Growing up Southern Baptist with a self-absorbed Mother and often absent Father, Jo was forced to spend most of her childhood with an abusive Grandmother who believed that hard work was the only way to get to heaven. On weekends, while her Catholic friends were watching cartoons and playing with the latest toys, Jo and her siblings were polishing silver and starching linens with military precision. Her Grandmother’s personality at church was gentle and kind, unlike the often cruel and harsh one only her family saw.

Jo’s life changed when she stumbled upon a little shop not far from her home, where a perfect stranger gave her the hope for a brighter future. That shop was called ‘The Lemon Tree’ and that’s the story that inspired Jo to write her first book ‘The Lemon Tree Book – Memoirs of Courage’.