Julie Lessman’s passion for romance and the written word was ignited by Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler. “I read Gone with the Wind as a little girl, and when Scarlett seared Rhett with a look on the winding staircase of Twelve Oaks, I was a goner.” She immediately penned 150 pages which became the basis of her debut novel, A Passion Most Pure, some forty years later.
Julie believes romantic passion gives us a glimpse into the very heart of God. “After studying the Song of Solomon, I’m convinced the God who created passion and intimacy did so to mirror the intensity of His own love for mankind.” Julie despairs that the world uses God’s gift of romantic passion to shove sin down peoples’ throats. “I want to use romantic passion to teach people God’s precepts and therein, His love. It’s the cry of my heart, and I hope and pray that for my readers, my stories of romantic passion translate into passion for God.”
Julie acknowledges her stories are a tad more passionate than the majority of Christian romance novels. “I love romance, make no mistake, but I’m sorry—to me, romance is just not romantic unless God is in the middle! If the world can take something that God created and use it to sell its amoral agenda, then I ask you—why can’t Christians utilize this God-given passion to promote Him and His precepts?”
A Heart Revealed is somewhat of a departure from Julie’s previous stories where sparks usually fly immediately. Sean and Emma’s relationship is based on a ten-year friendship that grows spiritually and emotionally, ripening into unconditional love where two people sacrifice themselves for the other. “It is my hope Sean and Emma’s story will not only reveal the grace and mercy of a loving God, but the healing power of His truth … which truly does set us free.”