Welcome back to another inspirational moment from historical Christian romance novels. Today’s inspirational moment is a little different. This past week I had the opportunity to sit down and talk with author Julie Lessman about her newest book A Dare and A Prayer. If you ever get a chance to meet Julie you will soon discover she is an amazing woman of God filled with her own inspirational stories, which she packs into her novels. I’m sure you’ll walk away inspired by her interview. Before we jump into the interview, I just wanted to take a moment to remind everyone that both Julie and I will be donating to two great anti-human trafficking groups with every copy of A Dare and a Prayer that is sold. Julie will be donating a portion of her book sales proceeds to Project Eden. I will be donating a dollar for every copy of A Dare and Prayer sold in October to Destiny Rescue. So be sure to get your copy before midnight tomorrow October 31, 2023. Now let’s dig into this inspirational interview with award-winning author Julie Lessman! What was your hope or desire for your readers as you worked on A Dare and a Prayer? Wow, without question, it was the theme of trafficking, child trafficking. I didn't really expect to go there. I mean, this is a romance. And the hero is kind of a funny character. So, I mean, it's kind of a lighthearted book. I was actually God that told me I had to do it. I was not even contemplating doing a serious subject like that. But I was in the middle of writing a scene. I mean, I was a good part of the way through the book. And all of a sudden, you know, in the scene where this little girl is supposed to run, you know, she's run through the streets, and she just runs into Henry’s legs. I was only going to put that in there to show how he picks her up and what a tender heart he has. But when I was writing it, it's like, all of a sudden, my mind's eye, I saw this evil looking guy chasing this little girl. And I felt like God said, this is your theme. It's going to be child trafficking. And I'm going, this is World War II. I mean, I know it's prevalent today, okay? But I didn't think it was back then. And the other thing was it's a Japanese internment camp. And in my head, I thought Japanese were always very family oriented, very noble. And so, I kind of bucked and thought, gee, a romance with a child trafficking theme, that doesn't sound like it's going to fly. But he would not let me go. I had to do it. And then while I was writing the book, I saw Sound of Freedom. I don't know if you've seen that movie or not. It's Jim Caviezel and it was actually finished like five or six years ago. But Disney owned rights to it and would not release it and they did that on purpose. They didn't want to release it and Hollywood pretty much closed the door in these people's faces. So, they went into crowdfunding and they got it out on their own. And wow, I think it's made well over 200 million by now. And it's just a powerful movie. And that really impacted me because, you know, I mean, Melissa, we hear about child trafficking for a couple of years now we've heard about it, you know, but you hear so much that you almost become numb to it. You don't think about it. And that movie brought it front and center again. And that was like a confirmation to me that what I was doing was right. After I saw that movie, I went, yes, this is what He wants me to do. So back to your question, I wanted to jolt people and make them aware that this is just a heinous tragedy that's going on and it's really prevalent. And it was prevalent in World War II. It's been going on for centuries, okay, but it's really coming to the foreground now. I think I did shine some light on it because I had a number of people say to me, you know I didn't really focus on this until this book. They said it was difficult to read but they thought I did a decent job. So, I mean, you know, that's kind of what I was hoping to accomplish. I think I did to a degree. How have your readers received Henry's story? I think mostly well, you know. I have a 4.7 rating on Amazon with 62 reviews and a 4.7 on Goodreads, which is hard to do. Usually, the Goodreads number is much lower because people, they feel like they can be more honest on Goodreads however I got 4.7 on both of them. So, I'm really, really thrilled about that. You know, I was worried in the beginning because a lot of my diehard bloggers that review my books, a couple of them that have never given me a four star in my life, I mean they've read every one of my books and given me a five star, gave me four stars and I started seeing that and I thought, hmm, I wonder what that's all about. So anyway, but I think that seems to have changed now, it looks like the five stars are really rolling in a lot more so, I'm grateful. So, I also am really curious because I love all of your books on the O'Connor family. Will there be more for the O'Connor family? Or do you feel like...
