Thirty-year-old Tonya Monroe has worked hard to amass her assets: a dream home in one of Washington's largest Maryland suburbs, a sweet job, a luxury car, and money in the bank. She has beauty, brains, and a body envied by women and adored by men. But what she hasn't had since she was fourteen and her mother was killed while riding with a drunk driver, leaving Tonya to be raised by the two people she begrudges most-her alcoholic father and her 'play aunt, ' Carolyn Wright-is peace of mind. Peace isn't the only thing slipping through her fingers when she is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. Carolyn, who drove the car that took Tonya's mother's life, is a fifty-four-year-old devoted wife, ministry leader, and self-proclaimed 'woman of integrity.' Though she believes in holding folk-especially church folk-accountable for their actions, she refuses to live under the black cloud of that terrible day. She is now strong in the Lord and the power of His might. But her well-built spiritual wall begins to crumble when she winds up the subject of scandal at the Straighter Way Baptist Church and has to answer for her actions. This uplifting debut novel from a fresh, new voice in the growing field of Christian fiction is the story of faith, friendship, and forgiveness. Korika L. Johnson's "Joy Comes in the Mourning" presents real characters with real issues and challenges even non-Christians to lift up their eyes to the Father in heaven.