About the Book
Book: Half Agony, Half Hope: Dear Lily Edition
Author: Joy Michelle Austin
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Release Date: March 17, 2026
Lily
Days before her wedding, Lily Wentworth’s carefully planned future is shaken by an unexpected turn. Unsure how to move forward, she turns to the one person she has always trusted—her father.
Rick
Determined not to let their darkest years define her, Rick Wentworth offers Lily the journals he wrote during the season he fought to keep her safe and survive one day at a time.
As Lily reads, she begins to uncover not only the truth of what they endured, but also the fierce, steady love that carried her through—and the strength she may need now.
Half Agony, Half Hope: The Dear Lily Edition is a clean, closed-door story of resilience, family, and the love that shaped two lives.
Click here to get your copy!
About the Author
Joy Michelle Austin is an award-winning novelist writing contemporary fiction. Her debut found an immediate audience among readers drawn to heartfelt stories of healing and second chances, launching the Jane Austen’s Men series. She also wrote The Seaside Sleuths and the Bridal Batter Blunder, a cozy mystery tie-in project for young readers.
Joy draws inspiration from real stories of courage, grace, and the quiet heroes found in everyday life, crafting fiction for readers who seek hope, honesty, and heart in contemporary storytelling.
She is the recipient of the West Coast Christian Writers Encourager Award and the Walt Disney Legacy Award—an honor given to fewer than 1% of Cast Members worldwide for embodying Disney’s “Dream, Create, Inspire” legacy.
Through her blog, The Joyous Living, she connects with thousands of readers who share her love of culture, storytelling, and meaningful living. She lives in Southern California with her dog, Captain Hastings.
More from Joy
Half Agony, Half Hope was not a story I set out to write lightly.
It was an answer to a call God placed on my heart as a survivor of sexual assault—a call to tell the truth without exploiting it, and to create hope without diminishing the pain. From the beginning, I knew this would be a heavy debut novel. I also knew I wanted it to be clean, faith-centered, and redemptive.
The decision to tell this story through the eyes of a man was intentional. So few novels explore male survivors with compassion and dignity, yet one in six men are sexually assaulted. Their stories are often hidden, misunderstood, or minimized. Rick Wentworth’s journey exists to say plainly: healing is possible, faith is not erased by trauma, and masculinity is not diminished by suffering.
Because of the weight of Rick’s past, much of the abuse in Half Agony, Half Hope is veiled. I wanted readers to feel the truth of what he endured without being retraumatized themselves. Still, after the book released, readers told me they longed for more gentleness—more space to breathe inside the story.
That is how the Dear Lily Edition was born.
Lily was Rick’s hope and grace during the darkest years of his captivity. In the cellar, she was the reminder that love could still exist, that innocence could survive, and that God was not absent—even there. Their bond became the quiet heartbeat of the story: a wounded man learning how to hope again through the steady, healing love of a child.
At its core, Half Agony, Half Hope: Dear Lily Edition is a story of survival and faith—but it is also a story of a father and daughter choosing trust and hope despite hardship, and building a family where brokenness does not get the final word.
Interview with the Author
- What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel?
One under-appreciated novel that has stayed with me for years is Ruth by Lois T. Henderson. Though it was originally published in 1981, I first discovered it as a pre-teen in the 1990s, and it became my introduction to biblical fiction.
I am an avid reader with well over a thousand books on my Nook and iPad, yet there are a select few I still treasure in paperback — the kind you keep because they helped shape you as a reader. Ruth is one of those for me.
What struck me then, and still does now, is the tenderness with which Henderson brings Scripture to life. The story felt both intimate and reverent, reminding me that the people we encounter in the Bible were not distant figures, but individuals who wrestled with uncertainty, loss, courage, and faith.
Looking back, I can see how books like this quietly prepared my heart for the kind of stories I would one day write — stories grounded in hope, resilience, and the steady presence of God even in unfamiliar seasons.
Some novels entertain us for a moment, but the truly special ones accompany us across the years. Ruth has been that kind of companion for me.
- How do you select the names of your characters?
Character names are never chosen casually for me — they tend to carry meaning long before a story fully takes shape.
Lily, for example, holds a very tender place in my heart. It is a name I have loved for many years and one I once imagined giving to a daughter. Long before this novel existed, I even dreamed of a little girl named Daphne Rosetta Lily. When the time came to name this character, it felt less like a decision and more like a quiet recognition that her name had been waiting for her all along.
Rick’s name was chosen as a subtle nod to Captain Frederick Wentworth from Jane Austen’s Persuasion. Because my series draws inspiration from Austen’s beloved heroes, I wanted a connection that felt natural rather than overly formal — something strong, approachable, and enduring.
Ellie, Rick’s youngest in Half Agony, Half Hope, was inspired by the daughter of a dear friend. There is something special about weaving small threads of real-life affection into fictional worlds; it gives the story an added sense of warmth.
As for the rest, names often arrive unexpectedly. Sometimes they belong to people I admire, sometimes they simply resonate when I hear them, and occasionally they appear so clearly that I cannot imagine the character being called anything else.
I have come to believe that when a name fits, it does more than identify a character — it quietly reveals them.
- What was your hardest scene to write?
The hardest scenes for me to write are always the ones that ask the most emotional honesty — the moments when a character stands at the edge of an impossible decision and must choose how to step forward through the breach.
In this story, those scenes often belonged to Rick and Lily. Writing them required a great deal of care because I never wanted their pain to feel sensationalized or hurried. My responsibility as a writer was to honor their experiences while still guiding the reader toward hope.
I spent a great deal of time asking myself not only what these characters would feel, but what would be compassionate for the reader to witness. Some scenes were rewritten multiple times until they carried the right balance of truth and restraint.
I believe difficult moments in fiction should ultimately serve a redemptive purpose. They should deepen our understanding, expand our empathy, and remind us that even in life’s most fragile seasons, courage is often quietly taking root.
Those scenes stretched me as a writer, but they also reminded me why I tell stories in the first place — not to dwell in darkness, but to gently lead readers toward the light.
- What comes first, the plot or characters?
For Half Agony, Half Hope: The Dear Lily Edition, the plot came first.
It began years ago when I fell in love with Captain Wentworth and decided his famous “half agony, half hope” letter in Persuasion was the most romantic letter ever written. I was so moved by the emotional longing within that passage that I eventually wrote a poem inspired by it — and, in many ways, that poem became the backbone of my debut novel.
About ten years ago, I also found myself reflecting on a well-known true crime case that raised profound questions about endurance, captivity, and survival.
While my novel is entirely fictional, those two inspirations plus my own experiences stirred something deeper in me: What does hope look like in circumstances that feel unbearable? How does a person begin again after prolonged darkness?
From there, the framework of the story began to take shape.
The characters came next — and once Rick and Lily began to breathe on the page, the plot stopped feeling conceptual and became deeply personal. Their emotional journeys ultimately guided the direction of the narrative far more than the original idea ever could.
So while the plot sparked the story, it was the characters who gave it heart.
- What do you like to do when you are not writing?
When I’m not writing, I’m almost always still chasing stories in one form or another.
I love the theatre — there is something magical about watching a story unfold live on stage, where every emotion feels immediate and shared. Classical music concerts are another favorite of mine; I find that instrumental music, especially, has a way of reaching places words sometimes cannot.
I also have a soft spot for anything Disney including The Disneyland Resort in Anaheim. There is something deeply joyful about stepping into a world intentionally designed for wonder and imagination. It reminds me that storytelling, at its best, invites us to believe in something larger than ourselves.
On quieter days, you’ll likely find me reading (of course), walking my rescue dog Captain Hastings, or planning my next trip. Travel has always expanded my sense of perspective, and blogging about those experiences allows me to reflect on beauty, history, and the small details that make each place unique.
In many ways, whether I’m attending a concert, wandering through a new city, or simply people-watching on a walk, I’m gathering pieces of the world that eventually find their way into my stories.
Blog Stop
Simple Harvest Reads, March 21 (Author Interview)
Artistic Nobody, March 22 (Author Interview)
Guild Master, March 23 (Author Interview)
Truth and Grace Homeschool Academy, March 24
Fiction Book Lover, March 25 (Author Interview)
Vicky Sluiter, March 26 (Author Interview)
Debbie’s Dusty Deliberations, March 26
For the Love of Literature, March 27 (Author Interview)
Locks, Hooks and Books, March 28
Tell Tale Book Reviews, March 29 (Author Interview)
Blossoms and Blessings, March 30 (Author Interview)
Fruitfully Planted, March 30
Stories By Gina, March 31 (Author Interview)
Texas Book-aholic, April 1
Jodie Wolfe – Stories Where Hope and Quirky Meet, April 2 (Author Interview)
Books, Books, & More Books, April 3 (Author Interview)
Giveaway
To celebrate her tour, Joy is giving away the grand prize of a $20 Amazon Gift Card and a Kindle copy of the book!!
Be sure to comment on the blog stops for extra entries into the giveaway! Click the link below to enter.
https://gleam.io/DEiCR/half-agony-half-hope-dear-lily-edition-celebration-tour-giveaway