FORT LAUDERDALE — Author Lee M. Sapp will talk about her book, Pastor June and The Righteous, at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 10 at the African-American Research Library and Cultural Center (AARLCC) in Fort Lauderdale.
The event is free and open to the public at AARLCC, 2650 Sistrunk Blvd. Call the Welcome Desk at 954-357-6210. Sarasota native Sapp is an ordained minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church with a bachelor’s degree in Religion who currently is a senior at Payne Theological Seminary.
She is a certified Christian Counselor, and a certified Electronic Court Transcriber – the owner of Transcripts By Sapp, a transcription service.
She is also an adoptive mother and serves on the local advisory committee of the One Church One Child Organization. Married for 23 years, she lives in Loxahatchee with their children.
Although Sapp’s “Christian fiction for grown folk” is her first novel, she says she has always loved writing. “I’ve written many short stories, plays, poems, litanies and prayers. I find writing to be another mighty way in which God uses me for ministry.”
The minister and writer also is a big crime and mystery buff. “I especially love courtroom drama fiction,” she says. “I am of course a fan of all things Law and Order and a huge fan of John Grisham’s work. In this project I attempt to combine my greatest loves: ministry, mystery, family, friends and love.”
In Pastor June and The Righteous, after Cecily Reardon is found murdered under unusual circumstances, the evidence leads veteran detective Mario Grimes to St. Mark Church and his one true love. Pastor June Harris, formerly a very talented police detective, left the force to pursue her call in the ministry. The first female and youngest pastor ever appointed to St. Mark Church, her arrival there was met with much opposition from the congregation. Six years later, these same people are her biggest supporters, her only family and a major reason she is happier than she has been in a long time.
But when Grimes, the only man she ever allowed herself to love, appears at St. Mark seeking her help to solve the murder of one of her former church members, she is forced to reflect on the hardest time of her life: She last saw him years earlier on the night before they were to be married — before he left her at the altar and married someone else without so much as a phone call. After years of resentment and hurt, is she able to help solve Cecily’s murder with the man who hurt her the most? Will she ever allow her heart to love again or will she stay solely devoted to the church family she’s grown to love?
Sapp, meanwhile, is writing a sequel, Pastor June and the Coveters.
For more information about the author visit at leemsapp.com
•Picture above Lee Sapp
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