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.

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Half Agony, Half Hope: Dear Lily Edition by Joy Michelle Austin starts out with Lily's fiancé canceling the wedding and she goes to her father. Her father gives her letters that he wrote during a hard time in their lives. The story is partly told in these letters. Even through the theme of this book is a hard subject is it written in a clean way. It is a story of redemption and grace. If you like contemporary fiction that shows God's love and also a father's love for his daughter, then this book is for you. But it might be a trigger for some. I think this is the first book that I have read that is told from a male victim. This book is written because the author says readers wanted more gentleness in the story. I haven't read the first book, but I am trying to decide if I want to because of personal issues in my own life. I really like books that shows God's love and gives hope that readers can cling to long after they close the book.

I receive a complimentary copy from the author and Celebrate Lit and these opinions are my own

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.