Book Review: Lily, a Love Story

Cindy Bonner
★★★★★
Reading level: Young Adult
Hardcover:350 pages
Publisher: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill; 1st edition (October 1992)
I LOVED this novel! I cannot tell you how much I love this book. And guess where I found such an amazing book? Stuck in the shelves of books that people never read, covered in dust. DUST!!! I’m not one for gushy romances ( however on the occasion having a romantic interest in a novel is great fun, just as long as it’s not the ENTIRE story) this book is one of those exceptions where I didn’t mind that it was all romance. The cover art is amazing! I mean, come on, just the cutest thing ever! I think a Lifetime Movie in the making with this one...

Ok, so I can give you a summary of this, but I think Publishers Weekly does it better: Loosely based on historical events and possessing a simple, frontier-legend plot--farmer's daughter and dashing outlaw fall for each other--this sensitive, winning western a la Larry McMurtry might easily attract fans outside its genre. The year is 1883. The town is McDade, Tex. Narrator Lily Delony, 15, can't stop thinking about 18-year-old Marion Beatty, kid brother of three notorious ruffians known as "the Beatty gang." Marion begs Lily, "Don't judge me by them over there"--meaning his robbing, murdering siblings--and she trusts him, risking her reputation to sneak out with him at night. When McDade's citizens organize a posse to rid themselves once and for all of the Beatty gang, Lily is torn between loyalty to her respectable family and love for her gun-totin' Romeo. First novelist Bonner credibly conveys her heroine's sincerity, bravery and naivete as well as rugged Marion's charming-yet-dangerous persona. Even readers who ordinarily shun shoot-'em-up, rough-and-ready novels will sympathize with the lovers and become caught up in this exciting story.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
We get to hear from Lily’s point of view as she struggles with the decision between her family and the love of her life. This is a wonderful love story filled with suspense and romantic scenes that makes the roughest outlaws hold their breath in anticipation. Cindy Bonner descriptive writing created vivid pictures in my head that made it seem I was watching it really happen than reading words off a page. A ture page turner that will not let you sleep!