Holly slid her hands into Alice’s and her father’s. “I s’pose.”

Harry winked at Alice. “Sounds like it just got a gold-star endorsement.”

Holly rolled her eyes but she leaned into him and smiled.

Alice thought about the difficult year they were putting to bed. She wasn’t so starry-eyed that she believed the new year would be devoid of heartache or challenges for her and everyone she loved. It was love that drove them to muddle through life, but even with the best of intentions, they’d make mistakes.

No one ever said out loud that love was as impossibly difficult as it was deceptively easy. That the exhilarating highs came with devastating lows that forced a person to question everything they believed about themselves and the ones they loved. That love meant sacrifice and sometimes, like her parents, that was generously given. Other times, like with Libby and Nick and Jess, it was extracted by force. All those uplifting quotes about forgiveness people liked to blu-tack to their walls seemed glib compared to the mammoth task true forgiveness demanded. Letting go of anger and pain was a task that involved as much energy as a seismic shift.

The oohs and ahhs of the crowd circled Alice. She watched the joy on the faces of her family—the children’s wonder making the adults, who’d seen fireworks many times before, exchange looks and view them with unjaded eyes. That was empathy and gratitude. That was love.

Harry grinned at her over the top of Holly’s head and she smiled back before lifting her gaze to the sky. The spectacular display rained color over her and she gave thanks for that moment and the many more to come.

Coming in 2021

A Home Like Ours

Also by Fiona Lowe

Daughter of Mine

Birthright

Home Fires

Just An Ordinary Family

A Home Like Ours

Coming in 2022

A Family of Strangers

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Romance Novels 2006-2018

Acknowledgments

Another year, another book and another reason to thank the people who have generously supported me as I wrote Just An Ordinary Family. To my dear sister, Sue Peterken, who dropped everything to read the first one hundred pages when I feared this book didn’t have legs. She then told me to hurry up, because she wanted to read more. That reassurance was gold.