Jennifer Lee Carrell
I've always wanted to write books; early on, my fallback career choices were ballerina and astronaut. It has something of a surprise, though, to find myself writing thrillers. I am now working on a novel of historical fiction about one of my favorite paintings, Jan Van Eyck's Arnolfini Wedding.
Learn more at my web site:
www.jenniferleecarrell.com
, or visit me on
. I welcome interaction with readers!
A NOTE ABOUT MY REVIEWS: I include the following:
Five Stars: books of many genres that hang incandescently in my imagination
Everything else - unstarred: books that I admire in the genres of historical fiction, mystery & thriller, fantasy & fairy tales, Shakespeare, and History. For the sake of time and my sanity, I include here only those books that are in some way relevant to what I write. The exception is my Children's Book list, which lists the books I loved most as a child.
If a book is listed here, I have either read and admired it, or it's in my "must read" pile. I'll be gradually trying to say why for many of them...
“If you don't want the nickname, don't live up to it.”
“An ancient mustiness padded the air, tinged with with an acrid scent-a trace of the war between paper and oxygen, played out in slow inexorable burn that would one day crumble this empire to dust." -page 62”
“Right, then.” He pointed across to a bank of phones against the wall. “If you want to check your voice mail, now’s the time.”“Where’s my phone?”“Out of service.”“It was fine in the car.”“It’s not fine now.”“What’d you do to it?”“Put it out of our misery. I’m sorry, Kate. But every minute it’s on, you’re traceable to within the length of a football field, anywhere on the planet.”
“But there were other great writers who had done all these things. What set Shakespeare apart...even from other greats, was his generosity: his invitation, even insistence,for others to join him in the act of imagining...His reticence [to add stage directions] made his works wonderfully elastic. It also made them demnding--sometimes maddeningly so--for directors and actors who had to figure out at every turn why these words and no others needed to be said right here and now. But Shakespeare was also demanding of his audiences: 'Yes,' you could almost hear him say, 'you are sitting in a fairly barren wooden theater. But dream yourselves to France. To a seacoast in Bohemia. To a magic-haunted island in a tempest-tossed sea. I dare you.' -Kate Stanley”
“That the good that we do might live on after us, while the evil lies interred with their bones.”