Excellent

A bit of a change of pace for me with some small town every day fiction featuring a diverse cast of characters and the little dramas and worries that affect normal people...... family dynamics, marriage, kids, teenagers, abandonment, relationships, friendships, rivalries, mistakes, employment, poor choices, popularity, insecurity, money worries, hopes, dreams, resentments, grudges, disappointments and the reliving of old glories.

I liked the small vignettes which the author served up, as the focus changes from character to character from chapter to chapter, with some overlap and intersections. I could visualise a similar narrative with the little dramas served up for my own English town thirty years ago, and I'm guessing it wouldn't be that different from Rosamilia's New Jersey Belford. Maybe with a town carnival replacing a big football game.

No real mystery or mayhem about the events which feature, but I really liked the author's ability to make the everyday and mundane worthy of my attention and interest. That said we do venture into adulterous territory with blackmail and some minor drug use. Some of our stories don't have a finite outcome as such. A bit like our own lives. One problem gets solved or deferred and is soon replaced by another issue which causes worry and needs attention. There's some joy in the book, not every tale is a Debbie Downer. Life has it's fair share of rewarding moments and surprises.

There's a real smoothness to the writing that I perhaps hadn't expected to encounter. It's a book I enjoyed a little bit more than I anticipated.

Armand Rosamilia has written three other sets of Belford Stories, each set a few years apart and hopefully carrying on and picking up with the same set of characters that I've just met. I'm looking forward to Belford Stories 2 sometime soon.

4 from 5

Read - (listened to) December, 2020
Published - 2016
Page count - 224 (5 hrs 25 mins)
Source - Audible purchase
Format - Audible

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