I'Ll Always Be with You

by Violetta Armour

Overview

Since the horrific night a drunk driver slammed into their car during his driving lesson, young Teddy has had to live with the memory of seeing his beloved father, Stan, die. Now just sixteen, he carries both sorrow and survivors guilt.

Concerned for her grieving son, Mary decides to put as much distance as she can between Teddy and the nightmarish Phoenix intersection that claimed Stans life. She moves the family to Stans small Indiana hometown, a place of peace in which she hopes they can build new memories. There, Teddy finds inspiration in an old book his great-grandfather carried with him to America, a book Bulgarian fathers have always read to their sons.

Is Stan reaching out to his son from the grave?

Mary also makes an equally life-changing discovery in the small townRosetta, Stans high school sweetheart. The deeper Mary digs, the more she learns of the forbidden love Stan and Rosetta shared. During the Civil Rights Movement, they dared to reach out for love across racial lines.

Now as their three lives intertwine, Teddy, Mary, and Rosetta must make difficult choices. Will they choose happiness? Or will old pains cause them to live as victims of circumstances?

Beginning in 1912 on Ellis Island and told in three voices over four generations, Ill Always Be with You is a profound celebration of the power of family.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781491768310
Publisher:	iUniverse, Incorporated
Publication date:	06/19/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	340
File size:	663 KB

About the Author

Violetta Armour is a first-generation American who cherishes her Bulgarian heritage. She lives with husband Don in Phoenix, Arizona, where they owned Pages, a neighborhood bookstore. She has written for Highlights for Children and Chicken Soup for the Soul. She reviews books on her blog at http://serendipity-reflections.blogspot.com/

Editorial Reviews

2015-09-14
The threads of a dead man's life and history converge in Armour's dramatic debut novel about heritage, family, and forgiveness. When Stanley Kostoff dies, it seems like everything—his life, his love, his family's happiness—comes crashing to a close. But when his widow and children move from Phoenix back to his hometown in Middleburg, Indiana, a new beginning might be on the horizon. For Mary, his widow, it means a new job and a new life away from friends and memories. For Rosetta, his high school sweetheart, it means the story of long-dead teenage romance may not yet have found closure. And for his grief-stricken son, Teddy, it means a chance to start again, however reluctantly, away from the guilt over his father's death but also away from his friends, girlfriend, and a spot on the varsity basketball team. As the family settles in with Stan's mother, Baba, they find that their new beginning comes saddled with the relics of Stan's past. In the attic, Teddy finds an old book of wisdom that offers insight into his father's Bulgarian heritage as it helps him overcome his guilt, master his sorrows, and see beyond the petty frustrations of varsity basketball and moving to a new school. New friendships abound—from a quirky, know-it-all locker mate, Mindy, and a teenage burn victim, Joe, to the sometimes-fraught interactions between Mary and Rosetta. Readers will admire Teddy's large, if tragically incomplete, circle of friends and family. The plot is peppered with enough dramatic turns and strange coincidences to fill a soap opera season, and while the tropes—forbidden love, unplanned pregnancy, and drunk driving deaths among them—can occasionally feel tired, Armour generates enough interest in her characters to retain reader interest. If the plot occasionally succumbs to melodrama, the same cannot be said for the portrayal of the family's loss, which remains both sensitive and realistic as it chronicles the difficult, sometimes-ugly stages of grief. A two-tissue tale about life after loss.

Kirkus Reviews