Synopsis/blurb ...
October 1992...
Another Friday night in the small fishing village along the New Jersey coast. With another pending snowstorm aiming at the town, everyone has to make a choice: stay in and write the night off or go out and see what trouble they can get into.
Guess which choice most of them will make?
Check back in with Willie, April, Tommy, George, Frankie, Gary, Billy, Jimmy, Suzanna, and Garrett five years after the events of the original Belford Stories!
A really enjoyable slice of small town life and a welcome catch-up with some familiar characters. Armand Rosamilia's original Belford Stories was read and enjoyed last December. Belford Stories 2 picks up five years on from the first installment.
1992, a cop, an ex-criminal, a jobless cousin, families feuding and misunderstandings, a bar fight, drunkenness, an olive branch, a return home, homelessness, a new job, a snowstorm coming, a life without purpose of direction, an almost girlfriend, an abusive relationship, domestic strife, a pregnancy, a college jock, a demanding parent, a fractured marriage, mistakes, regrets, the breadline, poor choices, growing up, maturity, new starts and a lot more besides.
I liked how the book unfolded. Small scenes or vignettes with a few of the characters, before the focus changes and switches to someone else. Everyone is wrapped up in their own little dramas, which advance throughout the course of the book. Some of the issues for the characters seem to take a positive turn and the future seems if not brighter, a little bit clearer. Some characters may have just taken a wrong turn from which it will be difficult to extricate themselves from.
I really like Rosamilia's work when it focuses on ordinary people, in everyday situations. You care about most of the characters and even the ones that are less sympathetic, there's still a fascination for seeing what life is going to throw at them.
Very, very entertaining with a marvellous narration from John Carter Aimone. 
Roll on Belford Stories 3.
4 from 5
Read - (listened to) July, 2021
Published - 2017
Page count - 210 (5 hrs 48 mins)
Source - Audible purchase
Format - Audible
Oh, this really does sound entertaining, Col. And the small town setting seems right for those 'everyday people' sorts of dramas. It's interesting, too, that Rosamilia picked up the lives of the characters a few years after the first novel. It gives the reader the chance to say hello, so to speak, to some old friends.
ReplyDeleteAgreed, Margot. It also made for an agreeable chance of pace with my reading. It's nice to have a bit of variety.
DeleteI purchased the kindle version of the first set of stories just now. Hope to get to them soon.
ReplyDeleteFingers crossed you enjoy them, Tracy.
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