Terrell, Heather

PERSONAL:

Married; husband's name Jim; children: Jack. Education: Earned degrees from Boston College and Boston University School of Law. Hobbies and other interests: Art history, history, archaeology, visiting museums.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Edgeworth, PA.

CAREER:

Lawyer. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP & Affiliates, New York, NY; Morrison & Foerster LLP, New York, NY.

WRITINGS:

The Chrysalis: A Novel, Ballantine Books (New York, NY), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Attorney Heather Terrell told Joe Hartlaub in a Bookreporter.com interview that in the beginning years of her career as litigator for some of New York's most prestigious law firms, a friend posed to her a difficult, if hypothetical, dilemma: Would she be willing to represent a client who was legally within his rights but whose position was morally wrong in Terrell's view? ‘Over the weeks that followed, [my friend's] question stayed with me,’ she told Hartlaub. ‘Then, I came across an article describing the emergence of cases in which families of Holocaust victims attempted to recover artwork stolen by the Nazis during World War II,’ she continued. ‘I did some research and learned of some inequities inherent in the law. I had an answer to my friend's question: If I were ever asked to represent a client in its efforts to keep artwork from a Holocaust victim's heirs, I hoped I would decline, even if precedent supported the client's arguments.’ This scenario grew into the plot of The Chrysalis: A Novel, which took Terrell over a decade to write.

The Chrysalis centers, in part, around Mara Coyne, a lawyer asked to represent Beazley's, a New York auction house that is selling ‘The Chrysalis,’ a seventeenth-century Dutch painting of questionable history. Hilda Baum, whose family lived in the Netherlands during World War II and was persecuted because of a single distant Jewish ancestor, claims that the painting rightfully belongs to her, as the Nazis stole the piece from her family. Baum is suing Beazley's for return of the painting, and Mara is asked to defend the auction house. While there seems to be an unimpeachable paper trail confirming the company's claim to the painting, Mara digs deeper. What she finds is enough to give her ethical pause, made worse by the secretive burgeoning relationship between herself and Michael Roarke—her former law school crush and current in-house legal counsel for Beazley's. All of these elements combine to create a book that blends mystery, courtroom drama, and romance.

Terrell does not just keep her novel in present-day America, however; the narrative also travels to the controversy surrounding the painting's creation in seventeenth-century Netherlands and to the Nazi plunder of valued artwork in 1940s Berlin. Johannes Miereveld, the fictional Dutch master who created the work named in the novel's title, struggles in relative obscurity until his work is finally noticed and he receives a commission to paint the family of a local government official. The advantageousness of the offer is somewhat marred when Miereveld makes the mistake of falling in love with the official's daughter, as the relationship is forbidden by the class structure of the time. The book's chapters based in Europe during World War II show how the greed and heartlessness of Nazi officials led to charges directed at those with valuable collections. Hilda Baum's father, Erich, is one such victim, eventually dying in prison as the Nazis pillage his extensive and valuable art collection.

Many reviewers remarked upon the author's plot device of interweaving three distinct yet interconnected stories. In a review for the Curled Up with a Good Book Web site, Regan Windsor specifically observed the the book's ‘distinct and fascinating line between past and present.’ While a Kirkus Reviews contributor found a lack of depth to the plot, calling the story ‘thinner than paint varnish,’ many reviewers had nothing but praise for Terrell's freshman effort. Mystery Reader Web site reviewer Andy Plonka remarked that with her extensive research in both law and art history, coupled with her thorough yet easily understood explication, Terrell ‘educates as well as entertains’ in this ‘extremely well done’ novel with an ‘intriguing premise.’ While Lorraine Gelly pointed out in her review for ReviewingTheEvidence.com, the ‘strong and realistic characters’ and ‘richly detailed’ historical periods, Curled Up With A Good Book Web site critic Regan Windsor summed up an opinion shared by many reviewers when he called The Chrysalis ‘a masterpiece of art, history and … amazing deception."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2007, review of The Chrysalis: A Novel.

Library Journal, April 1, 2007, Beth Lindsay, review of The Chrysalis, p. 84.

ONLINE

Bookreporter.com,http://www.bookreporter.com/ (May 18, 2007), Joe Hartlaub, interview with Heather Terrell; (November 8, 2007), Joe Hartlaub, review of The Chrysalis.

Curled Up with a Good Book,http://www.curledup.com/ (November 7, 2007), Regan Windsor, review of The Chrysalis.

Mystery Reader,http://www.themysteryreader.com/ (November 7, 2007), Andy Plonka, review of The Chrysalis.

Pittsburgh City Paper Online,http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/ (August 30, 2007), Bill O'Driscoll, review of The Chrysalis.

ReviewingTheEvidence.com,http://www.reviewingtheevidence.com/ (November 7, 2007), Lorraine Gelly, review of The Chrysalis.