COTT: Another COTT Victory

This week's Clash winner is none other than Roseanna White, for her opening pages of

A Stray Drop of Blood.

She triumphed over the very worthy excerpt from Michelle Griep's Undercurrent.

Congratulations, Roseanna!

It's fair to say that Stray Drop was a labor of love. The storyline was first born in Roseanna's heart when she was only 15 years old. It grew over the next six years culminating in the novel we have today.

A snippet of the winning opening:

Abigail’s tears were unneeded. Mourners enough had been hired by her mother’s husband, and their loud keening drowned out her grief. She risked a glance at Silas, who stood with an appropriately sorrowful expression in the corner. Her mother’s husband, but not her father. Her father was dead. Mother too. And this family would never be her own.

About the book:

For seven years, Abigail has been a slave in the visibullis house. With a Hebrew mistress and a Roman master, she has always been more family than servant . . . until their son returns to Jerusalem after his years in Rome. Within a few months Jason has taken her to his bed and turned her world upside down. Maybe, given time, she can come to love him as he says he loves her. But how does she open her heart to the man who ruined her?
Born free, made a slave, married out of her bonds, Abigail never knows freedom until she feels the fire of a stray drop of blood from a Jewish carpenter. Disowned by Israel, despised by Rome, desired by all, she never knows love until she receives the smile of a stoic Roman noble.

A few COTT visitor's comments:

Wow! Both books sound exciting! Wonderful teasers!
 Thank you for sharing your talents, and good luck.
 Love the book. This truly is a story to enchant a reader.

You can read Roseanna's interview with COTT Assistant Editor Michelle Massaro here. 
And to get in on the voting action at Clash of the Titles, just click now to be taken to their current Clash of the Back Cover Blurbs