Lily Bennett’s Bucket List: The most uplifting debut romance you’ll read in 2023!

Product Information

Lydia Grey is 39 when she's dumped by her husband of twenty years for a young Italian supermodel and ultramarathoner. He tells Lydia that she's boring and that their marriage has become stale. How can she compete? Its lead is Lydia Grey, who at 39 has returned to live with her moms and dads adhering to the malfunction of her twenty-year marital relationship to Adam. Lydia absolutely feels washed up and is just experiencing the movements. Furthermore her little girl, Ollie, has actually just started a six-month overseas trip as well as Lydia is missing her. Because Matt-or-Mark had a strange quirk in one of his eyebrows, and from the very beginning Lydia had not been able to take her eyes off it." Thanks to author Katherine Dyson, HarperCollins UK, One More Chapter, and NetGalley for the review copy. Opinions are mine. So, if you want to read a book that will make you want to go on an adventure, this is the book for you.

Adam, Lydia’s husband, has found a new partner and deserted her, leaving Lydia feeling lost and alone unable to move on. She has tried internet dating, but still loving her husband, hasn’t succeeded in finding a new partner. Such a lovely, uplifting story with relateable and likable characters that I know I am going to miss.Lydia Grey had become so accustomed to bad dates that she didn’t even flinch at the unexpected warmth of someone else’s tongue in her mouth. Lydia Grey is 39 when she’s discarded by her partner of twenty years for an Italian supermodel and ultramarathoner. He tells Lydia that she’s uninteresting which their marriage has become stale. How can she contend? Oh my god I don’t know if I could’ve loved this more. An absolute feel-good novel with characters that are real and flawed, who GROW and love each other and support each other and urgh I just want to give this book a big hug. There were so many high points of this book - the writing was excellent, the characters were fantastic, their dynamics were believable and their dialogue was as well, the plot was interesting and not something I’d read before, and though predictable, I enjoyed every second of it.

Thanks to NetGalley, Kathryn Dyson and Harper Collins UK 1 More Chapter for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. She was beginning to develop very real feelings for her very fake boyfriend. Her very fake boyfriend who, as of that moment, still thought she was somebody else.” I have mixed feelings about the actual premise of the book. Lydia doesn’t tell Jake that she isn’t Lily Bennett until much later in the book. I’m not a fan of relationships that start out with deception, and I thought that she didn’t have a great reason for not telling Jake who she really was early on in the book. I also wondered how she was able to keep her real identity secret from Jake for such a long time. If you’re looking for a book that will inspire adventure and to get you out of your comfort zone while still getting that Rom Com feel, this is the book for you. This book was cute, I love my little hags. It was a lot of fun to see Lydia grow as a person and become her best self. I loved her relationship with daughter and the rest of her family.Thank you to HarperCollins, One More Chapter, and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review! However, deception aside, I really liked Lily and just adored Jake. Together they made a believable and lovely couple and I was rooting for them throughout the book. Jake assumes Lydia is Lily and she doesn't put him right, which later causes a bit of trepidation and wonder about what she is going to do when it comes to it, as they embark on the adventures together. Cute story about rediscovering yourself after a divorce. The premise was fun but the whole tension that causes the issue between Lydia and Jake was farfetched - he got to know her, what does it matter what her name was? And it was silly that it took her that long to tell him. His deception was much larger and should have caused the rift, not hers. Other than that, I found the story to be interesting and I loved the relationship between Lydia and her mother as well as the relationship between her and her daughter.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.” After all, how hard can it be to complete the list? Except number nine means that Lydia must open herself up to her past to move on with her future . . . I haven’t been so excited to read a book like this in a long time. These characters just pulled me into their amazing group of love and friendship making me feel like I belonged there with them. Never before have I felt like I was part of a story until this book. I loved reading this book. The characters were all lovable Lydia, Jake, Ollie, Aga, Tosh, Mila, etc, all will be rememberable.It seemed more like Lydia’s daughter was parenting her rather than the other way around. Which was uncomfortable being as this is an almost 40 year old woman being parented by her 19 year old daughter. The amount of times I laughed at the different ways Jake “broke” his arm, hilarious. Every single one of them. Phenomenal.

I so appreciated this uplifting charming comedy. Prior to starting I had expected its lead character would certainly be called Lily Bennett, yet no. Dyson includes a great cast of characters who are extremely likeable. They put a smile on my face and had me truly enjoying their company! Jake mistakes Lydia for Lily when he offers to help her complete the list, but tempted to be someone – anyone – other than plain old Lydia Grey for once in her life, Lydia doesn’t correct him.

Customer reviews

I requested a digital advanced readers copy from NetGalley and HarperCollins UK and providing my opinion voluntarily and unbiased. Overall it wasn’t a bad read, I’m not sure if Jake should have forgiven Lydia for basically lying to him for months. The man didn’t even know her real name and she had sex with him. How is that ok? Very odd.