Vince and Joy

Vince and Joy meet on a holiday in their late teens. They fall in love and have a physical relation. They are meant to be together from the beginning but are awkwardly separated by life's events. Fate however brings them back together and the ending is happy after many different frustrations. The story is a great read! Joyce Akesson, author of Love's Thrilling Dimensions and The Invitation

This book just absorbed me after reading the first pages. I've read all Lisa Jewell's books and once more she surprised me with her caracters, their thoughts, their feelings. My best holiday read!

This book is romantic but SMART. Love it. Lisa Jewell is the genius of modern "chick lit" and her novels are definitely more on the literary side than works of people like Jane Green (just for example). Jewell's novels are for the smarter woman who has lived a slightly quirky life but still needs a romantic *semi* guilty pleasure read.

This is a well put together story. For those looking for a character story, for a well written story, for a must read story, for a book to read on the train to work, this is it. You'll be sucked into the life and times of Vince and Joy.

In England thirty-something year old friends were discussing the time they lost their virginity. Vince explains that he was nineteen years old when he met eighteen years old Joy seventeen years ago in 1986 at the Hunstantan camp site. His stepfather Cliff pushed them together and they eventually made love. The next morning, she and her parents were gone; a note that he concluded was a Dear John letter was left behind, but most of the writing washed away in the rain. The only clear statement is "I am so ashamed", which he assumed meant about their lovemaking. Years later Cliff mentioned that he had to beat up Joy's dad because the punk was fondling his wife, Vince's mother, over her objections. Vince realizes that Joy was not embarrassed by them but by her dad. As he searches for her, he has good and bad luck; he finds her, but she is marrying someone else. Though he has married and divorced and has a child he loves, Vince believes Joy is the only one for him and destiny has failed him once more. This is an interesting contemporary romance starring two likable protagonists who fall in love at first sight, but fate seems to dictate they stay apart though they meet up several times over the next two decades or so. The story line is mostly told from the perspective of the lead male as he tells his tale of love discovered, love lost, love re-found, love re-lost, etc. Because this is a deep British character study, some of the vernacular will seem strange to the American audience, but sub-genre fans will still find joy in Vince's fine jewel of a story. Harriet Klausner