The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson

The Gargoyle is the debut novel by Canadian Author Andrew Davidson. It is a psychological thriller which centers around love, reincarnation, drug addiction, and mental illness. It has two main timelines. One story is told in the present, and one is related as a memory of a distant past in another lifetime. The two main characters of the story, Marianne Engel and a man who was badly burned in a near fatal car accident, are lovers who meet again despite the odds across centuries of time. Marianne, a sculptor, begins visiting the burned man while he recovers in a hospital. Initially suicidal, he become a morphine addict and is convinced that there is a serpent living in his spine. Although he is initially incredulous when Marianne tells her story, the two quickly become close.

Marianne tells the burned man a story from a past life. As a baby, she was left to the care of nuns in a 14th Century German monastery in a place called the 'Valley of the Angels.' It is discovered that she has a talent for languages, and is able to speak languages that she has never learned before. Later on, a severely burned man arrives at the monastery and is cared for by Marianne. They escape from the monastery so that he is not caught and prosecuted as a deserter by his former troop, and they start a married life together.

They eventually come across a fellow soldier of the burned man who is also looking to desert. The three live together for a time until they are hunted down by mercenaries. The two men are executed, and Marianne is chased to a frozen river. There, she falls through the ice. Somehow, she manages to evade the mercenaries and live into the present day. She must live as a sculptor, instilling hearts into each of her sculptures, until she can one day find her lover across the ages, give her heart to him, and be released from her curse.