Cover

About the Author

Lucy Dillon grew up in Cumbria and read English at Cambridge, then read a lot of magazines as a press assistant in London, then read other people’s manuscripts as a junior fiction editor. She now lives in a village outside Hereford with her husband and an Otterhound.

Lucy’s books Where the Light Gets In and Unexpected Lessons in Love were both Sunday Times bestsellers. She has also won the Romantic Novelists’ Association Contemporary Romantic Novel prize and the Romantic Novel of the Year Award for A Hundred Pieces of Me and Lost Dogs and Lonely Hearts.

You can follow her at her website www.lucydillon.com, on Twitter @lucy_dillon, on Instagram @lucydillonbooks or find her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pages/LucyDillonBooks.

Praise for Lucy Dillon’s previous book, Unexpected Lessons in Love:

‘Real, heartbreaking – I loved it.’ Katie Fforde

‘My heart is smashed and repaired for reading this wonderfully romantic and strong piece of fiction.’ Milly Johnson

‘A heartwarming romantic comedy that tells us to be brave and to listen to our hearts. Suffused with Lucy’s trademark warmth and gentle humour (with a splendid canine supporting cast), it’s sure to win your heart. Irresistible!’ Veronica Henry

‘Such a great “what would you do?” book about love, truth, friendship and of course dogs. Kept me guessing all the way.’ Laura Kemp

‘Brilliantly written and believable, this book is a real class act.’ Fabulous

By Lucy Dillon

Unexpected Lessons In Love

Where the Light Gets In

All I Ever Wanted

One Small Act of Kindness

A Hundred Pieces of Me

The Secret of Happy Ever After

Walking Back to Happiness

Lost Dogs and Lonely Hearts

The Ballroom Class

@lucy_dillon

@lucydillonbooks

Dedication

For TAR, my anchor, and Barney, my little pal. Gone, but never very far away.

Prologue

Hallowe’en, 1998

Branston was not the most convincing lion Tara had ever seen but she wasn’t going to tell him that.

‘You look terrifying, Branston,’ she said, and adjusted his mane: her old yellow ballet tutu with plastic spiders stapled at strategic intervals for added Hallowe’en effect. To be honest, he looked more like a sunflower than a lion but he was sitting there patiently, letting her finish off his outfit with bits of tissue cobweb.

‘And you are the most beautiful Labrador in the world,’ she added, to be kind.

Branston gazed at her with his patient, melted-chocolate eyes, and trod on her foot with his big golden paw. Tara thought, not for the first time, You are the one person in this house who actually listens to me.