Character Spotlight ~ Tricia Goyer & Ocieanna Fleiss' Julia Cavanaugh with Aussie Giveaway

Today the spotlight shines on.....................Julia Cavanaugh


While this is the first novel Tricia and Ocieanna have written together, they have been collaborating for some time in the past years with Ocieanna editing a number of Tricia's novels. Their symmetry shows in this historical romance for Summerside's Love Finds You series. Enjoy this look behind the scenes:~


Brief physical description

Julia Cavanaugh is 19 and sadly wears her gorgeous, wavy brown hair hidden away in a bun--it's the proper thing to do in her time, you know. She's slim yet if you touched her bicep, you'd find muscles hiding beneath her prairie blouse sleeve from working hard all her life.

Actor/famous person

We never really settled on an actress but were leaning toward a darker-haired Taylor Swift.

As for Isaac, we don't really have an actor, but we found this handsome cowboy on Google. Isaac was roughly based on my church's pastoral intern. :)

Strengths and weaknesses

What a great question! We first see Julia show compassion and patience toward the children and then toward the quirky characters she meets on the prairie. We also find she has a passion for literature and desires to learn--especially the Bible. Being an orphan herself, Julia has trouble trusting people and especially God.

Quirk (if any)

She liked to read what they called "Dime Novels" about life in the "Wild West." Especially before she left New York, she was fascinated by their romanticized version of life on the frontier. When she got there, things were quite different...

Your inspiration for the character

I don't know if there was one inspiration that we drew from. As we plotted the story, our perception of Julia evolved. We'd say, "Let's say she helped run an orphanage, what would it be like if she had to say goodbye to the girls she loved?" Or, "She lives in New York then has to move to this terribly lonely and isolated place. What does she feel?" And we pieced all the parts together and came up with our dear Julia.

Background to the story

Tricia and Ocieanna had been planning on writing a book together for Summerside about the homefront in World War II, but a conflict of interest put that on hold (till next summer). So Summerside gave us the title /Love Finds You in Lonesome Prairie, Montana/ and asked if we could come up with a historical romance. We said, "Oh sure!" And four months later we went from just the title to a full 80,000 word book. A cool part is that Ocieanna had recently delved into the 1800s (a period she knew very little about) to teach two intense courses to homeschool kids. She was able to use some of this info for Lonesome Prairie. What a blessing!

Also, the more we researched, the more we were fascinated by the pioneers who forged their life on the frontiers. We admired their hard work under primitive conditions. We also discovered crazy characters out there who did outlandish things. We had too much fun putting some of these antics in the book.

Thanks so much, Ocieanna, for taking the time to share your inspiration behind Julia and this story :)


Tune in on Monday for a spotlight on Loree Lough's Sam Sinclair & Bryce Stone from the Christmas themed, Love Finds You in North Pole, Alaska!

Relz Reviewz Extras

Visit Tricia's website and blog

Enter Tricia & Ocieanna's contest (US only)

Buy Tricia & Ocieanna's book at Amazon or CBD

Aussie Giveaway

Love Finds You in Lonesome Prairie, Montana is not available in Australia yet so I'm thrilled to have a copy to giveaway to one of my readers!

To enter:~

Post a comment on or before Sunday 20th December, 2009 but you must have an Aussie postal address and leave contact details!