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Al and JoAnna Lacy is the husband and wife writing team of Al Lacy and Joanna Lacy. Al Lacy is an evangelist and author who has written more than 100 Western and historical novels that include the series “Mail Order Bride,” “Angel of Mercy,” “Journeys of the Stranger,” “The Orphan Trains Trilogy,” “Hannah of Fort Bridger,” “Battles of Destiny” and the “Frontier Doctor Trilogy” among others. There are more than three million of their novels in print. Joanna Lacy who been collaborating with Al for years is a retired nurse. The Lacys have been married for four decades and currently reside in Florida.
Al Lacy has asserted that he loves to preach almost as much as he loves to write stories which may sound strange given that he has written more than 100 bestselling titles in his career. However, for Joanna, spreading their faith has always been the most important thing. In fact, they have asserted that they took up writing as way of financing evangelism which they say is their first passion. As an itinerant pastor, Al used to travel all over the US evangelizing to churches regardless of whether they could pay him or not. But in doing that, he soon ran into an impasse since they were not saving for their retirement. This is when his wife told him that since he had read historicals and westerns all his life, maybe he should try his handwriting similar books. He published his first novel “Dead Man’s Noose” in 1980 and has never looked back since.
For more than twenty-one years, Lacy published with a range of secular publishing companies using his storytelling talents to fund his evangelism efforts. But then he ran into another problem, the market was becoming so competitive that his editor felt that he needed to change his style. He encouraged him to include more compromising material just to keep up. He refused to include any sex scenes in his novels and the editor told him that he was through unless he did it. He quit the publishing house and despite what his former editor said, he was introduced to a conservative publisher in Multnomah, who respected his religious conscience. He flourished under the new editors and went on to write the “Journeys of the Stranger” a western saga and “Battles of Destiny Civil War” that was something of an action series. His wife Joanna also decided to become a full-fledged author herself when before she has been working only as a writing advisor. They collaborated to write the “Mail Order Bride” series that was a huge commercial success followed by the “Hannah of Fort Bridger” novels, a romantic western series that were just as successful.
In a recent letter to his fans, Lacy asserted that over time, their mission to evangelize merged with their desire to write high-quality Christian historicals and westerns. He asserted that their stories are intended to stir anger and joy, wring out tears and grip the heart of their readers. In all their novels they include threads of biblical truths and the gospel that their readers can apply in their daily lives even if they are set in an earlier era. Joanna and Al Lacy are westerners at heart and spend much of their time between Florida and Montana.
The “Orphan Train Trilogy” is a series of historical fiction that is one of the most popular ever written by Al and JoAnna Lacy. They are interesting and entertaining novels that portray history using a range of fictional characters. The novels are about a man who runs a foundation who heard about the thousands of orphans without a home in several cities across the US and decided to go pick them up to provide love, care, and a home. There are many different situations and reasons that had resulted in the children being homeless and these would have to be taken into account by their benefactors. For instance, there is a pair of siblings whose parents died when their ship got lost in a storm and sunk. Al and JoAnna Lacy tell the story of how the children deal with their situation as orphans in the cities. Throughout the novels Christian belief and faith are prominent things alongside themes such as trust in God. There is also the preaching of the message of salvation.
Al and JoAnna Lacy’s “The Little Sparrows” introduces the story of a man that goes from city to city and station to station picking up orphans. The man is Charles Loring Brace a man with the vision he calls “orphan train” who moves from Kearney, San Francisco, Cheyenne, Sacramento, Reno and Rawlins picking up orphans. Brace cannot live with himself seeing innocent children rendered homeless and founded the Children’s Aid Society that places the children with families. The few lucky orphans picked up from the bustling streets of New York and other big cities are then placed with a family and home, where they can get the love and care they need. But it is not only the children who need mending as we follow along to find families get the healing as laughter and love are restored at just the right time. It is an easy read that leaves the reader with a feeling that even the littlest among us has God’s watchful eye over them.
“All My Tomorrows,” the second novel of Al and JoAnna Lacy’s The Orphan’s Trilogy series tells the story of sixty-two orphans and children that are finally taken out of the city to go find a new life in the West. Many of them have never been outside the cities and do not know what awaits them. Will they end up being separated from their siblings or friends? Will they even get picked by a family and will that family love them unconditionally? There is a ton of happenings in the novels ranging from whippings to kidnappings and stowing away on the wagons. Over the course of the novel, the children grow and mature to the point of setting up their own orphanages and becoming evangelists to the Native Americans. But in it all they are being watched out by a higher power that will ensure that their tomorrow is better than their today.
“Whispers in the Wind” the third novel of the series is set in 1871 New York City, where Dane Weston a fourteen-year-old that has just come home to find an empty apartment. His family has been murdered by a gang of teenage boys which has left his dreams of becoming a doctor shattered. He is now an orphan, a homeless boy forced to make a living in the merciless streets of New York among the waifs. To survive she has to beg for food. Things get even worse when he had to experience imprisonment, misunderstanding and then being separated from her best friend Tharyn that is also an orphan. While the novel does not emphasize the horrible conditions on the streets, it follows the loves of orphans as they live in hope for a better future.
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3 Responses to “Al and JoAnna Lacy”
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Truly works of love. I am accumulating all of your books so I can share with neighbors and friends. It’s the best I’ve read in years. The combination of a fiction story and the religious influence is great. Hope more people would write this way and provide a way to read great clean novels with religious influence.
I love the examples of strong faith.
I absolutely love your books. They are the absolute best I’ve ever read. Love how you weave in romance, intrigue, suspense and mystery. There is never a dull moment in your books. Thanks for using your God given talent for the Lord. God bless you.
Carol