"An excellent small town story!"

Leslie Kelly does small towns like she knows exactly what it's all about! Since I am from a small town, I just eat up her stories like fried chicken and homemade gravy. Yum! Joyful has its share of quirky characters and equally quirky stories!

The first thing Johnny Walker, former Joyful bad boy and now the County prosecutor (who'd a thunk) finds out that there's an advertisement over Route 23 with a huge set of 'hooties' hanging over it.

The next rumor going around town is that Emma Jean Frasier is on her way back to Joyful. Emma Jean fled her grandmother's house and Joyful back when she was a senior in high school and was caught with her pants down in the gazebo with who else but Johnny himself. Johnny never quite got over her but damned if he'll let her know. Besides it's been ten years so the spark should be long gone by now, shouldn't it?

Emma is coming back to Joyful with her tail between her legs. Her supposed best friend ran off with all of her money and her company's money and now Emma is broke except for her grandmother's land and house right here in Joyful. What Emma doesn't know is somehow the rumor is going around that she is a former porn star. Oh how small town gossip can cut like a knife!!

I just loved, loved, loved this book. I have to be one of Leslie Kelly's biggest fans and eagerly await each and every one of her books. My favorites have to be her single titles. She can't write them fast enough for me!! All I can say is, Leslie, I want more!!

Reviewed by Kathy Boswell
Posted April 15, 2005

Summary

When she was good, she was very, very good. . .
When Emma Frasier returns home to joyful, Georgia, she's greeted with the kinds of winks and lusty grins one might offer. . .an adult film star?

But when she was bad. . .
Thanks to small-town gossip and citizens who clearly need to get a life, Joyful's residents think Emma Jean is the "famous star" building a strip club in town. And that her barely concealed. . .uh, attributesare the ones gracing the new interstate billboard.

She was better.
As if being taken for a blue movie queen isn't rattling enough, there's Johnny Walker, the local bad boy turned good-a man who tempts Emma to be just as wild and wicked as Joyful thinks she is.