About  . . .

a stray drop of blood

Beautiful was a dangerous thing to be when one was unprotected. That was a lesson Abigail learned well when her master’s son, Jason, took her to his bed. Jason’s mother, Ester, may have educated her as a daughter instead of a slave, his father, Cleopas, may have obeyed Hebrew law rather than Roman in the running of his household, but none of that mattered to their son. At least, it didn’t until he had a child of his own on the way.

Over her seven years in the Visibullis household, Abigail had gotten accustomed to being a slave. She loved her fellow servants, she adored her mistress, and she respected her master. She did not welcome change, neither when Jason decided she was better fit for a lover than a handmaid nor when he discovered he loved her too much to leave her as anything but a wife. But she carried his child, so she could hardly argue. And maybe, given time, she could come to love him too....

Israel’s unrest found a home in her bosom, but their rebellion tore apart her world. Death descended with Barabbas’s sword, and Abigail was determined to be there when he was handed the penalty for the crimes that destroyed her family. But when she ventured to the trial, heavy with child and heavier still with hatred, it was not Barabbas that the crowd demanded be crucified. Instead, it was the teacher Cleopas and Jason had begun to follow, the man from Nazareth that some called the Son of God....

She was born free, made a slave, married out of her bonds. But she never really knew freedom until she felt the fire of a stray drop of blood from a Jewish carpenter. She was disowned by Israel, despised by Rome, desired by all. Yet she never knew love until she received the smile of a stoic Roman noble.

Praise for A Stray Drop of Blood

Haunting and powerful are two words that come to mind at the close of reading Roseanna M. White’s debut novel, A Stray Drop of Blood. Not since Francine Rivers’ Mark of the Lion trilogy has a book and its characters captured me so completely. From its rich, historical prose that depicts the era of Christ with startling reality, to a compelling love story that will both jolt and seize your heart, this is one of those rare novels that haunts you centuries beyond the last page. Amid the seething unrest of Roman tyranny and Hebrew uprising, a spell-binding saga unfolds, unleashing startling twists of both fate and heart that will leave you utterly breathless.

--Julie Lessman,
author of A Passion Most Pure

"[White] draws the reader in with irresistible characters and keeps him reading with complex action and a heart-clutching story. Not to be missed by anyone who loves Biblical fiction!"

- Marta Perrry
author of Her Only Hero

The story behind the story . . .

The story of Stray Drop started for me when I was fifteen.  It began as a short story that I wrote on Good Friday, on what happened to be the first full day of my relationship with David, now my husband.  The short story was simple and straightforward.  It was about Abigail, a widow about to go into labor, whose husband was killed by Barabbas.  She was just a woman in the crowd at the crucifixion, yet when a drop of Jesus' blood landed on her, it changed her life forever.  I decided then and there that someday it would be a book.  And over the next six years, it became one. 

Stray Drop was so intense, however, that I couldn't write it steadily, especially once I got to St. John's, where the curriculum was just as intense as my story.   So I absorbed all the information that my education was giving me on all the relevant subjects--the Ancient Greek language, Roman culture, Judaism, and early Christianity.  Over holidays and summer breaks, I would jot down a few more pages, then go back to stewing over them, letting my characters develop and ferment.

 Senior year at St. John's, something interesting happens.  We get half the second semester off class to write our thesis.  Naturally, I also took the opportunity to write this book that was so precious to me.   It was well over halfway finished by this point, but I wasted no time in hammering it home.  I finished it right after graduation with an enormous sigh of relief and a little bittersweet nostalgia--the story had traveled with me so long, always in the back of my mind, that I wasn't sure how I was going to think without it there.

The first person to get her hands on the manuscript was Karlene, one of my dearest friends.  I had outlined the book for her before I finished it, and she graciously volunteered to read it for me, to let me know how it was.  Next thing I knew, she was one of my biggest fans and her husband was cursing me because she didn't get anything else done when my book was in her hands.  She began telling everyone she knew about it, and I had people I had only met once--or never--asking me if they could borrow it.  She even called me halfway through it to yell at me for keeping her up the night before and demanding to know what was going to happen to Abigail.   To which, of course, I laughed and told her I wouldn't apologize.

There are some interesting aspects to the story that many readers might not pick up on right away.  The most challenging for me was that I used no contractions.  This was in part to create a style, but also because I was trying to remain true to the original language of my characters, Ancient Greek.  In Greek--well, in most languages other than English--there aren't contractions as we have them.  There are elisions, but those are not optional--they're used when two vowels would otherwise be side by side, making pronunciation difficult.  But in English, we can choose to use a contraction or not, depending on how formal we want to be.  There's a big difference between saying, "I don't know" and "I do not know."  I wanted to find different ways to convey this sense of formality and comfort in my conversations, which required choosing words more carefully.

I also had a lot of fun focusing on aspects of the crucifixion story that are often over looked.  The earthquake, the graves opening, the dead seen walking around.  They made for great plot elements, too!

I'm sure there are many flaws in my book, both historical mistakes and stylistic ones.  I've learned a lot about writing since I finished Stray Drop, but even though I would write it differently now, I still love it the way it is.  I ask to be forgiven for historical inaccuracies--I did mountains of research, but there is always more to learn about those centuries shrouded in the mists of the past, and a few mistakes will always slip in.  It is my hope and prayer, however, that my readers will enjoy it for what it is: a story of a girl with a heart not unlike our own.

To buy A Stray Drop of Blood . . .

     Order from my mom's bookstore, www.CrossPurposesBooks.com. 

$24.95 (Hardback)