Tonight!

Okay. This is going to be next on my list. After reading the book jacket and these reviews I can't NOT read it. I'll let you know what I thought.


About this Book:

On a burn ward, a man lies between living and dying, so disfigured that no one from his past life would even recognize him. His only comfort comes from imagining various inventive ways to end his misery. Then a woman named Marianne Engel walks into his hospital room, a wild-haired, schizophrenic sculptress on the lam from the psych ward upstairs, who insists that she knows him – that she has known him, in fact, for seven hundred years. She remembers vividly when they met, in another hospital ward at a convent in medieval Germany, when she was a nun and he was a wounded mercenary left to die. If he has forgotten this, he is not to worry: she will prove it to him.

And so Marianne Engel begins to tell him their story, carving away his disbelief and slowly drawing him into the orbit and power of a word he'd never uttered: love.


“There is an admirable clarity to his prose, a careful avoidance of the kind of turgid or melodramatic sentences one finds in lesser writers….The Gargoyle does not disappoint….Sweeping, intergenerational, wholly implausible, unapologetically melodramatic, and absolutely absorbing. While reading it I rolled my eyes more times than I care to remember; it was, at the same time, impossible to put down..”
—The Globe and Mail

“You want to be lost in its pages, immersed in the unfolding tale of the human gargoyle and a flesh and blood wraith. In the final analysis, the real tragedy of this book is that it ends.”
–New York Daily News

“It's wildly romantic, a la Diana Gabaldon, but anchored by a 21st-century sensibility that owes more to Chuck Palahniuk.”
–Winnipeg Free Press

“A wild page-turner and a boldly impudent work that flirts with the trappings of gothic romances, historical novels and fantasies while skirting their clichés and remaining defiantly unique.”–Edmonton Sun

"I was blown away by Andrew Davidson's The Gargoyle. . . . A hypnotic, horrifying, astonishing novel that manages, against all odds, to be redemptive."
–Sara Gruen, author of Water for Elephants

“After 44 years of reading anything I could get my hands on, including Moby-Dick, reading Andrew Davidson’s debut novel made me feel as if I were done. The Gargoyle had it all – all I’d ever wanted or needed from a book….[The] characters are rich and knowing, the imagery breathtaking, the voice and rhythm unfailing.”
–The Raabe Review

The Heretic's Daughter: A Novel

The Heretic's Daughter: A Novel

Martha Carrier was one of the first women to be accused, tried, and hanged as a witch in Salem, Massachusetts. This is the haunting story of Carrier's courageous defiance and ultimate death, as told by her daughter, Sarah

I really enjoyed this historical novel. I was engaged right from the beginning and I at one point found myself googleing "Cones of Sugar" to see what that was exactly. I felt emotionally tied up in the characters and by the end of the story I really felt that I had also learned a little more about what it may have been like to live through that terrible period of history.

Through Black Spruce by Joseph Boyden

We now have copies of Joseph Boyden's new book "Through Black Spruce" in stock at the Chat Noir Books, drop by to pick your copies I am sure they will be going quickly.

This past spring Jenn and I were grateful to have Joseph in the store where he read from both his books "Three Day road" and "Through Black Spruce". We then ran into Joseph again at Book Expo, where Jenn was greeted with a big hug and I with an advanced readers copy of "Through Black Spruce". It didn't take me long to devour my copy of "Through Black Spruce" and like "Three Day Road"(which rumour has it maybe turned into a major motion picture!!) it has since become one of my most favourite books. Joseph is truly a spinner of tales who creates characters so believable that you cannot wait to turn the page to find out what happens to them next.

From internationally acclaimed author Joseph Boyden comes an astonishingly powerful novel of contemporary aboriginal life, full of the dangers and harsh beauty of both forest and city. When beautiful Suzanne Bird disappears, her sister Annie, a loner and hunter, is compelled to search for her, leaving behind their uncle Will, a man haunted by loss.While Annie travels from Toronto to New York, from modelling studios to A-list parties,Will encounters dire troubles at home. Both eventually come to painful discoveries about the inescapable ties of family. Through Black Spruce is an utterly unforgettable consideration of how we discover who we really are.

"Through Black Spruce is an arresting novel with unexpected twists and turns. It's also an important contribution to the Native literary voice in this country."
—Tomson Highway, author of Kiss of the Fur Queen

“Joseph Boyden achieves a beautiful balance between his characters and nature, between the hardships of contemporary life and their strong connection to the past.”
—Nino Ricci, Author of The Origin of Species and Testament

Pretty dirty and I loved it

From the Publisher:
Pretty Little Dirty

Lisa sees the life of her gorgeous best friend Celeste as just about perfect: she has a gigantic house, two older sisters to coach her through the hazards of high school, and loving, lively parents. As Lisa's own home has long been a place devoid of joyful noise—her mother has shut herself off in her bedroom for years—Lisa joins the Diamond household, slipping into their routine of sit-down suppers and soaking in the delicious normalcy of Diamond family life. But what begins as the story of two young women living a charmed adolescence, one of mastering dance moves and the protocols of male-female interaction, soon swirls into an intoxicating novel of art, music, and self-destructive impulses as Lisa and Celeste dare each other ever onward.

From Me:
Okay - loved it! Really loved it. It is raw and rough and slightly nasty and that all turns out to be a good thing. I felt like I was reading a real story of real teenage girls when I read this. I often feel like coming of age stories are written the way authors wished life was rather than how raw it often is. This book was a great example of a story that your grandmother would probably not approve of and it's totally worth the read.

Temiskaming Tourist Attractions & George Straatman's new book!

Tourist Attractions in Temiskaming...

Next week the New Liskeard Fall Fairr begins, which we always look forward to attending. since we started gardening, pickling and making our own jams, Jenn and I also like to check out the local Homecraft section.

Speaking of local attractions and events, Barb from the our local Chamber has created a wonderful list of Local attractions for the Temiskaming area. You can download the list by clicking HERE.


In Book News...


We just got in our copies of George Straatman's second book "The Converging: Mark of the Demon". Hopefully sometime in the near future we will also have George in for a book reading and signing!!

“Our day of reckoning will come, though not for some years. Know this; you cannot die unless I allow you to. I can cause you to suffer a limitless amount of agony if I so choose." The Baroness Cynara Saravic to a young Nathaniel Simpson.

After laying waste to the small Washington town of Semelar, the Demon Cynara Saravic leaves the United States with her coveted prize firmly in her grasp. Paving a bloody road of death and despair, that leads her from a remote village in Northern Mexico through the very home of the Roman Catholic Church, Cynara returns to her ancestral homeland of Romania to bask in her triumph and enjoy the spoils of her conquest. The ancient soil resonates with the agonized screams of Cynara’s past victims and these bloody ghosts cry out for retribution. The children of these restless victims will converge upon Cynara, intent upon forever purging her evil from the world. Among them will come Nathaniel Simpson and Jimmy Simms, two men driven to pursue a seemingly unstoppable monster, each driven by their own complex motivations of revenge and closure. Together they will join the beautiful and tempestuous Contayza Prowzi…a living weapon forged in the furnace of long-harboured hatred and vengeance…and confront Satan’s favourite daughter.

As Cynara prepares to meet their challenge, she discovers her greatest adversaries are not the engines of revenge that her past evils have set in motion, but rather love and her own conflicted nature.

George Straatman’s epic horror trilogy The Converging continues with the second segment, Mark of the Demon. Part intense horror and part psychological thriller, Mark of the Demon will plunge the reader into the deepest recesses of Cynara Saravic’s dark and twisted soul

FAQ

1. Are your books for sale?

Yes the books are for sale.

2. Are you a Library?

No we are not a Library.

3. Can I borrow a book and return it later?

No you cannot borrow the books and return them later.