Cleaning woman and karate expert Lily Bard is a woman with a complicated past. Trying her best to copy with her terrifying memories, she decides to join a therapy group in her adopted hometown of Shakespeare, Arkansas. As it turns out, the group members' feelings aren't the only things that need sorting out, as they assemble for a session only to find a woman dead, left on display to send a twisted message. Lily soon finds herself embroiled in the murder and its aftermath. Some of her own terrible secrets have been dredged up, and she may not be able to rest until she can untangle the 'who' and the 'why' of this terrible crime. But can she do so before the killer strikes again - and before her own nightmares send her over the edge?

From Charlaine Harris, the #1 New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author behind HBO’s hit series True Blood and NBC’s Midnight, Texas, the first in a series of mysteries that hits as hard as its heroine... Lily Bard has no illusions about her little town being safe, or peaceful, or full of goodness. Shakespeare, Arkansas, was nothing but a name on a map when she moved here. But Lily has kept her head down in Shakespeare for four years: cleaned houses, blocked unwelcome memories, and honed her body into a weapon with goju karate. It’s as long as she’s lasted anywhere since the nightmare that changed her life, and she’s willing to dust around the skeletons in her neighbors’ closets—provided they mind their business about her past, too. But when a dead body is dumped practically in her front yard, she can’t look away and leave it to innocents to find. And as the investigation creeps closer to Lily, her clients, and the secrets they all keep, she knows her hard-fought peace is in danger. She’s living in close quarters with a murderer. The police are sniffing around her history. And once again, all eyes are on Lily Bard. She could leave town, and give up on the home she’s begun to make. Or she could stay, and root out the killer herself...

Welcome back to Shakespeare - a charming Arkansas town with endless back roads, an eclectic mix of residents, and a dollop of noir. Featuring cleaning woman/karate expert Lily Bard, Charlaine Harris's series puts a unique spin on the traditional cozy to create mysteries that "work on every level. The writing and plotting are first rate [and] Lily is appealing in her own prickly way" --Washington Times In this installment, Lily discovers lifelong Shakespeare resident Deedra Dean murdered inside a car parked in a woodsy area outside town. Determined not to get involved, Lily wants to leave the police work to Sheriff Marta Schuster and her team of deputies, and concentrate on cleaning, high kicks, and her boyfriend Jack's impending visit. But when Deedra's notoriously promiscuous lifestyle provides an extensive list of suspects but very few clues, Lily has no choice but to resume the roll of amateur detective and join the investigation. In Shakespeare's Trollop, the fourth book in Charlaine Harris's highly acclaimed and darkly compelling series, Lily Bard delivers a hard-hitting mix of Southern charm and street smarts, a combination so alluring that long-time readers and newcomers will be dying to visit Shakespeare again.

Cleaning woman and karate expert Lily Bard is back in Charlaine Harris's latest cozy-but-noirish mystery about the dark secrets of a small Southern town In Shakespeare’s Christmas, Lily heads home to Bartley, Arkansas--always an uncomfortable scenario for the introverted Lily--for her sister Varena’s Christmas wedding. But Lily has more to worry about than being a bridesmaid for a sister to whom she’s no longer close. Soon after she arrives in Bartley, Lily’s private-detective boyfriend shows up too, and not just for moral support: He’s investigating a four-year-old unsolved kidnapping. Try as she might, Lily can’t help but get involved when she discovers that the case hits dangerously close to home--for Varena’s new husband is the widowed father of a girl bearing a remarkable resemblance to the vanished child.

Author of the books that inspired True Blood on HBO and Midnight, Texas on NBC Newspaper reporter Catherine Linton ignored her investigative instincts when her parents died in a mysterious car crash six months ago — grief obscuring the warning signs that something was amiss. But when she discovers the beaten body of her father’s nurse on Linton property, Catherine quickly realizes her parents’ death was no accident. Though the sleepy Southern town that Catherine’s family has called home for generations still prickles with racial tension and decades-old classism, Catherine never expected that Lowfield, Mississippi, could harbor a murderer. Now, it seems everyone has a terrible secret. But how many people in Lowfield would kill to keep them hidden? Catherine finds herself both the sheriff’s lead suspect and the killer’s next target. With the help of her handsome editor, Randall, and her quirky fellow reporter, Tom, Catherine must untangle the dark roots of the murders and stop the killer who wears a neighbor’s face. Sweet and Deadly is the thrilling stand-alone mystery debut from Charlaine Harris, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Sookie Stackhouse vampire series, as well as the award-nominated Aurora Teagarden Series, Lily Bard Series, and Harper Connelly Series.

When a vampire asks Sookie Stackhouse to use her telepathic skills to find another missing vampire, she agrees under one condition: the bloodsuckers must promise to let the humans go unharmed. Easier said than done.

Caught up in the politics of the vampire world, psychic Sookie Stackhouse learns that she is as much of a pawn as any ordinary human in this novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling series—the inspiration for the HBO® original series True Blood. With her knack for being in trouble’s way, Sookie witnesses the firebombing of Merlotte’s, the bar where she works. Since Sam Merlotte is now known to be two-natured, suspicion falls immediately on the anti-shifters in the area. Sookie suspects otherwise, but her attention is divided when she realizes that her lover, Eric Northman, and his “child” Pam are plotting to kill the vampire who is now their master. Gradually, Sookie is drawn into the plot—which is much more complicated than she knows...