Shakespeare's Landlord

I wasn't sure if I was going to like this book at first. I couldn't stand the main character to start with but I'm glad I stuck with it. It ended up being a really good story with a good ending.

Read Q&A with Author and she days she has no more to say about Lily so no more books. I'll stop at book 1 then. Why continue to support a 5 or 6 book series? No sense in investing in a character for 5 books.

This is another series I loved by Mrs Harris. Shakespeare's Landlord is my favorite. The characters in the book are all entertaining as well. Short read and will not bore you.

Lily Bard is a woman with a tortured past, literally. She has come to the sleepy town of Shakespeare to escape that past, to a place where no one will know her and what happened to her. She cleans houses for a living, which lets her live on the fringes of society but not part of it. A man is found dead in the apartment house next door to where she lives and someone uses her trash can to dispose of the body. To protect her secret Lily is drawn into the lives of people that could expose her secret, so she has to find out who killed her neighbor, before they find out about her. Lily Bard is one of the best drawn female characters of any mystery series I have read. This woman feels real, you really feel her pain and her determination to never be a victim again. The story draws you in, I couldn't put it down and couldn't wait to get the next one in the series. I highly recommend this book.

In the 1st book in the Lily Bard Mystery series, we are introduced to the complex character of Lily Bard. Lily is healing from emotional and physical scars she received in a brutal attack several years before, and has moved to the small town of Shakespeare, Arkansas, to escape the horror of that experience. On an evening that she has trouble sleeping, she watches an unknown person transport a dead body to the arboretum across the street from her home. The killer dumps the body, and leaves Lily to decide whether to expose herself and her secrets to the police, or to leave the dead body exposed to the elements. She provides an anonymous tip to the police, and finds herself as a target for violence once again. Working closely with the chief of police, Lily struggles to catch a killer while learning to heal some of the deep wounds from her past. This book grabbed me right from the beginning and wouldn't let go until I had finished it much, much later that night. A voracious reader, I could read a book a day...if my schedule permitted. With this book, however, the schedule flew out the window, I blocked out everything else, and I settled in for a nice rainy evening with a great book. I was quickly transported to the small town of Shakespeare into the troubled life of Lily. I loved her dark, brooding character and enjoyed watching her learn to open up and to begin to trust others while facing some of the demons from her past. Lily is a strong yet vulnerable character, and I look forward to watching her evolve and blossom in future installments in this series. Most books in the cozy genre are not as dark or haunting, and I found my thoughts returning to Lily long after I had finished the book. Lily reminds me somewhat of Kinsey Millhone, and if you are a fan of the series by Sue Grafton, you may want to give this book a try. The next book in the series is called "Shakespeare's Champion". Enjoy!

I have one piece of advice to anybody interested in Shakespeare's Landlord: buy it, borrow it, whatever, just read it as soon as possible. Put it at the top of your pile. You'll be glad you did. Lily Bard is one of the most compelling and, frankly, admirable heroines I have ever come across. She's got a very dark past, and from the very first page it's clear how much sheer will it has taken for her to make a new life for herself. Lily is independent, blunt, ass-kicking, solitary, and smart as hell. The Shakespeare books are mysteries, and they're good ones, but the reason to read them is to watch Lily Bard's character grow and change. Charlaine Harris has a tremendous ability to infuse the most quotidien events with incredible depth, a true master of the 'show don't tell' school of writing. Her characters are both ordinary and monumental, and she writes about the South in a way that (really!) bears comparison to Faulkner and Toni Morrison. The Shakespeare series in particular picks up on a lot of very delicate issues and tackles them head on: questions of race, class, and gender end up tangled in the crimes Lily has to solve. For women, in particular, thinking about how Lily has changed in response to her own past can be a real eye-opener.

I've enjoyed Ms. Harris's works for years, well before this series began, and when I ran across it, I was thrilled.My first reading, however, proved disappointing. I was used to the lighter, humorous tone of the Aurora Teagarden series and was a bit unprepared for the darker Lily Bard.And then, I loosened up and let myself go with it, and I'm all the better for it. I have encountered few characters as well drawn as Lily Bard. She is an incredibly complex character, yet painted so deftly that the reader gets a full sense of her person. While it is much easier to accomplish this feat with the first-person, as is used here, Ms. Harris allows us to learn about Lily primarily through her actions and interactions with others.The plot itself is not out of the ordinary--someone's dead, Lily is suspected, she must find the real killer before the cops close in on her, but it's the main character that makes this novel stand out. Why, oh why hasn't someone bought the movie rights to this series?!?

To Lily Bard, the small, sleepy town of Shakespeare, Arkansas is the perfect place to hide her past. After being brutally gang raped years before, Lily has painstakingly rebuilt her life. She is now must stronger physically and is gaining confidence in her martial arts studies. However, she still disguises her looks and maintains a low profile. After all, housecleaners aren't exactly noticed. But all of that changes when she witnesses a murder...Suddenly she is faced with a difficult choice - to share what she has learned with the police and lose her hard-won anonymity and gain unwanted attention or to pretend that she never saw anything. Then her married karate instructor starts showing a passionate interest in her and her plan of a private, well-ordered life comes unhinged. Meanwhile, the killer of an unlamented landlord is lurking nearby. And while Lily knows the inside dirt on her neighbors' dust, drawers and private lives, she must admit to a secret of her own: that in the shadow of a brutal murder, she is coming alive again...This is a short, well-written mystery that will hook you on the Shakespeare/Lily Bard series written so ably by Charlaine Harris. Lily is a fascinating character as she is so strong/tough and yet has her softer side and her weaknesses. In short, she is human. The way she solves the murder is quite entertaining as she uses her knowledge of cleaning the various locations in Shakespeare to eliminate suspects as she goes along. I found the book to be quite humorous as Lily has a wry, dry sense of humor that is very appealing. I highly recommend this book to mystery buffs and for those who enjoyed any of Mrs. Harris' other books. It is unfortunate that books 2 & 3 in the series are out of print, but if I was able to hunt them down, you can too - its well worth it!