Belonging
Women’s Fiction
by Jill Fordyce
Appealing to readers of Delia Owens’ Where the Crawdads Sing, Kristin Hannah’s Firefly Lane, and Ann Packer’s The Dive from Clausen’s Pier, Belonging is a heartbreaking and hopeful coming of age story that traverses lifelong friendship, first love, and a young woman’s fierce desire to transcend her traumatic childhood.
Jenny is thirteen when an epic dust storm rolls into her central California town in December 1977. Bedridden after contracting a life-threatening illness in the storm and suffering a shocking loss, Jenny realizes she will never be cared for by the mother who both neglects and terrifies her or the father who allows it. She relies on her cousin, Heather, who has the loving home Jenny longs for; her beloved great-uncle, Gino, the last link between generations; her best friend, Henry, a free spirit with whom she shares an inexplicable bond; and earnest baseball star, Billy, who becomes her first love. After a stunning turn of events in both their lives, Jenny and Henry leave for college in LA together in the summer of 1982—Jenny fleeing a broken heart, and Henry running from something he can’t reveal, even to his best friend. When she returns home years later, the life Jenny so carefully created collides with the one she left behind.
Spanning three decades, Belonging is about first love and heartbreak, friendship and secrets, family and forgiveness, hometowns and coming of age, and memory and music. The heart of the story is Jenny’s struggle to undo the binds of a childhood that have deeply affected her life, the painful path to love endured by children raised in alcoholic families, and the grim reality of believing you must hide a part of yourself in order to belong.
REVIEW
5 out of 5
This will break your heart, then piece it back together. Jenny has had such a rough life, but she keeps fighting her way through it. Fordyce does an amazing job bringing Jenny to life, drawing the reader in quickly. The descriptions make reading feel more like watching a movie unfold before your eyes. A poignant coming of age story, this is one that will have you all up in your feels. Highly recommend!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jill Fordyce received a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Southern California and a law degree from Santa Clara University. While practicing law, she continued to study writing through the Stanford Continuing Studies creative writing program. Jill and her husband, Craig, have five children and live in California and Tennessee.
“Belonging” is her debut novel.