Haunt Me Still by Jennifer Lee Carrell

Haunt Me Still by Jennifer Lee Carrel
Dutton
406 Pages
Copyright 2010

From the book:

The Bard's witch-haunted play is famously cursed - its reputation for malevolence so strong that many actors refuse to quote or even name the play aloud. And as Kate Stanley begins rehearsals at the foot of Scotland's Dunsinnan Hill, it doesn't take long for the curse to stir. Strange references emerge to the boy actor who first played Lady MacBeth in Shakespeare's day and died in the role. A trench atop the hill is found filled with blood shortly after some of the actors go missing. And a mysterious tarot card leads Kate into the woods, where she finds a local woman dead in circumstances that suggest not just ritual murder, but ancient pagan sacrifice.

With Kate marked as both suspect and future victim, she and Ben Pearl, the man who saved her life as she chased Shakespeare's lost play, find themselves in a desperate race to discover a dangerous version of MacBeth said to contain actual rituals of witchcraft and forbidden knowledge. However much Kate would like to dismiss such rituals as superstition, someone else appears willing to kill for them - and for the cursed manuscript said to be Shakespeare's darkest secret.

I chose to go with the book summary because I don't think I can do it justice on my own. Carrel writes incredibly rich, incredibly intense, complex mysteries unlike any others I've ever read. Her first book,
Interred with Their Bones, dealt with the search for a missing Shakespeare play and what people would do for it. This one deals with what lies behind the Bard's play MacBeth and what people will do to uncover the secrets, and conversely, what others will do to make sure those secrets never see the light of day. Mix in the witchcraft, ghosts, murder, and betrayal and you've got one of the best stories I've read in a long time.

Carrel has the ability to make both her characters and places feel very real. Here's an example:

Beyond that, I looked up to see the ancient oak, unmistakable in its majesty. There was no sign of Lily, or of anyone else. I bent down panting, my hands on my knees, gazing at the tree, an aged emperor asleep in the watery morning sun, crutches propping up low branches thicker than most of the other trees in the wood. "It" was not a pronoun that came to mind. He was recognizably the same tree as the one pictured on Lily's tarot card. Around him, the air was golden and heavy and silent, thick not only with a strange heavy sleepiness, but with something old and anguished, even angry, despite the sweet haze of autumn.

There is one problem with the story, however, but it is purely personal; there isn't enough Ben Pearl. He's here, but not nearly enough. I fell in love with both Ben and Kate in the first book so I missed his presence. That's a nice tribute to Carrel, by the way.

Recommendation: Anyone who can make me want to learn more about Shakespeare and to read his works is a genius. Pure and simple. Carrel manages to bring what is consider by far too many to be dull and boring to life in a way that's hard to ignore.