About This Episode

Julie Lessman Returns with A Whim and a Prayer: Faith, Family, and a Love Worth the Wait

Bestselling author Julie Lessman is back on the LiteraryScape Podcast. She joined host Melissa to talk about her long-awaited new release, A Whim and a Prayer. This heartfelt story marks book four in her Cousins O’Connor series, and fans have waited three years for it.

Why Julie Lessman Took a Three-Year Writing Break

Julie didn’t plan to step away from fiction. After A Dare and a Prayer released, she felt called to write a memoir devotional instead. She expected her next novel idea to follow quickly, the way it always had. Instead came silence.

Around that same season, Julie and her husband Keith relocated from Missouri to Alabama to be closer to their daughter. Add four surgeries between them, and the creative well simply ran dry for a while. Eventually, though, inspiration returned, and Julie wrote A Whim and a Prayer in just a few months this past spring.

Inside A Whim and a Prayer: Winnie and Beck’s Story

The new novel follows Winnie, the adopted daughter of Charity and Mitch O’Connor. Readers first met her as a young orphan with crossed eyes in Julie’s Christmas novella, A Whisper of Hope. Now grown, Winnie is impulsive, funny, and still learning to see herself the way God does rather than through the eyes of people who once mocked her.

Her hero is Beck, a fellow orphan who has protected her since childhood. He’s older, steady, and quietly in love with her, though he’s terrified that telling the truth could cost him their friendship. Their relationship shifts during a community theater fundraiser, when an on-stage kiss changes everything between them.

Underneath the romance, Julie built the story around one powerful truth: real confidence comes from God’s approval, not the world’s opinion. As she shared during the interview, the heart of the book is learning to listen to God instead of people.

A Wing and a Prayer: Where New Readers Should Start

Newcomers can jump into the series through book one, A Wing and a Prayer, currently the featured pick for the Christian Fiction Reading Challenge. Julie is running a 99-cent ebook sale on September 1, and readers who join the challenge’s Facebook group can attend a live Zoom author chat on September 29.

That first story follows Gabe, a WASP pilot turned World War II correspondent, and it’s loosely inspired by real history — right down to Hitler’s fondness for Coca-Cola and the accidental invention of Fanta.

How to Win a Character Named After You

Preorder buzz is building around A Whim and a Prayer, releasing September 8. Julie is offering one lucky reader the chance to have a character named after them in the book, along with a signed paperback and a twenty-five-dollar gift card. Entering only takes an email confirming the preorder, making it an easy way to become part of the story.

Listen to the Full Interview

Tune in to hear Julie share more about her writing process, her real-life marriage inspiring the O’Connor parents, and how a rescued snake, a stolen uniform, and a bottle of Coca-Cola all found their way into her research-rich storytelling. Listen to the full episode here.

Visit Julie Lessman’s website to learn more about her books and upcoming events.

Join the Christian Fiction Reading Challenge here.