Kristin Hannah Comfort & Joy

Comfort & Joy

Kristin Hannah

Ballantine, Nov 2005, $15.95, 272 pp.

ISBN: 0345483677

Bakersfield high school librarian Joy Faith Candellaro faces Christmas by herself for the first time in her three plus decades of living. She reflects back to last year when she shared the holiday with the two people she loved, her husband Thomas and her sister Stacey. One month later she found them strutting together in the bed she shared with Thomas. Eight months after that, the divorce became final. She does not look forward to this year's holiday season, as she has no work to hide behind, and no one to turn to since the betrayal.

Still she thinks of escaping to any of the zillion spots she thought of visiting. When her sibling arrives, Joy decides to flee. She ends up in Rain Valley, where she meets widower Daniel 0'Shea and his son, Bobby. She is attracted to both of them and they to her, but her life is in Bakersfield, unless she can summon up the courage to examine that she has nothing there and everything here, but the risk to the heart is so great. A plane crash leaves her with hope, and she finds Christmas in March.

COMFORT & JOY is an entertaining contemporary romance starring a wonderful woman who seemingly lacks the courage to move on with her life after the betrayal, especially when love is involved. Fans will wonder whether Joy will stay or go as she knows that love hurts, but leaving hurts even more. Though Daniel and Bobby are wonderful support characters, forcing the heroine to decide, and her sister and Tom worry for her (at least they are not evil people), Joy Faith Candellaro makes the tale seem almost like Brigadoon.

Harriet Klausner