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Leslie Carroll

Goodreads Author

Born

New York, The United States

Website

http://www.lesliecarroll.com/

Genre

Literature & Fiction, Romance

Member Since

June 2011

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I used to tell people that I was born in Manhattan and raised in the Bronx; but the truth is that apart from the stellar education I received at the Fieldston School in Riverdale, much of who I am was shaped by my two grandmothers, who encouraged me to follow my bliss long before it became the sort of catchphrase you find on tee-shirts and new-age tchotchkes. My East Side grandmother took me to FAO Schwarz, the New York City Ballet, and afternoon tea at the Plaza Hotel, where I dreamed of becoming another Eloise. My West Side grandmother took me to the Central Park carousel and the zoo and treated me to colorful paper parasols and gummy, lukewarm pretzels from the vendors whose wares my East Side grandmother deemed too "dirty" for human con I used to tell people that I was born in Manhattan and raised in the Bronx; but the truth is that apart from the stellar education I received at the Fieldston School in Riverdale, much of who I am was shaped by my two grandmothers, who encouraged me to follow my bliss long before it became the sort of catchphrase you find on tee-shirts and new-age tchotchkes. My East Side grandmother took me to FAO Schwarz, the New York City Ballet, and afternoon tea at the Plaza Hotel, where I dreamed of becoming another Eloise. My West Side grandmother took me to the Central Park carousel and the zoo and treated me to colorful paper parasols and gummy, lukewarm pretzels from the vendors whose wares my East Side grandmother deemed too "dirty" for human consumption.

There are writers on both sides of my family, and although I always loved to write, I never anticipated that it would become my profession. I had wanted to be a ballerina; and though my club feet were corrected at birth (from the stilettos I adore now, you'd never know) and my short Achilles tendons made my toes turn in (corrected at the age of 9), I was never going to end up en pointe.

About a year later, I decided to become an actress when (if?) I grew up, and I never looked back. I majored in Theatre at Cornell University, worked in summer stock, and took classes with a couple of acknowledged masters. I performed a lot of Shakespeare and other classics in New York parks, basements, church choir lofts, and the occasional Off-Broadway theatre; then founded and ran my own nonprofit theatre company for several years. And when things got slow, and I found myself working three survival jobs simultaneously (one of them as a journalist and editor), I decided it was time to pursue an additional creative avenue.

Fast forward a decade. I'm now a multi-published author in three genres, as well as a freelance journalist. And I've also adapted a number of classic texts (Ivanhoe; The Prisoner of Zenda; The Scarlet Pimpernel; Mark Twain's The Diaries of Adam and Eve) for the stage. I began writing women's fiction and historical fiction simultaneously, but my first published novel was the urban romantic comedy Miss Match in 2002. In 2005, as I continued to write about feisty female New Yorkers, my first historical novel was published under the pen name Amanda Elyot. While keeping those literary plates spinning I made my historical nonfiction debut in the spring of 2008.

In what I laughingly refer to as my spare time, I'm still a professional actress, working when the scripts and the roles excite me.

I'm such a native New Yorker that I still don't have a driver's license, "Big Sky Country" means Central Park, and the farthest I've ever been from the Upper West Side for any great length of time was my four-year stint upstate in Ithaca, at Cornell, known for its rigorous academics and its equally harsh permafrost.

My birthday falls on the same day as two of my heroes—F. Scott Fitzgerald and Jim Henson. So I reread The Great Gatsby every year and number Miss Piggy among the great actresses of her generation. My favorite color is deep hydrangea blue, and it just kills me that it doesn't look good with red hair.

I live in Manhattan with my husband Scott—who is my hero and everything I ever dreamed of. For the past couple of years we've been considering an addition to the family in the form of a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. ...more

17 posts
Leslie Carroll's Blog

Where Did 2011 Go?

I'd intended to write this post on the first of the year, figuring at least it would become an "annual tradition" to write a blog post -- which was never my original intention when I began blogging. But I got so busy! On January 1, 2012, I was deep into revisions of my upcoming nonfiction opus, ROYAL ROMANCES: TITILLATING TALES OF PASSION AND POWER IN THE PALACES OF EUROPE (a November 2012 release Read more of this blog post »

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Published on January 09, 2012 04:45

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Combine Editions
Leslie Carroll’s books

Average rating: 3.69 · 6,069 ratings · 718 reviews · 31 distinct works • Similar authors

	Notorious Royal Marriages 3.94 avg rating — 1,580 ratings — published 2009 — 15 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Royal Affairs: A Lusty Romp Through the Extramarital Adventures That Rocked the British Monarchy 3.89 avg rating — 924 ratings — published 2008 — 11 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Royal Pains: A Rogues' Gallery of Brats, Brutes, and Bad Seeds 3.73 avg rating — 885 ratings — published 2011 — 11 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	American Princess: The Love Story of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry – The Biracial Actress Who Brought the British Royals into the 21st Century 3.45 avg rating — 878 ratings — published 2018 — 9 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Inglorious Royal Marriages: A Demi-Millennium of Unholy Mismatrimony 3.84 avg rating — 457 ratings — published 2014 — 9 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Royal Romances: Titillating Tales of Passion and Power in the Palaces of Europe 3.78 avg rating — 412 ratings — published 2012 — 13 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Play Dates: A Satirical Novel of Divorce, Reinvention, and Survival in New York's Elite Society 3.16 avg rating — 188 ratings — published 2005 — 17 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Herself 3.14 avg rating — 154 ratings — published 2007 — 11 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Spin Doctor: A Novel of Women, Secrets, and Laundry Room Friendship on the Upper West Side 2.80 avg rating — 137 ratings — published 2006 — 13 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Temporary Insanity: A Hilarious and Touching Novel About Office Romance and Broadway Dreams 2.97 avg rating — 113 ratings — published 2004 — 9 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by Leslie Carroll (?)

“It was a popular theory at the time that death didn't automatically end a marriage because the spouses would eventually be reunited in heaven. The most pragmatic reason for the Church's view was that England was a land-based society and property was inherited upon the death of a spouse, so a remarriage threatened the inheritance of any issue from the previous union.”
― Leslie Carroll, Notorious Royal Marriages

tags: 1400-s, elizabeth-woodville, eternal-life, eternal-love, eternal-marriage, king-edward-iv, remarriage, white-queen, widowhood

1 likes

“Motherhood had been metamorphosing Marie Antoinette into a more grounded and responsible woman. Her pregnancies had necessitated several months' absence from her usual round of gay amusements and she discovered that it was more fun to spend time with her children than it had been to play faro deep into the wee hours of the morning.
But her reputation as a frivolous, extravagant ninny and the marital issues in the royal bed had already demonized her in the eyes of the people at all levels of society.”
― Leslie Carroll, Notorious Royal Marriages

tags: france, french-history, marie-antoinette

1 likes

“Queen Jane Seymour's epitaph, inscribed in Latin, translated roughly to:
Here lies Jane, a phoenix
Who died in giving another phoenix birth,
Let her be mourned, for birds like these
Are rare indeed.”
― Leslie Carroll, Notorious Royal Marriages

tags: henry-viii, jane-seymour, king-edward-vi, phoenix

1 likes

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Polls

Executive decision - The Princes in the Tower

A new year of reads! January is non-fiction month (biography or history). Voting will be open until Sunday, December 11th.

The Princes in the Tower

Alison Weir

3 votes, 100.0%

The Last Duel

Eric Jager

0 votes, 0.0%

Inglorious Royal Marriages: A Demi-Millennium of Unholy Mismatrimony

Leslie Carroll

0 votes, 0.0%

The Gangs of New York

Herbert Asbury

0 votes, 0.0%

Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition

Owen Beattie

0 votes, 0.0%

The Maid and the Queen: The Secret History of Joan of Arc

Nancy Goldstone

0 votes, 0.0%

3 total votes

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