The Enchanted

THE ENCHANTED wrapped its beautiful and terrible fingers around me from the first page and refused to let go after the last. A wondrous book that finds transcendence in the most unlikely of places, enshrouding horrible things in a gossamer veil of fantasy with a truly unforgettable narrator. So dark yet so exquisite

THE ENCHANTED is unlike anything I’ve ever read … A jubilant celebration that explores human darkness with a profound lyric tenderness and not one jot of sentimentality … contagious and seductive

Rene Denfeld is a genius. In THE ENCHANTED, she has imagined one of the grimmest settings in the world - a dank and filthy death row in a corrupt prison - and given us one of the most beautiful, heart-rending, and riveting novels I have ever read

A striking one-of-a-kind prison novel. The narrator, who is on death row and remains nameless until the book’s end, explains that the prison, although a place where “the walls sigh with sadness,” is enchanted: golden horses “run deep under the earth,” miniature men with miniature hammers hide in the walls, and “flibber-gibbets dance while the oven slowly ticks.” The narrator’s magical perspective - which is paradoxically necessary, perhaps, to preserve what remains of his sanity - contrasts heartbreakingly with the parallel tale of an investigator, also unnamed, who is tasked with finding details about the past of another death-row inmate, known as York, that will result in his sentence being commuted, even though York has decided he wants to die… Through the novel’s rich, haunting prose, Denfeld, who herself has worked as an investigator in death penalty cases, shines a light on lives led with capital punishment on the schedule. This is a stunning first novel from an already accomplished writer that will leave the reader hoping for more fiction in the author’s future - PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

Read this magical book, and prepare to be spellbound - LIBRARY JOURNAL

Rene Denfeld is a death penalty investigator and the author of three non-fiction books, including the international bestseller, The New Victorians. She has written for numerous publications, including THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE. She lives in Portland, Oregon, with her three children, all adopted from foster care. In addition to working with death-row clients, Ms. Denfeld volunteers with at-risk youth and in foster adoption advocacy.

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