The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson is a literary historical fiction romance that immediately captured my attention once I discovered it by accident. While I rarely read romance, the premise of the story in which a woman claims to be a severely burnt victim of a car crash that she has lived for hundreds of years and that they were destined to reunite was just too much excitement for me to pass up on. I usually find these types of stories to be fascinating not only due to my love for history itself, but I usually associate the tellings of these stories of the past and present as somehow goosebump-inducing on my skin.

Written in the first person perspective, our burnt victim employs at times hilarious and laugh-out-loud jokes about himself and the situation he’s now faced with. It’s a relief as Marianne, whom he encounters after a while in the hospital, is usually a more serious character. One would expect a story about a surviving crash victim to go through dark times along with having suicidal thoughts and being drained of love for anything and anyone until they meet a certain someone or go through a certain life-transforming scenario for a second time. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the stories that Marianne tells to the narrator of her past along with stories of other characters that you just know will somehow be all connected in the end.

A suicide is not something you want to screw up. Especially if, like me, you’re already facing the prospect of spending your entire life looking like last week’s dim sum. – Narrator

While The Gargoyle can be classified as a romance novel, I did feel some disconnect between the narrator and Marianne in this regard while in the present time. While it’s obvious that the narrator is grateful for having met Marianne and for having turned his life around, regardless of the weird circumstances of how they met, I somehow didn’t feel the spark between them. I didn’t mind too much about this, as the story itself kept me motivated to finish the novel, and I’m certainly glad that I did.

So you’re in a unique position to understand what most people never will, that skin is the clothing but not the essence of a person. Society pays lip service to the idea that beauty is only skin deep, but who understands like we do? – Narrator