Reflections of Lilje Damselfly (2025)
- karenlykkebo
- 3 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Reflections of Lilje Damselfly
By Natalie Kelda.
Find it it here: Link to Natalie's webpage
A stunning, emotional, and real tale of change, disability, sacrifice, and love.
This was such a beautiful read! The prose and the story just flows effortlessly and you feel the struggle of Lilje, our main character, ebb through the pages. Well, so to speak - I listened to the audiobook of this.
And first off on that note: I really enjoyed the narrator! The voice change and accent were fabulous, my favorite absolutely being when sweet Mel cussed. Absolutely worth listening to!
Back to the story: It feels deeply personal to read Lilje's story and knowing Natalie IRL I also know it's unfortunately not all fantasy. I'm very grateful that Natalie has shared this story with the world.
Lilje is a water nymph that suddenly falls ill - fatigue, muscle ache, exhaustion (symptoms akin to ME/CFS and fibromyalgia) - and we follow her as she travels to a spa in the hopes to get better. The story sets in Edwardian England - though with a few light fantasy elements sprinkled through.
Lilje's pain, frustrations, and fear all bleed from the words and leaves you with a grief on her behalf. It's on the bottom-line a very sad story. Sad, because of all Lilje is loosing as she's slowly coming to terms with the fact there may not be any cure for her. The implications of a monumental change it is to suddenly get ill. The hardship of having to accept - or refusing to - the boundaries of your new world.
Even as someone not chronically ill, I recognize this struggle from myself as someone who's had her dealings with depression and anxiety and have had to reshape my own expectations to meet the boundaries of my mental health.
But Reflections of Lilje Damselfly is not all sad and gloom. Far from it! The summer descriptions of the British country side are vibrant, and the constant attention to flowers and plants makes my little garden-heart sing. The growing romance with Mel, the housekeeper, makes you warm and fuzzy, and Lilje's exploration of the human world is incredibly sweet and innocent. One of my favorite of these moments being when Lilje learns to read, gets interrupted, and is now dying to know why "it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife..." It made me laugh out loud (if you're unfamiliar with the quote, it's from Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice that released in early 1800's if I'm not mistaken).
It's a cozy read in the sense that not too much happens and the plot just slowly trickles along with Lilje's - well - reflections on her changing world. It's heartbreaking because of the grief and changes forced upon the water nymph, and yet it ends on a hopeful, happy, and beautiful note.
It tells you, that there's happiness and love to find, even within a limited world. There's a life to live even through exhaustion and pain. It shows what "good days" can be, without shying away from the bad ones, and without minimizing the suffering and sacrifice you might endure for those good moments. It paints a very real picture of someone chronically ill and I think it's done so damn stunningly!
I think I could ramble on for quite a while about this. It's a subject dear to my heart and follows closely in my profession as a physiotherapist. I meet people like Lilje everyday. And I try my best to do exactly what Reflections of Lilje Damselfly does: Listen seriously and openly, respect the individual experience and symptoms, not diminish the bad days, and cheer for the good ones.
~ Any way ~ you should read this little tale. It's well worth it.
And if you already have and enjoyed, I know more are coming from Natalie, so stay tuned.
And if you can't wait for them, you ought to check out The Necessity of Rain by Sarah Chorn that holds very much the same vibe as Reflections of Lilje Damselfly.
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