Emotionally raw, politically charged, and deeply human…
Joy delivers a layered, emotionally intelligent story where politics and family collide with heartbreaking consequences. Tawni Carter built a national pro-life movement by demanding sacrifice from everyone around her, especially her family. When her fiercely independent daughter, Charlotte, becomes pregnant and threatens to make a choice Tawni cannot accept, the conflict explodes into a public legal battle that destroys what remains of their relationship. As old betrayals, addictions, and political scars resurface, a fractured family is forced to confront the damage left behind by decades of conviction, ambition, and unresolved grief.
The novel is filled with characters who believe deeply in their principles yet remain painfully blind to the damage they inflict on the people they love. Tawni emerges as the novel’s most fascinating figure: disciplined, persuasive, controlling, and increasingly consumed by the cause that gave her identity. Jake , who still carries the emotional wreckage of his failures, gives the story much of its heart. His weary compassion and instinctive loyalty balance the novel’s sharper political edges.
Rather than reducing its conflicts to simple moral arguments, the novel examines how public causes reshape private lives over time. Abortion politics, media culture, addiction, race, religion, and generational resentment all become part of the emotional architecture of the story. Joy’s dialogue remains sharp and natural throughout, while the shifting timelines and historical threads add surprising depth and resonance.
A tense, emotionally layered novel driven by conviction, family fracture, and the lingering hope that damaged people can still find their way back to one another.
***
Pub date September 3, 2026
Hark! New Era Publishing
ASIN B0GXLJRYWF
Price $0.99 Kindle edition
