From the back of the book:

"The enchanted place is an ancient stone prison. Two outsiders walk here: a woman known only as the lady, and a fallen priest. The lady comes to the prison when she has a job to do. She's skilled at finding the secrets that get men off death row. This gift threatens her career—and complicates her life—when she takes on the case of York, a killer whose date of execution looms. York is different from the lady's former clients: he wants to die. Going against the condemned man's wishes, the lady begins her work. What she uncovers about York's birth and upbringing rings chillingly familiar. In York's shocking and shameful childhood, the lady sees the shadows of her own.

The lady is watched by a death row inmate who finds escape in the books he reads from the prison library and by reimagining the world he inhabits—a world of majestic golden horses that stampede underground and of tiny men who hammer away inside stone walls. He is not named, nor do we know his crime. But he listens. He listens to York's story. He sees the lady fall in love with the priest and wonders how such warmth is possible in these crumbling corridors. As tensions in "this enchanted place" build, he sees the corruption and the danger. And he waits as the hour of his own destiny approaches.

The Enchanted is a magical novel about redemption, the poetry that can exist within the unfathomable, and the human capacity to transcend and survive even the most nightmarish reality. Beautiful and unexpected, this is a memorable story."

For those of you who are lukewarm about reading this book, all you have to do is listen to the interview in this link between Rene Denfield, the author and a real life death row investigator, and Anna Maria Tremonti on CBC radio. After hearing this interview, I knew that this was a book that would be on the back of my mind knocking at my consciousness until I finally read it.

It did not disappoint.

This book covers some terrible scenes, corruption, fear, a prison system that is flawed, and a main character that has been able to overcome so much - a woman you will never learn the name of, from a death row inmate narrator whose crime you never learn. Somehow though, this book manages to tie itself together so neatly and so carefully at the end covering an almost impossible topic in such a setting - love.

This will be brought to Calgary Bookcrossing's "Darkness" themed October meeting, but in the meantime, a Mr. BookyMcBooks is eagerly waiting to read it first. (He listened to the interview too.)

In case my link didn't work: http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/episode/2014/07/09/author-rene-denfelds-stories-from-death-row/index.html

Picked this one up from Crataegus.

Looking forward to it after hearing the authors interview on CBC.

This book took me completely off guard.

The language and writing style is very fairy-tale like, and in contrast the subject matter is dark and modern.

I read this earlier in the month and thinking back, both the disturbing sections and poetic passages have stayed with me equally.

Returning to Crataegus to bring to the October Calgary BookCrossing meetup.

Grabbed at get together

I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it was this. This was very well written and wove the story nicely. I quite liked the writing style.

This was quite a dark read and somewhat disturbing. But at the same time, I thought it did a good job at presenting the different stories so that you could understand the different people, even when they had done something terrible - you could both understand them and recognize that they'd done a terrible thing which needed to be addressed.

Thank you for the interesting read.

Taken to get together

OK - I cam home with WAY too many books. But, my books are organized now by when I got them.

I actually listened to this book (downloaded). It is not a feel good story but rather one that catches you off guard with tender moments, then dark moments and a look into the minds of people living on death row. Powerful read. Listened to the interview afterwards and it was pretty powerful also.

I am bringing back a bunch of books to the August meetup at Cravings.

looking forward to reading

The story is told from the point of view from an inmate on death row awaiting execution. Although "the lady" and the inmate never have a conversation, the author threads their connection through her work as her job takes her to learn of people and places as she tries to save a life of another. We learn of her story as it runs parallel but we never learn her name!

Will bring to the next book club sharing

Got this book from the monthly book crossing meeting at Cravings Market Restaurant.

I really enjoyed the fairy tale style storytelling, especially with the raw and dark themes littered through the book. I also loved the tender moments that appeared with perfect timing. This book really surprised me.

Taking this book to the monthly book crossing meeting at Cravings Market Restaurant.

Picked up at the Feb. meeting

Taking to the Final Cravings meet up. I really liked the Child Finder so was excited to read another by the same author. it was very different but also had a bit of a similar fantasy world vibe from one of the characters.

To the finder:
Calgary has an active group of BookCrossers that meet to swap books and discuss book crossing every second Saturday of the month at 11am at Cravings Market on Fairmount Drive SE. We always love to meet new crossers, so please join us any time you like!