A Drop of Grief follows two teenagers whose lives are shaped by what they carry and what they're searching for.

Elise Parker grew up in Brooklyn wanting an ordinary childhood, but her mother made that impossible. As she works to free herself from her mother's hold, she meets people who offer her hope, love, and help along the way. Rob Wright grew up with nearly everything in Bayport, New Jersey, a wealthy town on the Bayshore. He is thoughtful, artistic, and athletic, but he carries questions his own parents don't know about, and he only feels like himself out on the water or in the quiet backwaters of the local marsh.

Their two stories move toward the same question: how many drops of grief does it take before a person becomes who they are meant to be.

You shall not have one half a drop of grief more than is absolutely needful for your good and God's glory.

— Charles Spurgeon»

The title A Drop of Grief is rooted in this thought. The quote is not simply an epigraph chosen because it sounds beautiful. It gives the title its deeper meaning and opens into one of the book’s most important themes: what grief does to us, what it reveals, and how it can become part of the person we are becoming.

For readers, this thought offers an important question to carry into the book: What does grief leave behind in a person, and what can it ultimately make possible? It is a question that can be revisited throughout the reading and explored together in discussion.

A Drop of Grief  came to our attention through IndieReader, where it was named an IR Approved title. What drew us in was the way the book pairs two very different young lives, one shaped by hardship, one shaped by privilege, and lets them both wrestle honestly with grief, identity, and hope. It felt like a book that could open real conversation among our readers, not just about the story, but about how people carry pain differently and what helps them move through it.

- How two characters from very different circumstances can be shaped by grief in different ways

- The role that setting plays in the book, particularly the marshes and open water of the New Jersey Bayshore

- What it means to find hope and help through other people

- How family, whether difficult or supportive, shapes who a person becomes

Katrina Sweeney grew up on a small farm along the edge of an undeveloped park in southern York County, Pennsylvania, with her three siblings. In that wild country, they hiked, explored, and learned about the outdoors. Life at home was difficult, and for many years Katrina questioned her own existence and struggled with why life was so hard.

Writing and storytelling became part of her own healing, and Elise and Rob's story grew out of that. "A Drop of Grief" is the first book in a trilogy, and Katrina is currently writing the second, *Closer Than A Brother*.

Katrina now lives in the small town of Keansburg, New Jersey, on the shores of the Raritan Bay, where she can see the New York City skyline from her home. Her neighborhood is full of marshes, and she grew up kayaking. She enjoys gardening, hiking, and walking or riding through the Henry Hudson Trail and the parks of New Jersey. She lives with her husband Bob, her daughter Grace, and their parakeet, Percy.

Katrina also has a background in literature education, having taught World Literature, British Literature, Ancient Literature, Poetry, Shakespeare, and classics.

Title: A Drop of Grief

Author: Katrina Sweeney

Publisher: FriesenPress

ISBN: 978-1-5255-9433-5

Link: [add purchase or info link when available]