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The best books you never read

I am both a reader and a writer. I find that the best writers are in fact avid readers. I love books of all kinds but I really adore reading new authors who are just getting their feet wet. Some of the very best writers are now found in the indie set. These reviews will be of books I have devoured in my never ending quest for good fiction. Some will be up and comers who have hit the top of the chart, but most will be struggling new writers who deserve a second look.

Shakespeare's Counselor by Charlaine Harris

Shakespeare's Counselor - Charlaine Harris

This is the last book in this series by Ms Harris.

 

In Shakespeare's Counselor Lily goes through her usual trials and tribulations.

 

Waking from a nightmare to find herself attacking Jack, she finally decides that she needs to join a Rape survivors group. While this is a good thing, here I think Ms Harris has finally met a bit of her match.

 

We don't get quite her usual in depth characterizations with the women of the group. There are stereotypes here that I am not sure she meant to include. On top of that Ms Harris has the woman counselor who runs the group as a victim of a stalker.

 

Maybe it was the time period it was written in or maybe she just didn't quite do her usual amazing research but this part of the story comes off very flat and misunderstood. Stalking is a major problem in much of the western world and is taken very seriously by today's police departments. While prosecuting those doing the stalking is difficult, it is being done.

 

While I enjoyed most of this story, I did not enjoy having the woman being stalked thought of as a nut job who was doing it to herself. This was and is a common misconception found all over. For once I can say one of Ms Harris' books was both too predictable and annoying to me. I gave it four stars because, yes it did drag me from start to finish and yes there were some very good characters introduced in this volume but it felt as if the meat of the story was just not there. The villains in the piece were almost two dimensional and as I said, predictable.

 

Also Lily's reaction to her miscarriage seemed way off. Yes, every woman deals with it differently, but Lily barely acknowledged it. Now I understand someone who didn't know they were pregnant being confused but her reaction was off IMO for a woman who had thought she would never conceive.

 

Still all in all this was a good book but just not the best in this series.