Shakespeare's Landlord

Lily Bard Mysteries, Book 1

By: Charlaine Harris

Narrated by: Julia Gibson

Length: 6 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's summary

From the Anthony Award-winning author of the immensely popular Sookie Stackhouse mysteries comes the first book starring Lily Bard, a reclusive cleaning lady with a penchant for karate. When Lily finds and reports a dead body, her shady past and connections to potential perpetrators make her a leading suspect.

©1996 Charlaine Harris (P)2009 Recorded Books, LLC

Critic reviews

"While on a late-night job in tiny Shakespeare, Ark., Lily Bard, 31, sees a furtive figure placing large plastic garbage bags in the local park and, untying one, discovers the body of her former landlord. In a quick but anonymous phone call (she is determined to avoid any questioning), she reports it to the police chief. With skill and wry wit, Harris, the author of the Aurora Teagarden series, soon reveals the horrific facts in Lily's background that explain why she is solitary, confrontational, obsessed with self-defense - and why she chooses, despite a first-rate education, to eke out a living as a cleaning woman....Harris's finely tuned, colorful and suspenseful tale, filled with vigorous and unique characters, will leave readers hoping it's the start of a series." ( Publishers Weekly)
"[Lily Bard is] the equal of Kay Scarpetta." ( Library Journal)

Very good book

What did you love best about Shakespeare's Landlord?

The Pace of this book was great. Kept me interested during my daily commutes and while walking.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Lily was the main character and my favorite. She isn't perfect and don't know that I'd want to spend time with her in reality, but she is a great leading lady.

Which scene was your favorite?

Any scene where Lilly was cleaning the houses of Shakespeare's well to do families.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No, too much to digest at once. Great to come back to again and again though.

Great story, but downloaded book has technical pro

Really loved the characters, and had a difficult time putting it down. However, the audiobook has a tendency to stop frequently because of technical errors... very annoying

Harris has created another strong and compelling lead character in Lily Bard

This is a great story and performance. I enjoyed getting to know Lily Bard, who worked hard to emerge strong despite her past. The story kept me engaged and all loose ends were tied up at the end. I look forward to enjoying the other books in this series.

Fun, easy with warm, rich characters

I have all the Shakespeare's books. I have listen to them twice. I find Lilly to be very motivational

Loved Lily Bard's strength in this dark novel

It turns out that you can no more judge a book by its title than by its cover.

I'd been put off reading the Lily Bard books because the combination of Lily Bard and the word "Shakespeare" in the title of each novel reminded me of the twee and sugar-coated Aurora Teagarden books, which I had not enjoyed.

I'm glad I overcame my prejudices and listened to the first Lily Bard novel.

There is nothing sugar-coated here. Lily Bard is a survivor. Her old life has been stolen from her. She regards her current life as successful if she gets through each day quietly, without attracting any attention.

Lily is strong, focused, observant but tight-lipped. She earns her living cleaning houses in the small town of Shakespeare. She comes alive when she is practising Karate. partly because of the joy of doing something so demanding well and partly because it stands between her and any future threat to make her a victim.

Her life changes when, walking off her insomnia in the middle of the night, she notices somebody using her garbage can cart to dump a body. Despite her best efforts to protect the anonymous life she's built, events and her own strong will, pull Lily deeper into solving the murder, even at the cost of revealing her own past.

The plot of "Shakespeare's Landlord" works as a conventional "whodunnit" mystery. Two things raise the book well above the average for this genre. The fist is that Lily Bard is a wonderful creation: strong but vulnerable, proud but wanting to stay in the background, curious but discrete, and afraid but brave. She seemed real to me. A woman to be admired, whether there is a mystery to solve or not. The second is Charlaine Harris' prose: she does not waste a word, does not indulge in extravagant descriptions, but the result is still a rich evocation of people and the town they live in.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I'm looking forward to the rest of the series.

Such a "real" book

I love the Lily Bard books. I was surprised when I found them inspirational.
Lily's life was basically destroyed at a young age and she had to struggle to get past her trauma and build a new one away from her family and old friends. Finding that her late night walk leads to the discovery of a dead body, and catapults Lilly into people's attention again, disrupts the quiet existence she had been striving so hard for.
I loved that Ms Harris brought Lilly into a scene in one of her Sookie Stackhouse novels, too.
The narrator did an excellent job with Lilly's dry humor, and her "voice" was perfect!
I highly recommend these books ... I usually listen to them at least one or two times per year. They never get old!

Started with promise

I am a big Charlaine Harris fan, I was very excited when this became available, it started with promise, proceeded to dry and ended flat.
Charlaine has a dry sense of humor that she normally weaves through out her books, along with intrigue and guise, and this book was sadly lacking her normal luster.
As a side note this is not a supernatural book, which was actually intriguing for me at first since I am used to her sci-fi/fantasy books, but as I said this book was for me disappointing.

Not Sookie Stackhouse

If you are looking for Sookie Stackhouse, move on down the line. This is a non-paranormal mystery series. It is more of a Murder She Wrote book although Lily is definitely NOT a Jessica Fletcher in any way. She is dark because of her past which she wants to keep in the past. It is revealed, however, and that is the part that is difficult to read but necessary to understanding this complex character.

Liked it

I will be finishing the series, but I feel like the narrator makes the character almost unlikable. It's more tone of voice than actual words that make you think the main character is mean and a huge snob.

Enjoyable

I always like a Charlaine Harris book. Not my favorite but enjoyable. One the less.