The Burgeoning Bookshelf: Book Review & Giveaway: Just an Ordinary Family by Fiona Lowe

Just an Ordinary Family

Fiona Lowe

Publisher: Harper Collins Australia
Imprint: HQ Fiction - AU
Publication date: 24th February 2020
Genre: Contemporary Fiction / Women's
Pages: 528
RRP: $32.99AUD
Format read: Paperback
Source: Courtesy of the publisher

Alice Hunter is smarting from the raw deal life has thrown her way: suddenly single, jobless and forced to move home to her parents' tiny seaside town. And now she faces an uncomfortable truth. She wants her twin sister Libby's enviable life.

Libby's closest friend Jess Dekic has been around the Hunter family for so long she might as well be blood. She's always considered herself a sister closer to Libby than Alice ever could be...

Libby Hunter has all of life's boxes ticked: prominent small-town doctor, gorgeous husband and two young daughters. But when she is betrayed by those she loves most, it reveals how tenuous her world is...

For Karen Hunter, her children are a double-edged sword of pain and pride. She's always tried to guide her girls through life's pitfalls, but how do you protect your children when they're adults?

As the family implodes, the fallout for these four women will be inescapable...

Since reading ‘Birthright’ Fiona Lowe has become one of my must read authors. She has the ability to write about family dramas without them becoming overly dramatised. The families she develops and their problems are relatable. They could be families you know or even your own family.

Just an Ordinary Family follows the Hunter family; Karen, Peter and their twin daughters Libby and Alice and Libby’s long time best friend Jess. Lowe’s characters are flawed; there are arguments, jealousies and misunderstandings, which in turn make the characters real and relatable.

Alice at 33 and with a recent failed relationship behind her, is worried she won’t find a partner and start a family before her biological clock runs out. Libby is desperate for another child but is this unfulfilled longing affecting her marriage? Their mother, Karen, still worries about her grown daughters and Alice now back in her parent’s home finds her mother’s concern can be stifling.

Libby’s best friend Jess is happy to be back in her home town and part of a real family as the Hunters welcome her with open arms. Libby and Jess are the best of friends almost like sisters and they have shared everything all their lives. Libby is happy to have Jess and her baby boy back in her life.

Secrets will be revealed that will rip families apart and also answer lingering questions. There is a lot of own voice facts about sex and couples counselling which fits into the story well as this is an area that Lowe can write about with some expertise.

Fiona Lowe has written a compelling story about trust and betrayal, regret and forgiveness, fertility, motherhood and family ties, bringing to the fore many issues that are pertinent to women everywhere making this a book not to be missed.

🌟🌟🌟🌟

My rating 4/5

FIONA LOWE has been a midwife, a sexual health counsellor and a family support worker; an ideal career for an author who writes novels about family and relationships. She spent her early years in Papua New Guinea where, without television, reading was the entertainment and it set up a lifelong love of books. Although she often re-wrote the endings of books in her head, it was the birth of her first child that prompted her to write her first novel. A recipient of the prestigious USA RITA® award and the Australian RuBY award, Fiona writes books that are set in small country towns. They feature real people facing difficult choices and explore how family ties and relationships impact on their decisions.When she's not writing stories, she's a distracted wife, mother of two ‘ginger' sons, a volunteer in her community, guardian of eighty rose bushes, a slave to a cat, and is often found collapsed on the couch with wine.

Click the book cover to read my review of Home Fires.