A Dialogue with Julie Lessman – Author of “A Passion Denied.”

I’m happy to welcome my friend, Julie Lessman, for a return blog visit so we can talk about her latest release, A Passion Denied. Julie will be popping in all week long to respond to your comments and questions.

This is the third book in her Daughters of Boston series. In A Passion Most Pure and A Passion Redeemed we follow the stories of the two older O’Connor sisters, Faith and Charity. In this book, Elizabeth (Lizzie) O’Connor loves someone who won’t allow himself to love her in return.

Recognized as an author who pushes the boundaries for Christian Romance compared to what readers have been accustomed to in the past, the Romantic Times book review states, “This isn’t your mother’s inspirational fiction!”

Julie has a heart passionate for God, and she writes stories of faith out of that passion. Desiring to reach people who might not ordinarily read Christian romance, her characters come with real struggles and baggage. Married and single people experience the joy - and if abused - the destruction intimacy can bring into relationships.

In A Passion Denied, the author gives the reader a real message of hope for healing and forgiveness to anyone who has ever been wounded, or been the one to inflict pain. That pretty much covers us all.

Read on to learn more, and then enjoy the dialogue with Julie concerning the book’s storyline.

You also have a CHANCE TO WIN AN AUTOGRAPHED COPY of any of the three Daughters of Boston books. (See below.)


Back Cover Blurb


A Love So True, a Memory So False …
and a Passion Denied

Elizabeth O’Connor has been the little sister John Brady always longed for, sharing his love of literature and his thirst for God. But in the throes of the reckless “Roaring Twenties, “Lizzie” suddenly wants more from the man who has mentored her since she was thirteen. When this shy, little bookworm blossoms into a beautiful young woman bent on loving him, she discovers John’s past won’t let him go there. Unfortunately, Lizzie won’t let him go anywhere else—until his dark and shocking secrets push her away.

Can true love survive the betrayal and deceit of a painful past … or will it be shattered like the fairy-tale dreams of a young girl in love?

Brimming with romance, longing and betrayal, Book 3 in the Daughters of Boston series, A Passion Denied, will quicken your pulse and gladden your heart with a riveting story of redemption and forgiveness.




Dialogue with Julie

1. Julie, you’ve gained recognition as an author who pushes the boundaries in Christian romance novels when it comes to the joys and heartaches of physical intimacy between married couples – and the struggles of those not married. You create real characters. Why is it so important for you to be that honest in your work?

Remember Jim Caray’s character in the movie Liar, Liar—the guy who couldn’t stop from telling the truth whether he wanted to or not? Yep, that’s me. Even if I wanted to keep quiet and not say anything, my mouth would trip me up because I am above all things good and bad—honest to a fault. Once I bought groceries for a school function and was tallying the receipt for reimbursement when I noticed the grocery store hadn’t charged me for a jar of nuts. I immediately got on the phone with the store manager and asked if it would be okay if I brought the money in on my next trip to the store. He paused and said, “Mrs. Lessman, I have only one thing to say—nuts to you!” He told me that I should keep the nuts as a thank you for my honesty.

A very nice story, but I’m afraid that when it comes to my honesty in portraying real Christians with real temptations in my brand of “edgy Inspirational fiction,” a lot of people still think I’m pretty “nuts.” But that’s okay because I am absolutely driven to be as real and as passionate in the writing of my books as I am in my relationship with God. It is critical to me that I write the type of fiction that draws women like I used to be—women who, yeah, maybe they believe in God, but they are not living for him—not in their lives or in their sexuality.

I look at the young women today, mired in an amoral society, and my heart cries out to make a difference in their lives. To show them what God showed me—that unless He is in the center of our relationships, true happiness will be very hard to come by. Unfortunately, most of these types of girls and women don’t read Inspirational Romance. BUT … it is my desire—and I hope, God’s—that the edgy romantic tension in my books will somehow draw women like this to the type of Inspirational Romance that I write. And IF they read it, I am convinced the spiritual message will resonate for some of them.


2. In the beginning of A Passion Denied, Lizzie O’Connor is like so many young girls in that she dreams of marrying the perfect man, her Prince Charming. But the man she loves is not as perfect as she thought. Through it, Lizzie learned what it means to not only deeply love, but to love with a maturity that endures through hard times.

I really think this is a common problem among young women today—an overly idealistic view of what marriage or love will be like, or at least it was for me when I was that age. I mean let’s face it—Hollywood’s view (or a romance novel’s view) of happily ever after is quite different from reality, although with God at the center of a relationship, I believe you can come as close to that ideal as humanly possible in this world. Although it takes a lot of work and application of God’s precepts to do it, it can be done, and I am living proof. I am married for over 30 years to a man who makes me feel as if I am living my own personal romance novel. Let me tell you, that doesn’t just happen. It takes Jesus Christ at the center of a marriage and radical commitment to His precepts.


3. You show through story how important it is for couples to be able to forgive each other. That no matter how young or old the relationship, it can still be wounded, but it can also be healed when pride isn’t allowed to get in the way.

Grin. Yeah, well I have an over 30-year-old relationship with my sweet husband that has taught me A LOT about pride getting in the way, trust me! Let’s face it, we are all emotional and fallible beings no matter our age or marital status, and the need for forgiveness and healing will NEVER go away until we cross the Great Divide to spend eternity with Jesus. And as an older women with lots of “pride” experience under her belt, I especially wanted to relate the struggles of older married couples in a romance novel because I feel that is so seldom done in this genre. Which is why when people ask me what genre I write, I tell them “Inspirational Family Saga Romance” rather than just romance. Romance and life happens to all of us, regardless of age. I want to write romantic stories that offer a kaleidoscope of emotion through the eyes of characters of all ages and experiences, not just the young, single hero and heroine. I mean, really, why should the young people get all the fun??? Life is ageless, after all, and I think romance should be too!


4. Another truth is brought into the story. A man may desire to be physically close with the woman he loves and marries, but just like a woman, he can also struggle with that kind of intimacy if deeply wounded in his past.

Oh, absolutely! When I met my husband, he was toting around a boatload of baggage from past relationships where his trust in women had been greatly damaged. Keep in mind that it was the 1970s when the morality was as bad as it is now. So when he met me and I explained very calmly that I was a Christian who intended to do things God’s way (just like Faith calmly explains to Mitch in A Passion Most Pure), it wasn’t what he was used to. But because of Christ transforming me from a Charity to a Faith with the amazing power of His merciful salvation, I won my husband’s respect, trust and heart in a courtship that was completely moral until we said “I do.”


5. What are you currently working on? What can we look forward to reading, and when?

My next 3-book series will finish off the saga of the O’Connors in grand style, but I must emphasize that this will be a BRAND-NEW series, NOT a part of The Daughters of Boston Series. And oh my, you won’t believe the trouble brewing in O’Connorland!

As you know, there are six O'Connor children in all, four daughters and two sons, and each one will have their own story. As a matter of fact, I JUST finished Book 1 of the next series on St. Pat's Day—pretty timely, eh, for a series about an Irish family? It is Katie's story, the fourth daughter, which was fun because she is a pistol who comes of age in the Roaring Twenties, right before The Great Depression.

Books 2 and 3 will be about the O'Connor brothers, Sean and then Steven, all during the exciting era of speakeasies, dance marathons, gangsters, G-men and era criminals like Bonnie & Clyde and John Dillenger. Sean's love interest will be ... guess who? Emma—Charity's scarred friend from Dublin! And Steven will be a tall, brooding G-man-type modeled after real-life Elliot Ness. Some of your readers are probably too young to remember this, but I am modeling him after Robert Stack from the Untouchables, who played Eliot Ness in the TV show years ago. I am very excited because all three plots are very involved, include detailed sub-stories for ALL the character couples (can you say "complicated"???) and each plot has surprises that I hope and pray will blow readers away!

Thank you SO much, Dawn, for allowing me this time to connect with you and your readers. Anyone who would like to contact me can do so through my website at http://www.julielessman.com/, either by sending an e-mail via my site or by signing up for my newsletter, in which I feature book giveaways. And, of course, your readers will enjoy visiting both of us at The Seekers (http://seekerville.blogspot.com/), our group blog that talks about “The road to publication. Writing, contests, publication and everything in between.”

Hugs,
Julie





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Thanks for visiting!
Dawn