This week I’m hosting Judy Christie with Downtown Green, Kathi Macias with Special Delivery, Sharon Dunn with Broken Trust, and Alyssa Liljequist with Deadly Delirium (ebook). If you want to enter the drawings for the books, please leave a comment on one of the post during the week with your email address. I will not enter you without an email address (my way to contact you if you win). If you don’t want to leave an email address, another way you can enter is to email me at margaretdaley@gmail.com. The drawings end Sunday (March 18th) evening.
Interview with the heroine from Special Delivery by Kathi Macias:
1. Mara, tell us what is the most interesting thing about you.
That I survived ten years as a human trafficking sex slave, from the age of 8 to 18, is the most interesting/remarkable/miraculous thing imaginable. There were many times when I thought I wouldn’t make it—and times when my life was so horrible that I wished I wouldn’t. I am one of the few that not only survived but escaped.
2. What do you do for fun?
Fun is still a very foreign concept to me. Because I spent most of my life just trying to stay alive, I never had time or energy or opportunity for fun or enjoyment. But now that I’ve been free for two years, I do spend most of my off-work time walking or sitting at the beach, which is only a few blocks from where I live. I tend to avoid social activities, though I am becoming friends with a lady who is old enough to be my mother and who is involved in a ministry to help human trafficking victims. I also have a strong attraction to Jonathan, a Bible college student, who was instrumental in my rescue but who is way out of my class when it comes to relationships. Besides, relationships scare me, since I’ve never really had a healthy one.
3. What do you put off doing because you dread it?
Dealing with my emotions. I know I need to cut off all ties with Jonathan, as it’s best for both of us, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. I also think that one day I will have to confront my parents, who sold me into slavery when I was a child, but the thought is just too difficult to deal with.
4. What are you afraid of most in life?
My uncle, who served as my owner/pimp for eight years and is now in prison for life, mostly due to my testimony. I know that just because he’s behind bars doesn’t mean he isn’t still trying to find a way to get revenge on me for putting him there.
5. What do you want out of life?
To be left alone and to forget my past. The pain is so great I sometimes wonder if that is even possible.
6. What is the most important thing to you?
That others never find out where I came from or what I’ve done. Even though I know I was a victim, I can’t help but believe they will judge me for it.
7. Do you read? If so, what is your favorite type of book to read?
I scarcely learned how to read as a child and was never able to do so during my captivity, so reading is something I do only with difficulty.
8. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
My past. My present and future would then be bearable; right now, there are many times when they aren’t. With all my heart I wish I’d had parents who loved and cared for me, who protected me, but I didn’t, and I can’t change that.
9. Do you have a pet? If so, what is it and why that pet?
My family had a dog when I was a small child, but he was pretty scruffy and certainly not pampered. He had to scrounge for food like the rest of us, and my dad used to threaten to eat him if he didn’t behave. I missed that dog when I was sold into slavery, as there were times when I was little that he seemed to be my only true friend. Since then I haven’t had a pet, and I can’t have one now because I rent a room at a boarding house where pets aren’t allowed.
10. If you could travel back in time, where would you go and why?
Back to my little home in Mexico, just before my parents sold me to my uncle. When I saw my uncle driving up to the house to pick me up that day, I would have run as far and fast as I could. I don’t know where I would have ended up, but it would have been better than what happened to me at the hands of my own family.
