The Heart of the Family — Elizabeth Goudge

Despite the “crinkled pink petals strewn in the path of those who would have preferred red,” four generations of Eliots have survived the War and are moving forward. The family's remarkable matriarch Lucilla is still with them, though she's facing the dark night of the soul.

David Eliot finds his career as a successful and much-acclaimed actor a definite strain, and his brittle conversation and seeming arrogance earn him the dislike of his new secretary Sebastian Weber. Sebastian, is another survivor of the war. He has a story far more painful than any of the Eliots. While with them, he wrestles with questions about his own disconnected existence.

All is turned on its head with his arrival and this intricate story continues as each member of the family struggles to make sense of life-with all its love, pain, loss, and loyalty. They all yearn, in their own ways, to glimpse the high price of love. And through this they are ultimately able to love each other and God more fully.