Intellectual Thrills

Okay, that heading sounds a bit snobby, but I believe in its accuracy.

The intellectual thrills I refer too are books written by Long Island resident Carol Goodman. Since her first book, written at the age of nine (the crayon-illustrated “Adventures of the Magical Herd” in which a girl named Carol lives with a herd of magical horses), Goodman knew she would be a writer.

Thank goodness for that! Goodman's books all revolve around the relationships between older women in roles of authority and younger girls, history, the arts, and, yes, death. Her first novel, The Lake of Dead Languages, focuses on a Latin teacher in an all girls' school; the next, The Seduction of Water, on literature; The Drowning Tree examines stained glass and The Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood of artists; five artists-in-residence reside in the Bosco estate in The Ghost Orchid; Shakespeare's poetry is key in The Sonnet Lover; and the ruins of Herculaneum, destroyed with Pompeii by Mount Vesuvius, is at the core of The Night Villa (which features a particularly thrilling scene involving underground tunnels!).

Goodman excels at both creating gripping, tantalizing plots that can have readers page-turning all night, and also provide good backgrounds to her books historic elements, without being bogged down in too many details to interrupt the flow of the scene. Her characters are real, and flawed (otherwise they wouldn't get themselves into these fixes!), vulnerable yet fearless when they need to be (and with some of the situations they find themselves in, they need to be!). They all flow with beauty and chills, culminating in the climax and satisfying, surprising conclusions.

If you're looking for something for a day at the beach, a long airplane ride, a rainy afternoon, grad some Goodman!