What do You think about Shakespeare's Counselor (2005)?
The series finale for Lily Bard ranked a disappointing 'ok' for me; Lily had been such a well-constructed heroine up to this point - she had a brutal backstory that shaped her into the person she was: wary, distrustful, solitary and standoffish. I truly believed this novel would provide her the opportunity to complete her character arc. I was not expecting a fairy godmother-like transformation but hey - a likeable Lily would have been nice. Instead she's standoffish, at times openly churlish (and unprovoked to be same) and even describes herself by saying 'I know I was being a pill' and 'I was being purposefully balky'. Ooo-kay. It's hard to cheer for a protag who is intentionally acting like an ass and doing not one thing to change or be proactive about it.Then there were the purposeless scenes - Lily's miscarriage. Another ooo-kay. What was that slid in there for? Sympathy, maybe? Very tough to give - the character was back in ass-kick mode within hours of a D&C. (which really tried the whole Willing Suspension of Disbelief, that). And then that strange dinner she and Jack had with his partners. An ex lover of Jack's literally drops in out of the blue and (again unprovoked) starts a nasty verbal catfight with Lily (who of course kicks her ass). The whole point of that scene still has me mystified and what's more is that people don't act like that! And if these two women really *did* act like that good ol' Jack would be wise to kick 'em both to the curb.As for the mystery itself, whoa. The idea of a married couple playing psychological chess with each other is very cool but the way this was executed reminded me of a suitcase being tossed together at the very last moment before the trip; some stuff needed to be there, some stuff just did not belong, and a whole lot was missing altogether. I really loved this series and had high hopes for this book. Oh well ....
—Bonnie Randall
"So you have a stalker, and Janet doesn't. I got raped, you didn't. Saralynn was murdered, Carla wasn't...""So you don't believe a divine plan runs the universe?"I just laughed. Some plan."Don't you believe that most people are innately good?""No." In fact, I found the fact that some people did believe that to be absolutely incomprehensible.Tamsin looked really horrified. "You don't believe that we're only given the burdens we can handle?""Obviously not."She tried again. "Do you believe in the eventual punishment of evildoers?"I shrugged.BOOM. And THAT'S why I love Lily Bard - she's the antithesis of "everything happens for a reason." If you know me, then you probably know that's an expression that I hate. Nothing happens for a reason; the universe is random and chaotic, wherein terrible things happen to wonderful people, and awful people get away with the craziest stuff. This is probably one of my core worldviews, which I guess makes me kind of a cynic. Cynics aren't really popular, because they can be downers - so I feel like they're not well-represented in popular mass-market fiction. Lily Bard is the exception, and I love her for it. Something else that I really, really love about this series is that Harris tackles some huge social issues. She addresses deep-seated racism and sexism, and gives the reader an intimate look at what it's like to be a survivor of violent sexual assault. The fact that she looks these ugly truths about humanity straight in the eye and discusses them with intelligence and finesse firmly places this series head and shoulders above your run-of-the-mill cozy mysteries. This isn't some stupid yarn shop/tea shop/chocolate cake mystery; these books actually have some social, emotional, and intellectual substance.Now that I've finished the series, I can definitively say that it's one of my favorites of all time.
—Amy
The fifth (and to my knowledge, last--I don't know if any more are forthcoming) Lily Bard book is almost more about developments in Lily's life than it is an actual crime. This is not to say that there isn't one in Shakespeare's Counselor, because there is, and a pretty warped one at that. Our heroine, now that her relationship with her lover Jack has progressed to a point where she's willing to take his suggestion to start addressing some of the issues in her life, joins a rape survivor therapy group. And is shortly thereafter confronted with a dead body, violently killed, found where her group has been meeting. At the same time, Lily learns that the counselor running the group is apparently herself getting stalked, struggling with serious issues of her own even as she's trying to help them all.Quite intense stuff there, and Harris does a good job of handling the ramifications of her plot points in her compact page count. I found it a little odd jumping to this one after recently reading the first Lily Bard (in which her original backstory is told in detail)... and yet, reading the books so close together did show a nice story arc of Lily dealing with what she's suffered as her life in Shakespeare has progressed through the five books. On the other hand, I'm not sure whether I also needed a subplot of Lily suffering a miscarriage in this book. It's handled well, like the survivor group issues, and yet it made reading it a bit too... much. So, I do still recommend this as well as the series as a whole, but with a cautionary note that the plotlines may be a bit triggery for anyone with history in these areas. Three and a half stars.
—Angela
