[3] Set during the 1976 heatwave in Europe, college student David Barwise secures a summer job at a run-down holiday resort in the seaside town of Skegness, Lincolnshire in eastern England.

Alexander called The Year of the Ladybird a "tender tale of David's coming of age at a pivotal point in British history", and Joyce's "most satisfying effort" since his 2008 novel, Memoirs of a Master Forger.

[2] Writing in SF Book Reviews, Antony Jones found The Year of the Ladybird "an incredibly warm and rewarding journey" full of nostalgia and memories of "long, lazy summer days and that feeling of being young, free and alive.

"[5] In a review of the American edition of the book, The Ghost in the Electric Blue Suit at National Public Radio, Jason Heller wrote, "Joyce has written a jewel of a novel that blends gentle nostalgia, Bildungsroman angst, and a glimpse of the dark, unreal places where loss and memory mingle.

"[6] Heller praised Joyce's prose, saying it is "exquisite, but never extravagant", and noted that as in his Some Kind of Fairy Tale, "the thin wall between reality and what lies beyond is achingly stretched.