The Chrysalis » (Reprint)

Heather Terrell is a lawyer with more than ten years’ experience as a litigator at two of the country’s premier law firms and for Fortune 500 companies. She is a graduate of Boston College and of the Boston University School of Law. She lives in Pittsburgh. The Chrysalis is her first novel.

A thriller that spans centuries and continents THE CHRYSALIS tracks an artistic masterpiece that falls prey to the worst of human desires and a heroic attorney's struggle to right the wrongs of its history.

Mara Coyne has sweat blood and tears to reach the pinnacle at her prominent New York law firm, and now the client that will guarantee her partnership has fallen into her lap. The prestigious Beazley's auction house is about to auction a lost master work of Dutch painting, THE CHRYSALIS, in a sale destined for fame and fortune. Standing in the way, however, is the shocking claim that the painting belongs not to Beazley's, but to Hilda Baum, the daughter of a Dutch collector whose collection and life was pillaged by the Nazis.

It is Mara's job to prove that the painting is Beazley's, no matter how terrifying and heartbreaking Baum's story is. And she does, using the ruthless calculation that earned her the job. Her firm couldn't be happier, nor could Michael Roarke...

Beth Lindsay - Library Journal

Mara Coyne returns in Terrell's second novel, now heading her own firm in the aftermath of The Chrysalis case. Coyne accepts an assignment from prominent collector Richard Tobias to verify the provenance of a map located at-and subsequently stolen from-an archaelogical dig site. Proof of the existence of what is purported to be the earliest world map ever made would change our understanding of the history of the age of exploration. Terrell again follows three narrative paths, following Coyne on the hunt for the map in the present day while tracing the mapmaker in early 15th-century China and the eventual voyage of the map with Vasco de Gama's navigator. An intriguing blend of suspense and historical fiction featuring a strong protagonist in Coyne; for popular fiction collections.