Saturday, June 02, 2007

Lily

Author: Lauren Royal
Published: April 1, 2003 (Signet)
Category: Historical Romance
Series: Flower Trilogy #2
Rating: 7/10

I'm still catching up on vacation reading, and it's almost the end of June! The discrepancy in the posting date occurs because I date the post the day I finished reading the book. I loved the first book in the Flower trilogy, Violet, and I get the feeling that Lily isn't as big a book as its predecessor was. The passion of Lily and Rand wasn't as great nor was the relationship as daring as Violet and Ford. But the gentle sweetness of Lily and Rand's story is appropriate because she has such a gentle (too gentle at times) nature. Here's the cover blurb:
Lily Ashcroft has never understood the need for her rather eccentric family's motto: “Question Convention.” In fact, at the tender age of sixteen, Lily took one look at Lord Randal Nesbitt and wished for a most traditional institution—marriage. But now her older sister Rose has her sights set on the dashing scholar, and known for always doing the right thing, Lily puts her own longings aside to help Rose in her quest to land him.

What no one counts on are Rand's feelings. Though he hasn't seen Lily in four years, he's never forgotten her fresh and innocent beauty. Falling victim to both desire and love, Rand begins to contemplate matrimony. But now he finds himself caught in a thorny position between two lovely sisters—the one he's expected to wed, and the one he truly wants.…
At first, I thought the most annoying part of this book would be Rose, for being so desperate to catch this ONE PARTICULAR MAN for a husband, but I've changed my mind. The most annoying thing about this book was Lily. Rand confesses early to Lily that he's not interested in her older sister, Rose, but Lily doesn't care. She promised Rose that she would help her bag Rand for a husband, and short of setting Rose up in a compromising situation, that won't happen. Lily even knows that she has true feelings for Rand, and that Rose doesn't have feelings of affection for Rand beyond his title and money. You would think that someone with Lily's sweet nature (she rescues animals) would realize that everyone would be in a world of hurt if she followed through with Rose's plan to catch Rand. It smacks of her being a doormat to her sister and a lack of common sense.

There's a big of background story for Rand, where he has to confront his father and prove that his evil older brother used to commit heinous crimes before he died. This is the real conflict to Rand and Lily's happy ending, as you can only stretch out the pissed-off sister angle for so long. Sadly, his father was always blind to his heir's acts of cruelty and punished Rand for trying to stir up trouble as a child, spurring Rand to leave the home as soon as possible and establish himself as a professor. There's another lapse of common sense when Rand's father demands that Rand marry another woman because the heir was supposed to marry her, and there's this convoluted section where everyone waivers back and forth about who should be married, as Rand and Lily are engaged at this point.

There's one more in the trilogy, telling Rose's story, but that'll wait until post-Harry Potter reading.

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