~ Review: Looking For Lily ~

LOOKING FOR LILY - African Fine Genesis Press/Indigo 1-58571-319-8 March 2008

SYNOPSIS:  After learning her aunt has Alzheimer's and cannot live alone, Tina Jones sets out to discover the truth about her past. She learns not only about the ties of family, but also that love rarely comes in an expected form.

CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE |2|  Marguerite Lemons

REVIEW:  Ernestine “Tina” Jones is an English professor at a university in Florida.  She is content with her life now that she is away from her controlling Aunt Gillian, who raised her after the death of her parents.  However, her contentment is short-lived when she returns to her hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, and discovers that her aunt is sick and can no longer live on her own.  Gillian provided Ernestine with an upper-middle class upbringing, which was heavy on criticism and short on affection.  Jack Kingston is a professor in the engineering department at the same university and Tina’s long suffering friend. He is always there to lend a helping hand, but he can’t seem to tell her exactly how he feels. After having her heart broken by the love of her life, Gillian vows to never let a man hurt her again; but Jack plans to love her, not hurt her. 

LOOKING FOR LILY is an uninspired walk through the life of Tina Jones and her Aunt Gillian.  Tina constantly rehashes the fact that she was unhappy with her living situation as a child, and secretly gorged herself with junk food behind her aunt’s back.  Therefore, she struggled with her weight and other insecurities, and continues to do so through out the story.  Her aunt refuses to talk about her past, or tell Tina much about her parents.  Therefore Tina is left wondering what her life could have been like with her parents. 

I found the title of this story to be misleading as the book really had nothing to do with finding Lily. The plot quickly became boring once I realized that I was constantly reading about the lead’s insecurities and weight battles.  The secondary characters really did not add much to my enjoyment of the story.  I felt they were there just to help bolster Tina’s ego and help take care of her aunt.  The male lead, Jack, behaves more like a love-struck teenager, instead of a grown man with an engineering degree.  He has a thriving business, but is teaching at the university in order to give back to the community.  The plot twist wasn’t much of a stretch and I figured it out pretty quickly.

I found LOOKING FOR LILY a little boring.  I got the point that the lead character had weight issues within the first few chapters; I did not need to have it rehashed through-out the entire book.  This slowed the pacing of the book down and hampered my ability to really enjoy it.

reviewer@romanceincolor.com | 1st June 2008