Joy is part of Dreamspinner Press’, ‘State of Love’ collection. The state where this story takes place is New Hampshire. The MCs are Gideon Joy, an ex-tattoo artist, and Silas Bright, a construction worker. The story is told in first person through Gideon’s eyes.



Joy is a predictable plot based on the trope of one MC wrecks his car in a small town, in this case Lancaster, and meets a strong lumberjack/workman. MC1, in this case Gideon, has to stay in this small town in order to earn money to pay for the repairs to Silas’ vehicle.

Gideon has left Los Angeles to get away from the competitiveness and the disappointment of losing his job at a tattoo parlor. He’s bitter and is arrogant, thinking the people in the town of Lancaster are quaint and don’t really know what life’s about. He thinks Silas is rude, possibly dumb, because Silas doesn’t talk much when Gideon runs into Silas’s vehicle. It turns out Silas is shy. Gideon gradually changes through the story and realizes that maybe Lancaster is the type of place he needs, but he can’t seem to let go of his competitive edge. He transfers his belief he’s not good enough at anything in his life, to not being good enough for Silas.

Despite Gideon’s confusion on what he’s going to do with his life and where he should live, this story is low-key. It’s a slow courtship and I felt the bad-luck that Gideon kept saying trailed him, was a manufactured conflict that made me feel manipulated. I would have liked a more authentic conflict. The emotions, the plot, the events were all rather straight-line with no big ups or downs to create interest.

Joy is a fast, predictable read, especially if you’ve read this kind of trope before. There’s no real angst or conflict, which might be good if someone is looking for a book to take a breather from a heavier read. Nothing stands out for me about this story, except for the cover, which is terrific. I give this book 3 Stars.


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Short but well done! Like the writing style and the characters. ( )

The changeover from his hectic life in LA, California, to a (more or less) quiet existence in a small town in New Hampshire is not an easy one to make for Gideon. He wasn’t even consciously looking for a permanent change, being on an “unplanned excursion” across the country. It’s a rather daring experiment for a man who describes himself as follows: “Nothing ever worked out. Nowhere was ever home. No one wanted to love a guy with luck so bad, it was laughable.” But as it turns out, life isn’t entirely horrible in a place with “more animal crossings than traffic lights”.

“Bundle of joy” is not exactly the way to describe Gideon, and despite his last name - which, ironically, is “Joy” – that was not the emotion he caused me to have when I began reading his story. Depressed is more like it. Well, and a little amused because his “encounter” with the moose ends well for the moose, him, and the stranger whose car Gideon has damaged. The tone he tells the story in is so self-deprecating and he is so convinced everything will go wrong that I shook my head and crossed my fingers for him to have a happy ending anyway and against his expectations – but I did not hold my breath.

Silas is a construction worker, very laid-back, and more than a little mysterious. He is also friendly, despite the fact that Gideon damaged his car and can’t even pay for the repairs. As it turns out, he is very interested in Gideon, but bad luck interferes pretty soon, and both Gideon and I didn’t have much faith in Silas sticking with his apparently romantic interest in the town’s newest inhabitant.

If you like stories about men who expect bad luck only to find out there may be places where they can be happy, if you want to immerse yourself in life in a quiet little town with a friendly B&B, a decidedly homophobic bar, and a restaurant that hires complete strangers on the spot, and if you’re looking for an entertaining read that might just make you smile, then you will probably like this novella.


NOTE: This book was provided by Dreamspinner Press for the purpose of a review on Rainbow Book Reviews. ( )