A Sense of Belonging (by Erica James)

(Amazon UK link)

I’m glad I decided to re-read my novels by Erica James, in publication order. I last read ‘A Sense of Belonging’ in 2008, fifteen years ago, and couldn’t remember anything much about it. I always like discovering a book which I know I liked, but where I’ve forgotten the characters and the story.

The book involves a new development of five houses, all of which have been bought. It’s a good device; it introduces diverse characters, all new to the neighbourhood, who are essentially thrown together and start to develop friendships.  Or otherwise…

I didn’t keep track of who lived where. It didn’t much matter. The first one we meet is Jessica, a romantic fiction writer who has been living in Corfu for some years. She’s had a good time, with a philandering boyfriend and has settled in well, but she knows it’s time to return to the UK. She has bought her house because it’s about a mile away from the cottage where she grew up, and where her mother is. And she is sure her mother is needing some help as she grows older.

Then we meet Kate and Alec. Alec is nearly fifty, recently divorced, fairly amicably, from someone he still works with. He now lives with Kate who is in her late twenties, stunningly beautiful, and not much older than Alec’s daughter Ruth. Kate has a gift for working with small children and would love some of her own, but Alec isn’t keen at all. However she’s determined that this won’t come between them.

The next couple to be introduced are Tony and Amanda. They have quite a stressful relationship; Tony is still grieving for his first wife, Eve, who died in a traffic accident, and Amanda resents his six-year-old daughter Hattie. They can’t agree on how to raise her, and Hattie doesn’t much like Amanda. 

Then there’s Josh. He’s moving into a house on his own because he wants to prove his independence despite knowing he has an incurable illness that is going to limit him seriously, sooner or later. He is a likeable person, but becomes very angry when any of his family ask after his health, although they have been very close.  

So the scene is set for what’s essentially a character-based novel that takes place over the course of a few months. Viewpoints switch regularly - not in a way that jars, but sufficiently often that I didn’t feel as if I got to know anyone very well. Jessica’s story is the one that I was most interested in; perhaps because she’s a writer, she was the easiest to write about in a realistic way. Jessica is intelligent, feisty, and loyal. She is the most three-dimensional of any of the characters in the book; we see her with her agent, with her mother, and becoming attracted to one of her neighbours… 

It’s all a bit predictable, I suppose, with a nice tidy ending that works out well for almost everyone (other than Alec’s grandson Oscar, who, I feel, deserves better).  And there’s rather too much introspection for my tastes, as characters talk to themselves, not really saying or asking anything that hasn’t already been established. But a lot of novels published in the late 1990s were rather rambly in this style, and it’s not difficult to skim some of the inward thoughts. 

On the whole, though, the pace is good, and there are plenty of interactions that kept me reading and wanting more. There's a bit of light humour here and there too; I loved Jessica's mother's determination to keep working on her house and garden, despite injuries. And some of Jessica's quirky conversations with Josh made me smile, too. 

It’s interesting to me to see how Erica James developed as a writer; her style comes through in this book, but not the depth of characterisation or emotion that she uses so effectively in some of her later books. Still, this is a pleasant story, one that would make good, undemanding holiday reading. The issue of Josh’s illness lifts it above some blander novels of the era, and while I didn’t much care about most of the characters, I was sorry to close the book and say goodbye to Jessica. 

Recommended if you like light, well-paced women’s fiction.

Review copyright 2023 Sue's Book Reviews