Out of the Darkness is based on the true story of a nineteenth-century child coal miner rising out of the ashes of poverty and tragedy to change the world. It’s the story of greed, love, sacrifice, faith, and the courage to push aside fear and jump into the refiner’s fire where the finest qualities of character are forged.

In 1837, seven-year-old Thomas Wright followed in his family's footsteps into one of England’s most dangerous coal mines. He struggled with childhood fears, working twelve-hour days, six days a week in the darkness 500-feet below ground. That was until disaster struck in one of England’s most horrific accidents that changes the direction of his life and the course of history.

This is the fast-moving story of a young boy overcoming the iron-fisted rule of the massively wealthy lord of the land, who not only owned much of South Yorkshire’s coal mines and the villages in which the miners lived, but the mortgage on their lives. With the help of his family, he confronts the tyrannical system of industrial slavery, His Lordship’s brutal psychopathic enforcer, and a society that fostered the oppression of the working class. From his desperate beginnings, we follow Tom on a path to a brilliant career, his love affair with a strong-willed woman, and his courageous fight to help change the course of industrial slavery in England.

It's a masterfully told story of the great sweep of human desire for freedom and liberty; not just for himself, but for his children and his children’s children. Like many immigrants in the mid-nineteenth century, Thomas Wright was drawn to what Abraham Lincoln called, “the last best hope on earth,” and has left a vast American legacy, including his seven-year-old great, great, great, great grandson Cole, pictured on the front cover of this book.


Here is The GAB TALKS interview with David A. Jacinto below.

GABBY: Welcome to the Gab Talks by the Independent Press Award. I'm your hostess Gabby Olczak. To participate in the 2024 book award competitions, please visit IndependentPressAward.com and NYCBigBookAward.com. This podcast we will be speaking with David A. Jacinto, author of “Out of the Darkness.” The novel, which is based on a true story, was awarded the 2024 NYC Big Book Award in the Historical Fiction category.

“Out of the Darkness” has won numerous awards and was Amazon's #1 new release in its class. It's book one in the Courageous series. David has spent his life telling stories on a personal level and in the business world, and we're in and around San Diego. The first in his family to attend college. David was a student athlete and earned a degree in civil engineering.

He later served as president of Asme Engineering Company, held leadership roles in numerous national and international companies along the West Coast of California, and was on the board of directors for a number more. In 2001, David was commandeered by the State of California on special assignment as Chief Engineer to help the rescue California's three major utilities on the verge of bankruptcy.

During the highly publicized $300 billion energy crisis. Now, this is my favorite part of David's bio. Despite his success professionally, David says his greatest achievement has been to convince the Fetching Ann Gray to become his wife, his four wonderful children, their wives and husband, and Papa Jay to 13 near perfect, but I'm guessing perfect grandchildren.

David joins us today from California. Welcome David, congratulations and welcome to The GAB TALKS.

DAVID: Well, thank you very much. I've heard so much about you, Gabby. And I feel fortunate for the opportunity just to sit down with you for a few minutes.

GABBY: Thank you so much. Well, well, this is a fantastic book. And as I said, in our green room chat, you are an incredible writer. “Out of the Darkness” is a true story about a 19th century child coal miner. Thomas Wright in South Yorkshire, England, during the Industrial Revolution. Thomas is your great great grandfather.

DAVID: That's right.

GABBY: Yes. Let's talk to our listeners about what led you to discover the story of Tommy Wright was the main protagonist of the story?

DAVID: Well, it's interesting, I had written, series of Christmas stories in a book that, had done fairly well. The publisher had not released it yet and my mother, who was very sick at the time, living in Louisiana, which is across the country from where I live in San Diego.

Wanted to hear those stories, but she was near the end of her life, she was blind at that time, and had cancer. So I hopped on a plane and flew to Louisiana. And I read her the first two stories in that book, and she told me a little bit about her family that I knew nothing about.

She was actually an orphan, and she had a family in Wyoming that I had not really heard about. So as I read two stories a day for eight straight days, she told me more and more about this family, her birth family. At the end, she said when she passed away, which she passed away just hours after we finished the last story, she wanted to be buried at that cemetery in Wyoming, so I did.

We, my sister and I, took her to that cemetery, and we buried her there. And found that the largest tombstones in the entire cemetery were my great great grandparents that I knew nothing about prior to that week. So I immediately wanted to find out as much as I could. Wyoming is fairly close to Salt Lake City, which has the largest genealogical library in the world.

So I went down there with my wife, and we spent a half a day with these cute little ladies helping us unearth all this information about their family. I learned so much that the very next day, I went back to that little town in Wyoming on a Sunday and met with a historical director who was willing to meet with me for the Summit County.

And she promised to help me do research for a book. And that began a two year process for writing this fascinating book. And, Thomas and his wife and a few other major players that change the world as far as child mining is concerned. And child, child abuse, really? Child trafficking in England in the 1830s through the 1860s?

GABBY: So clarify the title “Out of the Darkness” and the significance of it, because it's quite early into the main protagonist, Tommy, who was seven years old when he answered the coal mines.

DAVID: Right. Simon and Schuster and I explored alternative titles and came up with “Out of the Darkness” for a number of reasons. Number one, Thomas, Tommy, goes into the mine at age seven. His mother, who had worked as a maid for a fabulously wealthy Lord Fitzwilliam, became extremely educated because one of the her jobs as one of the 450 servants in Lord Fitzwilliams home, was to take care of the library, and so she read incessantly, and became a very well-educated young woman.

When she was forced to leave that house through a series of circumstances that happened to young women in those days. She married this coal miner, he had no education at all. And so, he insists that his children go into the coal mine, because that's what they did in this little town. And in a patriarchal society, despite the fact that she was extremely educated, her seven year old son, who by that time could read and write and do his numbers and turns out to be a very brilliant young man, later in the book, goes in the coal mine at age seven, he's not given a single candle, and he spends 12 hours a day in the pitch blackness, 500ft below ground with no one with him except rats. And he quickly learns it's not as exciting as he thought it would be to be in the coal mine.

GABBY: Did he think it would be exciting?

DAVID: He thought it would be exciting. His father did it, and every little boy wants to do what his father did. His grandfather did it, who he totally idolized and part of the book is about his grandfather and the relationship that he has with Tommy. And all of his little buddies had already gone into the mine by then, and so he wanted to join them.

He thought this was what he was going to be doing for the rest of his life. His father had told him, you will go into the coal mine, and you will be in that coal mine until the day you die. That's what we do in our family. And so he was excited about it, but not for long. He ends up becoming very educated.

And that's another reason for out of the darkness, he ends up leaving the coal mine, fighting child labor and in it finding a world outside of his little village because he is educated and he ends up working with Queen Victoria and a whole bunch of other very important folks in Parliament to change the world.

GABBY: As you said, during this period, child slave slavery, excuse me, was prevalent and education was largely or entirely neglected, actually. But Tom did, unlike the rest of his peers, learn to read before he even set foot into the coal mines. It was a unique situation. Your grandson is on the front cover.

He's the same age as Tommy was. When you're the coal mine, when you look at this photograph of your grandson. What kind of emotions does it invoke for you?

DAVID: Well, of course, it's somewhat emotional for me, but I'll tell you a little interesting story. Tommy, was seven, as you said on his seventh birthday. This little boy was seven just before the photo was taken, and his mother was taking photos of his sister for a ballet performance with a professional photographer. And in those photos, and so I asked her if I might take pictures of him. At the same time, I had gotten a number of covers from Simon &Schuster, and they had kind of a dark, foreboding kind of picture that I was not enamored with.

I wanted it to be an uplifting picture, and preferably with a little boy on it. So when Cole is, his name is Cole, which is somewhat appropriate.

GABBY: Yes.

DAVID: Put on those clothes that I gave him and took those pictures. We took about 25 pictures. I could only get two where he wouldn't smile. All the rest of them. He smiled. And so I said that flash drive to Simon &Schuster and said, pick one. They picked that one and I loved it. And within 48 hours they sent me that cover back. And that was it.

GABBY: Yeah. It's a fantastic cover. The coloring, everything about it. You talk about Tom, talk about Thomas's mother, more. And you refer to her as being invincible. I'd like you to elaborate a little bit more on that and also her servitude under our Lord Fitzwilliams. And talk a little bit about the house and its significance.

DAVID: Well, the backstory to this story begins when Martha was sold into servitude as an indentured servant at age six when her mother died in childbirth. And, she never saw her family again. So Martha is raised in this Lord Fitzwilliams home. It's 255,000ft².

GABBY: Wow.

DAVID: Imagine how big that is for a family of six. It took a servant, one of the 450 servants, an entire eight hour day to walk from one room to the next just to get through the house, not clean it, just to get through the house. So she works as an indentured servant there, and then ultimately as a full time employee for Lord Fitzwilliam.

And part of her job is to work in the library. And clean the library. She ends up learning to read and becomes a voracious reader. His library is one of the biggest libraries in the entire United Kingdom. So she has access to more books than almost anybody in the country. When she ends up leaving, under difficult circumstances, you can imagine, this a beautiful young teenage girl at that time who works for a very powerful man?

There are problems that arise. And she one night leaves and is forced to marry this coal miner. Who is a wonderful person, but he's entirely uneducated. So she goes into this relationship, and has her first child wanting more for her children than being coal miners, like any mother would. And she's living in this village where very few can read at all.

And she's extremely well-educated, a difficult time for her. And so, part of the story is the total dedication of this mother to her children and wanting them to be something that wouldn't normally be the case in a village like this. And she insists, over time, after a couple of major disasters, that her children be removed from the mine and, her husband acquiesces after a long discussion and, he, Thomas, as the rest of the children do, become very well-educated.

And he does great things with his life as a result of his mom and the dedication to make sure that happens.

GABBY: She did continue to be a role model. The end of part one, it ends in 1838 with the silk, silk stones tragedy. 26 children died in the coal mines and 11 were girls. What changed for Tommy? That seemed to be a real turning point for them. What changed with Tommy and Martha on that day?

DAVID: Well, without giving away too much of the story because the book is actually a mystery of sorts. You don't know what's happening as a reader until it happens. Something happens that's a catastrophe in both Thomas's life and Martha's life that brings her to the point where she insists, that's it for my children.

GABBY: And they both incite a lot of change. Again, without giving away anything. And they become instrumental in really breaking down the slavery, the servitude of the Industrial Revolution really. Part two and part three is 15 and 20 years later, Tommy is an adult and his mom, and they begin to protest against child labor.

Again, very instrumental in breaking down this patriarchal system that has really been ruling England and Europe during that period. What do you have in common with Tommy?

DAVID: Well, you know, that's interesting, I think anybody who studies and writes something about a family member like this, fantasizes about what they might have in common. And in fact, a lot of the story is about the interpersonal relationships between the main characters. And I appreciate your comment about being a great writer, but part of it is trying to imagine what I would do if I were put into this circumstance as an adult.

How would I emotionally react? How would I treat others that were around me? And so a lot of the character of Thomas is the best of what I could imagine I might do it in those circumstances. And when you're talking about emotional impact for an event, it's one thing to write the history. The history is fascinating.

But to combine that with the emotional impact on the individuals that participate in that history, it adds an entirely different dimension, which makes it fascinating for the reader, because I think most of us connect to the emotion more than connect to the historical event, not that the historical it's not important. We like to know that it's true, but it's the emotion that stays with us for a long period of time.

GABBY: And you just answered my next question, which was, this is based on a true story. Dates, times, places are real. And obviously this is a fascinating story for you because it's about your ancestral family that you didn't know existed. For the rest of us, what I found to be fascinating was, as you mentioned, the interpersonal relationships throughout the story. Which relationships do you think are the most pivotal or the most important?

DAVID: Well, that's a good question. You mentioned Martha. It's interesting to me. Martha is a secondary character in the book, but every quality I could think of that a strong mother would have, I gave it to Martha. As a result of that, most women who read this book, when I asked them the question, which I always ask, who is your favorite character?

Many of those women, I said most, but many of those women say Martha is my favorite character because of the qualities that she demonstrates as a mother, and the sacrifices she makes for her children. So I think she's one of my favorite characters. Of course, Thomas has to be one of my favorite characters.

And the following book is, well, and, his romantic relationship. So I'll leave it at that, because there is more than one romantic relationship here in the book. And one of them, it's very tragic. But those relationships, I think, are very touching. I have a friend who reads a lot of books and he is kind of a no nonsense guy.

He's a past vice senior vice president of AT&T, so a serious person. And he said, I read a lot of historical books and I read a lot of historical fiction, and I've never cried at a scene in a historical fiction. But there is a scene here that I cried.

GABBY: Most of your life, David has been spent in the business world in San Diego. How did that experience influence you as a storyteller and an author?

DAVID: Well, that's an interesting question, too. Frequently I spoke before legislative bodies, both in Sacramento and locally and, and business opportunities. And I've often told stories and the first book I ever wrote was a series of stories that all happen to be Christmas related stories, and I wrote it primarily for my family as a gift to give to family and friends.

One Christmas many years ago and one of my friends that received a copy of that book, a pretty well respected author, and she said the book to her publisher; and the next thing I know, I received a phone call saying, would you mind if we published your book? That's how I got started in the business of writing books.

GABBY: But you've been telling stories throughout your life and speaking engagements. What's the most rewarding aspect of being a storyteller?

DAVID: Well, I think if you have an issue that you're trying to sell, something you're trying to convey stories touch the heart more than any other way and can convey that message, especially if they're emotional, have emotional tag to them, can convey the, information that you want to convey better than any other way. And so I've really learned how to tell stories.

To help promote business. And then from there, it's gone into, these historical fictions, this one and the one to follow, which is where Eagles Fly Free have been a very heartwarming experience for me, not just because of the wonderful story, but because of the relationship of the main characters.

GABBY: Thomas's legacy to your family was resilience and perseverance. He and his mom actually altered the oppressive industrial slavery system in England. What do you consider to be your legacy, your superpower?

DAVID: Well, well, you did mention I have 13 grandkids.

GABBY: Yes I did.

DAVID: When I presented this particular book to my children and their wives because I have three boys and a daughter. And we happened to have a little home in Cabo San Lucas, which is a little small beach cottage. And we had everybody there when this book first came out. For a little family event, all 13 grandkids, all four children and their four wives and husband.

And I gave them each a copy of this book. They had not seen it before. They didn't know anything about it. They knew I was writing it, but I didn't have them read any of it. So this was their first chance to see the book and the cover. And I remember handing that book to the mother of that little child Cole. She broke down in tears. And within a short time, there were tears and a lot of the mother's eyes and even one father. And that is a legacy to be able to pass on these kinds of stories to a family. For me, at this late stage in my life, family has become extremely important. I just spent four days fishing with seven and nine year olds, four of them, just got back last night, and I'm going to go hit ground balls to some other ten year olds, later this morning. So I spend a lot of time with family.

GABBY: That's fantastic. That's what it's all about, isn't it?

DAVID: It certainly is.

GABBY: And you discovered an entire family that you never really knew you had.

DAVID: Which made it even more fascinating. You know, I'll mention a little side note on that. I was invited up to Wyoming to do a couple of events for this book. And I've been invited for the next book, which ends up in Wyoming. And I mentioned my mother was an orphan, so we had no cousins growing up. I had one cousin on my father's side.

That's it. I went up to Wyoming, and one of the events was put together by a relative of mine that direct or directly related to these people. There were 60 people in the room. The first question I asked is, how many of you are directly related to this main character? And 40 people raise their hands.

GABBY: That's incredible.

DAVID: 40 cousins that I never knew I had it. It was a very emotional experience to grow up with. Nobody in your family, no cousins, and all of a sudden to meet all these people. we immediately had a connection and they invited me to their home. They took me to the family home up in Wyoming, a little cabin in the middle of nowhere.

We spent three days traveling all over and seeing family related things that I knew nothing about.

GABBY: How fortunate for you. And I hear that you have an attic filled with, my sons, from Martha, from other relatives. What do you have? What's the most special thing to you?

DAVID: Well, my great aunt died, and she grew up in Wyoming, she moved to Hollywood young and became involved in everything Hollywood, and never married until she was in her 50s. And she had two trunks, which she gave to me. And I hadn't really even opened them. I just glanced through them, but I hadn't really gone through the articles that were in them when I was younger, when she passed away.

But when I started writing this book, I started going through in detail what was in them, and there was some fabulous letters, all kinds of things. There are things mentioned in this book that are in those trunks in the first of the two trunks has written on the inside of the trunk. It says, Martha Wright 1810. Wow. And it has all kinds of incredible, stories and information and letters and, documents and memorabilia, some of which are mentioned in this book. A couple of them are very important. There's a bracelet that one of the main characters wears during her life, her whole life and never takes it off. I have that bracelet in the Trump. Wow.

GABBY: That's really special. Let's talk about where eagles fly free. That is book two of the courageous series. It's going to be published in 2025, in the spring. And it takes place in the 1860s in the United States, after the Wright family emigrated from England, I want to talk about that. I find the whole, my family has a plaque, actually, in Ellis Island.

My family immigrated here from Italy, so I've been there many times. My mom has shared stories about my family's, my ancestors in Italy. We still have families. They are. So the topic of immigration I find it fascinating. What was it, David, about America that was so appealing to immigrants? That and inspired them to leave their homes, their family, everything that they knew and what.

DAVID: That's touching is that when you go to Ellis Island and see that plaque and realize that it was your great grandfather or whatever it was, it is fascinating. And, this whole subject is a very fascinating subject.

Thomas was driven out of this country because of their involvement, with Lord Fitzwilliam and others of those powerful folks, aristocracy at the time they come to this country. Because despite the fact that he becomes very educated and technically thought very highly of, he's still living in that little eight by 12 minor chanty. That's what that's the way folks lived there.

They didn't have the opportunities that we had in America. So when he comes to America, he comes with these wide eyes, hoping to benefit from all the wonderful opportunities that are here in this country. I think some of us forget how lucky we are to be in America. We forget that people like Thomas and Danny and the rest of his family, come to this country and leave everything they know, leave all their worldly possessions, all their family on the docks, and come across not knowing what they're going to find.

He has a lot of hopes and dreams for freedom, for liberty. And most of all, he would love to have his own piece of land, which nobody in his family does. And so that's his overwhelming desire for coming here. And he brings with him all those skills that he's developed. And in book two, he comes at a time when, as Abraham Lincoln said, it's the last great hope for man on earth.

In the 1860s in America is the decade where there's more change than at any other time in the history of this country, including during the revolution. Because we have the Civil War, we have the Gilded Age. And in New York, and we have the Wild West, which is where he is heading, the Wild West. He comes over basically as an indentured servant himself, with these dreams of great successes and the story of coming across the country during the 1860s is even more fascinating than out of the darkness.

It is a wonderful story. He ends up working on the Transcontinental Railroad all the way to Promontory Point, plays a major role as a technical engineer in that venture, and all the other things that you could imagine happening in the Wild West during the 1860s. Fascinating story.

GABBY: And you're a civil engineer. How uncanny is that?

DAVID: Well, you know, it's interesting that you say that because I have that technical background. I have a lot of knowledge of what he must have done. And so I could apply those technical skills in the experiences that he has. I know things that most people don't know about that kind of technology. So it comes in handy in the second book.

GABBY: Well, it was literally in your blood. I mean, with ancestors, it can actually go either way. You can inherit both the good and the bad. And it seems like you inherited quite a lot of good things from Thomas.

DAVID: I probably inherited the bad parts too.

GABBY: We won't talk about that part. We will talk about that. So, David, what do you think that we can learn from what you refer to as the fallen leaves? Each of our family trees.

DAVID: Well, I think we sometimes forget, you know, it's interesting in talking to a lot of these relatives that I mentioned in Wyoming, very few of them knew anything about, relatives beyond their grandparents. They didn't. Yeah. They didn't know anything about Thomas. They didn't know anything about any. They certainly didn't know anything about their generations that went before. They didn't even talk.

GABBY: I kind of do.

DAVID: Yeah, you do. And you're probably one of the few that do because you're interested in that. But I was surprised at how many people in that part of the world didn't know much. I mean, I frankly didn't know that much, but I had these two trunks with all this hugely valuable information in them that I hadn't really combed through until I started writing these two books.

One of the things I think we all need to understand is that human nature doesn't really change that much. The experience we experiences we have and the circumstances in which we find ourselves change. But the emotional part of our lives and the nature of us is similar not only to our parents and our grandparents, but those that have gone before and all those generations make up who we are, and we have bits and pieces.

As you mentioned earlier, I have bits of pieces of Thomas in me, bits and pieces of his wife in me, bits and pieces of Martha, all of them. And as you're reading and studying and finding out information, some of these discoveries for me, when you read letter, all of a sudden you you're touched by it. I'll tell you one quick incident.

I was in Wyoming. I got to know the museum director in charge of that museum for that whole county. And she became fascinated by this whole story. So she did a bunch of research for me. She invited me up to her house for dinner. From San Diego to Wyoming is about a thousand miles. So I flew up there and she said, I found out something about where they end up, about their land, and about some interesting things that you'll find fascinating.

So I'm going to share that with you. Will we have dinner? I got there two hours early. And so I went up into the canyon where I thought they ended up. Now remember he is raised in a ten by 12 miner Chanty. That's all he knows in his whole life. He wants land. So I found out that he had acquired 180, 160 acres of land up above Park City.

It is the most beautiful land you've ever seen.

GABBY: Is that land.

DAVID: I go up with? Yes, I go up in there, I go up to that area and I'm searching for where I think they might have ended up because I haven't had dinner with her yet. She's going to show me, but I. I'm there two hours early. I'm fascinated. So I'm standing at this location thinking this is very similar to the way she described it.

I wonder if this is where it is in the first book. There is a very important couple of chapters about a place called Spring Hollow. I don't know if you read about Spring Hollow, but after a disaster in his life, he goes to find himself in this area called Spring Hollow. It's a beautiful area up in the mountains in aristocratic hunting grounds, and no one goes up there.

He's all by himself for almost a year. It becomes a very important part of book one. Well, I'm standing there looking at this little building being renovated, and I, my wife looks at the street sign, and the street sign says Spring Hollow. And I realize.

That they have named this area 100 years ago. That matter of fact, 150 years ago. And that's where they lived. And sure enough, that little building that they were renovating was an old church that was built on his land as a church for that particular community, and it became the meeting place for the entire community for decades and decades.

And they were renovating that into a historical monument. And matter of fact, all proceeds from these two books go toward that historical monument for that renovation.

GABBY: Oh, isn't that nice? That's my lad. You added that ending that. That's great.

DAVID: Fascinating.

GABBY: That is it really is fascinating. So what's your hope for readers? When they read and contemplate out of the darkness and where eagles fly free.

DAVID: I think, I hope especially for Americans. Now, there's a lot of folks from other countries that have read this book. The first book especially is important for folks in England, but I think for Americans, it's a hope that they they find interest in their own, Forefathers like you express your interest in yours to help them reach back and touch those families, to try to maybe investigate their own genealogy, to see how those folks who had gone before have touched their lives and influence their lives, and to appreciate the gift we have in this country.

Sometimes we take for granted, and sometimes we downplay the Founding Fathers and the role that they played. Folks like Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson in Washington. There, those folks are featured somewhat in the second book, in part to convey a little bit of a heritage that we all share as Americans and that we should all appreciate. And the fortunate and the and being so fortunate to land in this country, this is the only country in the world that all the rest of the world wants to come to live.

The reason we have such a problem with immigration right now is because people from all over the world want to come here. They want to know that they don't have that much problem in France or England or those other countries. They have their own problems. But the reason we have such a mass immigration, when the borders are open, is because everybody wants to be here.

And there are reasons for that. And part of it is because not just because America is a big country, but because of the foundation that was set up for us, that we have the freedom and the liberty and the right to own land. I did, you know, I was a builder for a number of years, and I worked for an English company, and we built a number of homes, in England, maybe 20 to 30% of those living in England own home.

In America, it's 70 to 80% by the time they live their lives. Own a home. That's an amazing thing. Yeah. This young man here, his whole life, he wanted to own his own land. He wanted to own his own home where he could raise his family. In the end, he does. And it's a wonderful experience. The transition going from from where he started to where he ended.

GABBY: He achieved the American dream.

DAVID: He reached the American dream. And there is a reason why it's a cliche to say homeownership is the American dream, because there's something in each of us that wants our own home, for our own family. And I would hope that people reading these two books can feel the transition that our forefathers, virtually all of them, went through, going from wherever it is they started, whether it's Italy or England or Mexico or wherever it is they started.

And ended up here in this country with all the blessings and benefits that make our lives fulfilled and great.

GABBY: Well, it's a fantastic book, a fantastic story. Thank you for sharing it with us today. David. Where can folks march it out of the garden? And then also, your next book.

DAVID: You can buy it anywhere, but it's in wherever fine books are sold. Most people buy it on Amazon because Amazon is the source of most retail these days. And of course, it's on Amazon as well. And you can read reviews there. And I'm proud of the reviews we have. They're all good. Both the editorial reviews.

But one of the reviews was written by a guy that did a little movie here not too long ago called Sound of Freedom. It's about old Trafford. Yeah, that's child trafficking. And he wrote a wonderful review about this book, in part because of child labor and child trafficking. And, you need to read his review because it's a very good review.

GABBY: Yeah, folks should definitely check that out because it is touching your heart.

DAVID: Yes. And the Where Eagles Fly Free comes out in the spring. It'll also be in all those same places and hope you have a chance to read it.

GABBY: Well, without a doubt. Do you have a website, David?

DAVID: No. You know, I don't actually have. I have a website, but I don't keep it very, actually. But I've just been too busy with other things, so I don't.

GABBY: Want. And lastly, what would folks be surprised to learn about you?

DAVID: About me?

GABBY: Yes. About you.

DAVID: Well, one thing they might be surprised to learn. I grew up very poor because my mom was an orphan and bounced from family to family. My father was a minor league baseball player, and, he never made any money playing baseball. Never graduated from high school. And, my mother, was relatively poor, so I grew up in, very dysfunctional, poor neighborhood.

And, and have become successful in my own right. And the meals. But I think that's probably something that most people don't know.

GABBY: Again, just like your great great grandfather, similar crop on the other side of the tracks. And you literally rose up from the ashes to success and have a wonderful family. And now you are an award winning author. Congratulations, and thanks for joining us today, David.


DAVID: Thank you Gabby, I really enjoyed the interview. Appreciate it very much.

GABBY: Congratulations and look forward to the next book. Thank you. Speaking with us today and this is your hostess Gabby also at the Gap Talks. Until next time, keep on reading. Have a great day.

DAVID: Thank you