Simona's Corner of Dreams: Pictures of Lily

Original Cover

My own copy

The blurb:

‘Will you marry me?’

I think of you, then. I think of you every day. But usually in the quietest part of the morning, or the darkest part of the night. Not when my boyfriend of two years has just proposed.

I look up at Richard with his hopeful eyes.

‘Lily?’ he prompts.

It’s been ten years, but it feels like only yesterday that you left. How can I say yes to Richard with all my heart when most of it has always belonged to you? I take a deep breath and will myself to speak…

Ten years ago when Lily was just sixteen, she fell in love with someone she really shouldn’t have fallen in love with. Now, living in Sydney and engaged to another man, she can’t forget the one that got away. Then her past comes back to haunt her, and she has to make a decision that will break her heart – and the heart of at least one of the men who love her.

My Opinion:

Even after ten years, he is still in her thoughts. Even when her boyfriend of two years proposes, Ben comes to mind.

10 years ago: (at the age of 16) Lily has to move to Australia, because her mother’s got a new boyfriend there. Lily doesn’t want to be there, but then Michael (her mother’s boyfriend) takes her to his conservation park. She takes her camera with her and is fascinated by all that nature and the animals. She starts to work there and that’s where she meets Ben. Ben is 28 years old, but the two of them get along really well.

Also with Michael’s son Josh she gets on okay and they go out together sometimes.

Lily tries spending as much time with Ben as possible and eventually she falls in love with him, they go trough thick and thin together. However, one day she hears, that Ben is engaged and leaving Australia soon. She is devastated. Just a few days before he leaves, Lily overhears Ben talking to a colleague about his feelings, his feelings for her. He is trying to ignore her, but she finds him at his favourite place and tells him, that she overheard. She tries to convince him to stay, but he says, that it wouldn’t work between them and then he’s gone...

Lily moved on. She didn’t pursue her photography dream though, because of him. She now lives in Sydney with her boyfriend Richard (we know him from Lucy in the Sky ;)). At Nathan and Lucy’s wedding (I was soooooo happy to read about them again ;)) Richard proposes to Lily and she says yes, but she doesn’t seem happy about it.

She keeps up appearances, but it turns out to be very hard and then when Lily’s family from England is visiting, she sees Ben again in the zoo.

Both of them cannot believe it, but they are obviously over the moon about it. They meet in the city to catch up and Ben tells her, that he is divorced. Lily however, doesn’t tell him about her engagement.

The reader can feel the energy and the atmosphere between them and then everything comes together. Lily tells Richard, Ben hears about her engagament and Lily’s world is turned upside down. She doesn’t know what to do, but she knows that there has to be a decision...

Is it Ben or Richard?

For me it was clear, but the reader has to wait and the tension is always there. That’s why I couldn’t put the book down and liked it from the first chapter on. It’s soooooo romantic and full of emotions!!!

Rating: