4.25*

Joy is a lovely debut and a highly absorbing contemporary queer romance. The story is wonderfully human and feels relatable as we follow twentysomething Joy who is in an unhappy marriage to Sebastian (classic villain figure, hated him from the start) and returns home to Liverpool when her mother-in-law has an accident and has to face up to her feelings for lost love, Erica. Through flashbacks and current timeline scenes we follow Joy, Erica and their Influencer friend, Val as they move from student to adult life and face up to the difficulties of admitting to themselves that they're not happy with their lives and go about trying to change things.

I found this to be a highly readable book and it absolutely flew by. I loved the student scenes as there were so many elements that reminded me of my own student days. The current timeline really did feel like it was building to something that, much like in real life, would leave some people hurting and some people getting the ending they deserved (whether that's good or bad) but I would have liked to have seen it stretched out a little more to give us just a little bit more of that element of the story.

I enjoyed the acknowledgments about issues around social mobility, the imposter syndrome it can bring and how difficult it can be still to traverse social classes in Britain. On the romance side the inclusion of bisexuality was a welcome addition as Joy is extremely comfortable with who she is and her sexuality wasn't a cause of personal struggle - that came from the pull between former and current relationships.

'Joy' is a lovely story with some difficult themes done very well as it doesn't drag down the reading experience at all. It was a read that's outside of my normal genres (I don't tend to do any contemporary romances) but I'm so happy to have been introduced to Samantha Leigh's writing and will be keeping an eye out for future works for sure.

Thank you to Northodox Press for a digital review copy of "Joy" in exchange for my honest and voluntary review.