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In defense of Lily

Redhead women in beret on yellow background.

Yesterday I sent The Ghost from the Sea (Book 8) off to the editor. It will be released the end of this month—and yes, there will be a Book 9. I already have a title, cover, and story brewing for Book 9, but I’ll announce that later. Right now, I want to talk about Lily.

Lily often gets a bad rap. Some readers have found her annoying. They say she talks too much—or overshares. Yeah, that annoys Danielle sometimes too. But like Danielle, I feel we have to take the good with the bad in our friends, because let’s face it—no one is perfect.

When I first introduce Lily in The Ghost of Marlow House, she is an energetic, enthusiastic, single, elementary school teacher. She loves her job and she loves life. She’s not afraid to flirt, and she likes to joke around. She is also a very loyal friend, one who is willing to spend her summer vacation helping her best friend settle into her new home and help get the bed and breakfast off the ground.

You may not have noticed but Lily has good instincts. Some readers felt she was too open with Ian—overshared when they first met, especially regarding the bed and breakfast, but Lily had a gut feeling about Ian. She instinctively knew he was someone she could trust—in spite of a few bumps along the way.

And if you think back to that first book, when she initially met Adam and Bill in the diner, she curbed her enthusiasm and was much more discrete with them than she had been with Ian.

Lily may sometimes be over exuberant, and prone to oversharing—yet she’s a loyal friend who always has Danielle’s back. She’s one of those people who when she loves someone—it isn’t halfway.