Customer Reviews

Mitigating Circumstances

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District Attorney Lily Forrester has recently been promoted to Chief of the Sex Crimes Unit. She is glad to get the appointment but it came at a high price. She is unhappy with her marriage and her relationship with her daughter is deteriorating day by day.

Lily decides to get a fresh start when she asks her husband for a divorce and move out to a new apartment. Her life is irrevocably changed when an intruder storms into her home and rapes both her and her daughter, Shana. Lily believes she recognizes her assailant as one of the case files she brought home from work. Without thinking it over she decides to go kill him. She tracks the suspect and shoots him dead without even flinching. She then erases all traces of evidence she can think of that might identify her. She will now try to continue her life and help her daughter.

Unfortunately, things do not go as planned. Both Lily and Shana are still traumatized by the events and they both disagree as to who raped them. Lily wonders if she has made a mistake now that there is a relentless cop investigating the case.

Nancy Taylor Rosenberg does a good job in applying what she knows in this novel. She has worked in law enforcement for many years and has dealt with sexual offenders. The victims and situations felt real as well as the emotional trauma Lily feels for her action. The novel reads like a Lifetime movie but it kept my interest.

Mitigating circumstances grabed me from the minute I opened the book. I cannot read books unless they grab me and pull me into it. This book did that. The way the writer starts out makes you want to know more. I stayed on the edge of my seat through most of the book. The way the plot is brought out is wonderful. I cannot stand a book that you know who did it from the start. With this book you are shocked at the end. I keep waiting for them to make a movie out of it. I feel like the whole storie worked together. You didn't have things in it that didn't belong. Her character worked. She was the type of character anyone could relate to. I LOVED IT!

Nancy Taylor Rosenberg's MITIGATING CIRCUMSTANCES may be a book that happened before its time. Well written and fast flowing Lily Forrester has worked her way up the ladder in the DA's office to Chief of the Sex Crimes Division. Then her world falls apart when her daughter turns against her and her husband begins to resent her sucess at her chosen career.
Written 20 years ago, the revenge Lily takes when her daughter is raped was unacceptable as the idea of a woman making her way in the DA's office. Things have changed rapidly in the world of fiction.
MITIGATING CIRCUMSTANCES is worthy of a second look, 20 years later.
Nash Black, author of SINS OF THE FATHERS.

ISBN 0451176723 - Almost a sister to Nancy Wagner's All Our Lives (ISBN 0380778084), Mitigating Circumstances is not quite as good. Both books deal with a family dealing with the rape of a daughter and a marriage that's fallen apart, but Wagner's is just a little bit better.

Lily Forrester is an ADA who has just been made head of the Sex Crimes Division and sees her goal of becoming a judge within sight when her marriage finally unravels. Her daughter chooses to live with her father, but spends a fateful night at her mother's. The timing couldn't be worse, as a man who has been watching Lily is released from prison and stalks her to her new home and assaults mother and daughter.

Her own childhood abuse coupled with the horror of watching her own daughter raped drives Lily right over that vigilante line and she seeks justice outside the courtroom for the first time in her life. Now her career, her daughter, her marriage, her freedom, her sanity and her budding relationship with a fellow ADA are all on the line as one very good detective looks for answers.

The sex in this book tends toward graphic and violent and some of it is remarkably unnecessary, which wasn't too surprising since the main character works in Sex Crimes, but I did find a bit much now and then. Also a little off-putting was the sense that "all Latinos look alike", although that does get explained as "she wasn't wearing her glasses" - not a good excuse, but an excuse. On the funny side, Lily is a lawyer with a young teenage daughter who borrows her clothes, which would be fine if they weren't her WORK clothes! No teenage girl wants to dress like their lawyer mother, unless their lawyer mother dresses really unprofessionally.

All in all, kind of an average book that would have benefited greatly if Detective Cunningham had had a larger role and if John, Lily's husband had been an even remotely sympathetic character.

- AnnaLovesBooks

I haven't read any good books lately (trying to decipher the monotony of Mary Higgins Clark, I suppose) and this book was lying around in my father's office, so I seized the moment and borrowed it. From the very beginning, this cross between John Grisham's "A Time To Kill" and Sandrs Brown's "Charade" captivates the audience and holds on for an entertaining, if somewhat predictable, ride. I recommend this to people who haven't had a good read and would like a fast-paced, realistic novel. Enjoy.

Mrs. Rosenberg is an excellent storyteller. Failrly predictable, yet a few surprises cleverly orchestrated. A bit too much of the "all men are pigs who treat women like trash" syndrome. Even the men whom she admired were pigs. ALL THE MEN WERE PIGS (of course, maybe all men ARE pigs). Unfortunately, it seems from reading synopis' of her other books, they're all the same. Divorced, abused, single mother being stalked by lunatic (who of course is a pig). A shame considering her writing talent. Most women will want to read all her books. Most men will be satisfied with one

I am not usually a book reader, but once I started to read this book, it was hard to put it down. The author, Nancy Rosenberg, does a riveting job of grabbing on to your most sensitive senses and devours you into a world of lust, violence, revenge, and honor. Not only does Nancy do an incredible job of disecting the characters' state of mind, but she also makes you think of your own state of mind and your relationships to people that mean the most. Given the main's character predictment, we get an understanding that the courts do not always represent justice, but as a matter of fact, can sometimes impede on it. However, the bottom line is that justice is a double sided coin. No verdict will ever be 100 % right. Only we can determine what is right as we live in a world occupied by a heterogeneous mixture of people.

MITIGATING CIRCUMSTANCES was a disappointing read, considering the excerpt on book jacket had promise. Dramatic words with no drama, moving very slowly from the beginning, into the middle and to the end. Author Nancy Taylor Rosenberg offers a repetitious tale of reminiscences, sadness & anger -- a romance more than a mystery.

Chief character is an ambitious, yet troubled LA District Attorney Lillian (Lily) Forrester. She has an open door to reach her goal as an appointed judge.

As a couple, John and Lily Forrestor are in a non-loving marriage, with a disturbed 13-year old daughter Shana. Not in control as she once thought, Lily's destructive past involving her grandfather, evolves a vengeful, angry woman to the brink of mental explosion. Her rage is released by committing a haunting crime to avenge a current unspeakable tragedy imposed upon herself & daughter Shana.

Although a little rough around the edges, the best character - Detective Cunningham offers the read some zing with some humor, concerns, actions and the desire to leave LA and return to Omaha, a much saner environment. A murder committed, a sketch of a person observed at the scene of the crime raises Detective Cunningham's suspicions as the sketch resembles District Attorney Forrestor.

The author does not complete the story of husband John - his path taken just disappears; a chapter devoted to daughter Shana in which her rage from tragic events is described does not continue to conclusion. The ending of the book is "different" from what a reader would expect, especially from the justice system.

I did enjoy one expression: "The train had finally derailed and the cars were all overturned. All that remained was the baggage." This read is like a train that never picks up speed, consistently changes tracks, and the baggage is lost. Review based on hardcover 1993

Recommend Sara Paretsky's GUARDIAN ANGEL & GHOST COUNTRY.

The first book that I ready by this author was Interest of Justice, which I loved, fast paced, not too descriptive, great writing style. So I thought that I would read all of her books. You would never know this book- Mitigating Cir. was by the same author. It starts off a little slow, gets going, then loses it's steam throughout most of the book. I got tired of reading page after page of what they were having for dinner, the item of clothing that the daughter borrowed, her boring conversations with her husband, blah blah blah. It didn't get good again until the last few pages where you will find out what happens to Lily. The plot was a good one, but the writing couldn't hold my interest. I hope her other books are better.

Very seldom do I not finish a book I begin; however, Mitigating Circumstances is the exception. This book reads like a bad movie on Lifetime. I am woman, but I find it difficult to empathize with all these heroines being thrown at us. The heroine who has succeeded despite all the men who have used and abused her. Must everyone be a victum of childhood sexual abuse? Must all the men the victum encounters be total cretins? Must she find sudden love atop the desk in the office? (I suppose this is to illustrate how she is an free spirit instead of the anal personality she exhibits everywhere else in the book.) Lily is whining about her terrible life. How terrible: she's thirty-five, a successful attorney, has a neat little red car, and, oh yes, she was also a model in college. After painfully pointing out how intelligent and perfect is Lily, the author then blightly has her act like a blithering idiot. I was not interested enough in Lily or any of the shallow characters to finish this drivel -- I donated it to Good Will.