Haunting Joy: Book 1

By: Lena Goldfinch

Narrated by: Stephanie Ballard

Length: 4 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's summary

Joy's new dress has a secret - one with a little supernatural history.

One ordinary afternoon, 17-year-old Joy tries on a thrift-store dress. The little white dress fits perfectly. Trouble is, now it won't leave her alone. Soon Joy is swept up in an extraordinary journey to help a ghost complete some unfinished business.

©2013 Lena Goldfinch (P)2014 Lena Goldfinch

Critic reviews

"Lena Goldfinch has penned a sweet, creative, mystical journey of self-discovery..." (Marley Gibson, best-selling author of the Ghost Huntress series)

"A sweet and charming ghost story that completely won me over." (Lena Coakley, author of Witchlanders)

Enjoyed this a lot more than I was expecting to!

Any additional comments?

For the most part I'm not usually very interested in ghost stories, but this one sounded intriguing and having enjoyed other books by this author I decided to give it a shot when I was offered the opportunity to review the audiobook version. I was very surprised at how much I enjoyed this story! I really liked the main character Joy, even though she was a number of years younger than me I found myself relating to her quite a lot! I also found the whole story very neat, and while yes some parts did seem predictable to me but that did not lessen my enjoyment of the story, I also loved all the random moments of humor scattered throughout! I also loved that even though this was a fun story there was still a real depth and seriousness beneath the surface!
To be honest the narration of this audiobook was not my favorite thing about it, I'm not really sure why I didn't like that more but for some reason this narrator's reading style just was not my personal cup of tea.
In closing, I really enjoyed this book, highly recommend it and look forward to reading the rest of the books in the series as well as other works by this author!

Thank you to the author for providing me with a complimentary audiobook copy in exchange for honest review, which I have done.
All thoughts and opinions are one hundred percent my own.

Delightful read!

Where does Haunting Joy rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

I loved this book! The performance was expertly done, which drew me into the story. I'd say this book is one of the best I've listened to for its ease of understandability and clarity of presentation.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Haunting Joy?

Well, as embarrassing as it might be, the moment when Joy left the car in neutral was one of the most memorable moments. And this is only because I did the same thing!

Which character – as performed by Stephanie Ballard – was your favorite?

I loved Joy. I saw so much of myself in her. She brought me back to my een years.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Sometimes life surprises you in the most mysterious ways.

Any additional comments?

Haunting Joy is the first book I've had the pleasure of reading from Lena Goldfinch. Even though I'm an adult, I really enjoyed this YA fiction story. In fact, after finishing it, I quickly went to Lena's website to see what books I could read next!

Lena has a strength of developing relatable characters that you can't help but fall in love with. As the story progressed, I began to see so much of myself in the main character of Joy. I was swept back into my own high school years, and the accuracy in which Lena presented the mindset of a teenager was spot on. So many memories of my own youth were brought out, and I loved it!

With the strength of character development, Lena wove a tale that is sure to please and keep you going until the end. I highly recommend this book to both young adults and beyond. I know I'm glad I was able to meet Lena Goldfinch through this book, and I'm very ready to read more from her!

I was given this book in exchange for an honest review.

I refused to give up

The story was so very predictable but maybe for a young reader it will work. So many times I just wanted to stop listening but forced myself to get to the end. It was only 4 hours after all.