We can change minds through our stories. I was determined to stop abuse through a story. I decided to create a friend, someone the reader would grow with and love. In this way, we make abuse immediate. We make it something that must be stopped whether it happens to woman or man, young or old.
Suffering anywhere ultimately hurts us all. We can only end abuse and its fallout through the realizations that we are all humans on Earth and the things that separate us are nothing more than invisible walls.
Gender, sex, age, and ability; none of those things divides us as much as life connects us. When we lift up those who are abused, those who suffer, those who are judged to be less, we lift ourselves up as well.
This story, though set in the midst of an actual historical event, is fiction. But it is my hope that, through the lens of fiction, we can lift our spirits and create a better world for our fellow humans. Even if you feel it’s good story and nothing else, I pray that the light of the sisters in this novel, Ronica and Zolia, will live on within you.