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dvampyrlestat
Author: Jennifer Lee Carrell
My rating: 4 out of 5
Book Description:
A long-lost work of Shakespeare, newly found.
A killer who stages the Bard’s extravagant murders as flesh-and-blood realities.
A desperate race to find literary gold, and just to stay alive. . . .
On the eve of the Globe’s production of Hamlet, Shakespeare scholar and theater director Kate Stanley’s eccentric mentor Rosalind Howard gives her a mysterious box, claiming to have made a groundbreaking discovery. But before she can reveal it to Kate, the Globe burns to the ground and Roz is found dead . . . murdered precisely in the manner of Hamlet’s father. Inside the box Kate finds the first piece in a Shakespearean puzzle, setting her on a deadly, high-stakes treasure hunt.
From London to Harvard to the American West, Kate races to evade a killer and decipher a tantalizing string of clues, hidden in the words of Shakespeare, that may unlock literary history’s greatest secret. Read more
The Dan Brown Syndrome. That's what I call this genre of fiction-writing where the line between truth and fiction are blurred masterfully. True, some other novelists were already writing in this manner way before Dan Brown was probably even born, but to date, he's the most worthy of note.
This time Jennifer Lee Carrell takes on Shakespeare, about the man and the mysteries and myths surrounding the man himself and his works. Most of all, it takes on these questions: Who is he, really? Did he really exist? Did he really write those plays and sonnets?
All the vital elements are there. An extraordinary plot, scholarly, literary and historical points given much treatment (the author, after all, is a Shakespearean scholar). There is something to be said about writing about a man who figured so greatly in history (or if not, in the history of literature) yet whom so little is known about. Gossips about his identity and the validity of his claim to have written those various magnum opus were toyed with to no end in this novel.
The book rushes along at break-neck speed, crossing continents, touching on literary tidbits here and there. (It made me want to reread my old volume of Cervantes' Don Quixote.) Through her quest, the presence of Shakespeare lingers, hovers in the air.
Carrell knows how to combine thrill and action on paper while poking at one's brains. Sometimes, though, her prose becomes less prose-y and more scholar-ly. But this might be forgivable, since it is in the voice of the Shakespearean scholar Kate Stanley that the story is speaking.
However, if there is one thing I want in the books I read, I want to be able to feel the characters. While written in the first-person, I found myself still grasping at air, trying to get into Kate's subconscious. I could not sympathize with her. While her quest involves getting at the truth about the Shakespearean deaths that followed her trail, I found myself not caring one whit about that. I just wanted to find out about Shakespeare and his lost manuscript. (Was it revealed in the end? Hmmm....Not telling!)
The love angle interspersed in various areas of the story were, I could only say, awkward. The author could have done without them (and be better off, IMO.).
Over all, I think this was a good debut novel, well worth the read. Can't put it down. I look forward to her other future works.
-----
After a Steve Berry double whammy involving the Vatican and the Templars, I knew it was time for something...non-religious? So my eyes fell on this book about Shakespeare. (I guess "religious" is relative, eh? Some people revere Shakespeare in an almost god-like manner.) Looked promising enough (and no, the fact that the author and I share the same first names did NOT figure in the equation).
I have this huuge volume at home, given to me as a present by my Lit prof in college. It's the Oxford collection of all Shakespeare's writings...I've only managed to read about half of them....*embarassed*
My closest brush to theatrical Shakespeare was in my first year in college, Lit class. We staged HENRY VI and I played Joan of Arc....it was fun (and the nobleman who captures Joan was played by my crush, so I was like, "that's ok, you can hurt me for real. Just don't...set fire on me...)
This time Jennifer Lee Carrell takes on Shakespeare, about the man and the mysteries and myths surrounding the man himself and his works. Most of all, it takes on these questions: Who is he, really? Did he really exist? Did he really write those plays and sonnets?
All the vital elements are there. An extraordinary plot, scholarly, literary and historical points given much treatment (the author, after all, is a Shakespearean scholar). There is something to be said about writing about a man who figured so greatly in history (or if not, in the history of literature) yet whom so little is known about. Gossips about his identity and the validity of his claim to have written those various magnum opus were toyed with to no end in this novel.
The book rushes along at break-neck speed, crossing continents, touching on literary tidbits here and there. (It made me want to reread my old volume of Cervantes' Don Quixote.) Through her quest, the presence of Shakespeare lingers, hovers in the air.
Carrell knows how to combine thrill and action on paper while poking at one's brains. Sometimes, though, her prose becomes less prose-y and more scholar-ly. But this might be forgivable, since it is in the voice of the Shakespearean scholar Kate Stanley that the story is speaking.
However, if there is one thing I want in the books I read, I want to be able to feel the characters. While written in the first-person, I found myself still grasping at air, trying to get into Kate's subconscious. I could not sympathize with her. While her quest involves getting at the truth about the Shakespearean deaths that followed her trail, I found myself not caring one whit about that. I just wanted to find out about Shakespeare and his lost manuscript. (Was it revealed in the end? Hmmm....Not telling!)
The love angle interspersed in various areas of the story were, I could only say, awkward. The author could have done without them (and be better off, IMO.).
Over all, I think this was a good debut novel, well worth the read. Can't put it down. I look forward to her other future works.
-----
After a Steve Berry double whammy involving the Vatican and the Templars, I knew it was time for something...non-religious? So my eyes fell on this book about Shakespeare. (I guess "religious" is relative, eh? Some people revere Shakespeare in an almost god-like manner.) Looked promising enough (and no, the fact that the author and I share the same first names did NOT figure in the equation).
I have this huuge volume at home, given to me as a present by my Lit prof in college. It's the Oxford collection of all Shakespeare's writings...I've only managed to read about half of them....*embarassed*
My closest brush to theatrical Shakespeare was in my first year in college, Lit class. We staged HENRY VI and I played Joan of Arc....it was fun (and the nobleman who captures Joan was played by my crush, so I was like, "that's ok, you can hurt me for real. Just don't...set fire on me...)
