external Hyperlink behavior in iBooks ePub created with iWork Pages

I am new at ePup publishing. I'm using iWork pages and exporting to ePub. Things were going great until........

I started playing with the hyperlinks in my ePub book in iBooks. I am doing this with an iPad and an iPod Touch. I'm in iBooks, I click on the link, the Safari browser opens and displays the page. As far as I know, I have to close the browser window to get back to the book. I do this by pressing the home button on the device. Now I have a blank screen. I have to open iBooks again to get back to the book.

This is a bunch of work for the reader of my book, I want them to see a bunch of images. this is awful. It is not acceptable.

Is this an ePub problem or an iBook reader problem? My guess is iBooks but I'm not sure

The system should have the facility to look at the external page within iBooks and press an X button to close it so the reader can continue reading.

So now I'm thinking I will need to go back and insert all the images in my book. I think I will proceed to do this once I know for sure there is no better course of action.

Smart and knowledgeable people, please tell me, is there a better way to let my reader see images without a bunch of button pressing?