlett sees her ruthless father across a hallway and thinks Legend must be punishing her because her grandma is the Annalise from the story. Then, she follows a glimpse of Julian into Tella’s old room and down a staircase into the tunnels.

In the tunnels, she finds Julian next to Dante’s dead body. Julian tells her that he was working with Dante to get revenge on Legend because Rosa was his sister. Scarlett believes him now when he says he isn’t Legend, and then they hear Scarlett’s father in the tunnels. 

Chapters 24-26

As they run away and lose the sound of footsteps, Julian admits he thinks Legend is punishing Scarlett because of her grandmother.  Julian came to Trisda because he thought Legend would invite them after hearing of Scarlett’s engagement wanting to punish Annalise’s grandchildren’s marriage. Back at the inn, Julian apologizes for all the lies, and Scarlett decides to forgive him. 

Then, a dress from the shop is delivered to the room, except now it’s white like a wedding dress. The note on the dress seems to be from Tella, but Scarlett thinks it’s actually a clue pointing to the hat shop she saw earlier. 

Night Four of Caraval 

Chapters 27-28

Outside the hat shop, Julian tells Scarlett he thinks this is a bad idea as it starts to storm. Inside, Scarlett sees the man whose scarf was still in color when everything was black and white, and he introduces himself as Count Nicolas d’Arcy, her fiancé. He doesn’t feel like the man who sent her nice letters, and, then, her father steps out from the back of the shop. 

Julian pulls her outside into the rain, and they escape by a boat to the castle. Scarlett has decided that she doesn’t want the arranged marriage anymore. At the castle while they wait out the rain, Julian kisses Scarlett. 

Chapters 29-30

As they start down the tunnels towards the inn, Scarlett’s father and the count catch them. Her father cuts Julian’s face to make her behave before he brings them both back to the inn. Scarlett promises the count she’ll obey him in exchange for letting Julian go.

Scarlett’s father makes Scarlett spend the night in the count’s room since the count already paid for the marriage. Back in the room, the count apologizes for everything that happened. Scarlett finds the bottle of elixir of protection and sprays it on the count so he can’t grab her as Julian falls out of the wardrobe where he was hiding. 

Chapters 31-32

Julian and Scarlett run out of the room and take the tunnels to get outside even though going out during the day is technically against the rules. The only person they see is the worker for a carousel of roses, and Scarlett suddenly remembers all the roses she’s seen and gotten with clues. 

The carousel starts spinning as they both jump on and search through the roses. As the spinning gets faster, the middle opens up to a tunnel, and, before they jump, Julian gives Scarlett a pocket watch with coordinates to a boat to get off the island. Scarlett jumps first and lands in a river within the tunnels below.

Chapters 33-34

As she washes up in a tunnel with a large staircase, Legend steps out to help her up. Immediately, Scarlett gets the feeling that Legend is insane, and then Julian steps out. Legend tells Scarlett that Julian has been working for him, and it was all an act in his magical performance. 

Scarlett doesn’t want to believe it was a lie, and she opens the pocket watch to hear Julian’s voice coming from it, saying it was not a game for him. As Scarlett sees in his eyes that it’s true, Legend stabs Julian. Scarlett holds Julian when he dies as Legend disappears. 

Night Five The Last Night of Caraval 

Chapters 35-36

After climbing all the stairs, Scarlett finds Tella in a nice bedroom. As Scarlett is telling Tella they need to leave, Tella keeps telling Scarlett it’s all a game, and Tella thinks Scarlett is too far into the game. Tella reveals that she’s engaged to Lord Daniel who’s been with her every night of Caraval.

Chapters 37-38

When Lord Daniel comes in, it’s Legend, and Scarlett tries to attack him before Tella pulls her back. They tie Scarlett to a chair so she won’t hurt herself. Then, her father and the count come in, and Legend reveals to Tells it was all a lie. 

Unable to handle it all, Tella jumps from the balcony to her death before anyone can stop her. Legend then threatens their father and the count to leave forever for killing Dante and hurting his other players, and Scarlett refuses to go with them now that her father can’t use Tella against her. When Scarlett asks Legend for her wish for winning Caraval, he refuses because of everything that happened.

The Day After Caraval

Chapters 39-40

Next to Tella’s bed, Scarlett finds a letter that Tella wrote to Legend a year ago asking him to help them get away from their father. Scarlett confronts Legend, and he confirms her suspicions that he’s not really Legend but one of his performers. Then, he gives Scarlett more letters between Tella and the real Legend that say Tella would be willing to die to get away and that she was certain someone loved her enough to wish her back if she did die.

Then, Tella comes into the room to a very shaken Scarlett and explains that she made a deal with Legend knowing that Scarlett would use her wish to bring Tella back if she died in the game. Tella knew their father would never stop hunting them unless they were dead, so Legend put on this game in order for their father to see Tella die. The game tested and proved that Scarlett would do anything for her sister, so Tella jumped in the end. 

Chapters 41-Epilogue 

When Scarlett asks about Julian, Tella explains that the performers who die during Caraval come back once the game is over, so Julian and Dante are alive. Scarlett still thinks at least some of it for Julian was part of the game, but Tella explains that his role was supposed to end in the clock shop, but Julian decided to stay with Scarlett the rest of the time. Then, Tella convinces Scarlett to go to the after party for all the performers, so Scarlett can talk to Julian.

At the party, Julian apologizes to Scarlett that he couldn’t tell her the truth because of the magic binding the performers. Julian admits he played this time because he’s Legend’s brother, but it was real for him when he couldn’t just leave Scarlett at the clock shop like he had been told. In the end, Scarlett decides to forgive him. 

Later at the party, Tella starts dancing with an attractive man, but she’s been drinking too much to clearly recognize him. He’s suddenly gone, leaving a coin and a note in her pocket that says he’s glad their plan worked. The note also says she can see her mother soon, and he will collect her payment for the deal as well. 

Read the Full Book Review

Now that you’ve had a refresher on the main points of the book, read my full book review that includes recommendations of what to read next. And after this book, you can move on to the second book, Legendary. I have a summary and review of that one as well.