And it wasn’t some one-off thing, which is still unforgivable, but they’re in love. Joe experienced unimaginable infidelity-her sister Stacey had an affair with her husband.

On a magical Christmas Eve, Joy must find the courage to believe in a love-and a family-that can’t possibly exist, and go in search of what she wants. Yet when the little boy meets Joy, these two unlikely souls form a deep and powerful bond.īut in an instant, Joy’s world is ripped apart, and her heart is broken. His father Daniel is beside himself, desperate to help his son cope. There she meets six-year-old Bobby O’Shea who is facing his first Christmas without a mother. When an unexpected detour takes her deep into the woods of the Olympic rainforest, Joy makes a bold decision to leave her ordinary life behind-to just walk away-and thus begins an adventure unlike any she could have imagined. She’s recently divorced and all alone so on a whim, she books a flight to the Pacific Northwest. It’s Christmastime time but Joy Candellaro is feeling anything but festive. It’s heartfelt and moving, plus I loved that it was set during the holiday season. I personally really enjoyed Comfort & Joy. I like magical realism in contemporary stories-when they are done right, they’re very impactful. You have to or otherwise, you’re utterly confused as what is presented in the novel. I saw several negative reviews of the book and I think people might have had different expectations-especially with how Kristin presents her historical fiction novels as they are full of epic storytelling and trying to stay true to the era of the novel.īut contemporary fiction with magical realism asks you to suspend disbelief and throw cynicism out the door. But this one also has a huge dose of magical realism, which is something that is getting quite popular now but not as much so back in 2005. This is when she focused more on contemporary-style fiction rather than the historical fiction she’s known for now.

Kristin wrote Comfort & Joy back in 2005.

The comfort book review