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 Joy

When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?

I began dreaming of becoming a writer in elementary school. Even then, I was drawn to stories — both reading them and imagining my own. There was something deeply satisfying about creating worlds on paper, and that early love never truly left me.

Over time, what began as childhood imagination gradually matured into a calling. Looking back now, I can see that storytelling has been quietly threading its way through my life for far longer than I realized.

What is the most difficult part of writing a book?

For me, the most challenging part is sustaining emotional honesty across an entire manuscript. It is one thing to write a moving scene; it is another to ensure that every chapter carries authenticity and purpose.

Stories ask for patience. They unfold in layers, often revealing their deeper meaning slowly, and my role is to remain attentive enough to follow where the narrative is leading.

Have you experienced writer’s block?

Absolutely — though I have come to see it less as a barrier and more as a signal to pause and listen more closely.

Often, writer’s block means something in the story is not yet aligned. When that happens, I step back, reflect, and give the narrative space to clarify itself. More often than not, the path forward reveals itself with time.

Writing has taught me that persistence matters far more than perfection.

What was surprising in creating your books?

One of the greatest surprises has been discovering how alive a story can become. Even with careful planning, narratives rarely follow a perfectly strict outline. Characters grow, relationships deepen, and sometimes the story gently insists on unfolding in ways I had not anticipated.

There is a humility in that process — learning to guide the story while remaining open to where it wants to go.

Any upcoming projects you’d like to tell us about?

I am currently working on a new series centered on female friendship, exploring the lives of women in their late thirties and early forties who reconnect during a transformative trip through Europe.

Each woman arrives with her own story — married, single, divorced, widowed — carrying both the beauty and complexity of a life already lived. Together, they rediscover the strength found in friendship, the courage to begin again, and the reminder that growth is not reserved for youth.

It is a project very close to my heart, and I look forward to sharing more in time.