A Drop in the Ocean

A Novel

by Jenni Ogden

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Pub Date 3 May 2016 | Archive Date 14 Mar 2016

She Writes Press

Literary Fiction | Women's Fiction

Description

GOLD: NAUTILUS BOOK AWARD, FICTION, LARGE PUBLISHER (2016)
GOLD: SARTON WOMEN'S BOOK AWARD, CONTEMPORARY FICTION (2016)
GOLD: INDEPENDENT PUBLISHER BOOK AWARDS (IPPYS), BEST FICTION, AUSTRALIA/NEW ZEALAND (2016)
SILVER: READERS’ FAVORITE INTERNATIONAL BOOK AWARD, WOMEN’S FICTION
On her 49th birthday, Anna Fergusson, Boston neuroscientist and dedicated introvert, arrives at an unwanted crossroads when the funding for her research lab is cut. With her confidence shattered and her future uncertain, on impulse she rents a cabin for a year on Australia's Great Barrier Reef. However Turtle Island, alive with sea birds and nesting Green turtles, is not the retreat she expected. Here she finds love—for the eccentric islanders who become her family; for Tom, the laid-back turtle whisperer; and for the turtles whose ancient mothering instincts move her to tears. But Anna finds that even on her idyllic drop in the ocean there is pain, and as the months fly past her dream for a new life is threatened by a darkness that challenges everything she has come to believe about the power of love. Evocative and thought-provoking, A Drop in the Ocean is a story about second chances and hard lessons learned in the gentlest of ways.

GOLD: NAUTILUS BOOK AWARD, FICTION, LARGE PUBLISHER (2016)
GOLD: SARTON WOMEN'S BOOK AWARD, CONTEMPORARY FICTION (2016)
GOLD: INDEPENDENT PUBLISHER BOOK AWARDS (IPPYS), BEST FICTION, AUSTRALIA/NEW...

A Note From the Publisher

Jenni Ogden grew up in a country town in the South Island of New Zealand, in a home bursting with books and music. Armed with NZ and Australian university degrees in zoology and psychology, she took up a postdoctoral fellowship at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and worked with H.M., the most famous amnesiac in history, before returning to an academic position at Auckland University. There, she immersed herself in clinical psychology and neuropsychology, as well as traveling extensively and writing about her patients’ moving stories in two books, Fractured Minds: A Case-Study Approach to Clinical Neuropsychology and Trouble In Mind: Stories from a Neuropsychologist’s Casebook. Jenni has had a love affair with the Great Barrier Reef since her twenties, when she spent summers on a coral cay rather like Turtle Island, tagging sea turtles. Ogden and her husband now live off-grid on a spectacular island off the coast of NZ, with winters spent traveling and at their second home in tropical Far North Queensland. When she is not writing or traveling, Jenni can be found on the beach—always with a book—or spending time with her family.

Jenni Ogden grew up in a country town in the South Island of New Zealand, in a home bursting with books and music. Armed with NZ and Australian university degrees in zoology and psychology, she took...

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A Note From the Publisher

Jenni Ogden grew up in a country town in the South Island of New Zealand, in a home bursting with books and music. Armed with NZ and Australian university degrees in zoology and psychology, she took up a postdoctoral fellowship at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and worked with H.M., the most famous amnesiac in history, before returning to an academic position at Auckland University. There, she immersed herself in clinical psychology and neuropsychology, as well as traveling extensively and writing about her patients’ moving stories in two books, Fractured Minds: A Case-Study Approach to Clinical Neuropsychology and Trouble In Mind: Stories from a Neuropsychologist’s Casebook. Jenni has had a love affair with the Great Barrier Reef since her twenties, when she spent summers on a coral cay rather like Turtle Island, tagging sea turtles. Ogden and her husband now live off-grid on a spectacular island off the coast of NZ, with winters spent traveling and at their second home in tropical Far North Queensland. When she is not writing or traveling, Jenni can be found on the beach—always with a book—or spending time with her family.

Advance Praise

“In A Drop In The Ocean, protagonist Anna Fergusson learns that love is about letting go. Jenni Ogden takes us on a sweeping journey, rich with unique characters and places, moving backward and forward in time, to reach this poignant and heartfelt lesson.”—Ann Hood, New York Times best-selling author of The Knitting Circle, The Red Thread, and The Obituary Writer

“Evocative and thought-provoking, A Drop in The Ocean is a story about belonging—and the ripples that can flow from the family we choose to the family that chooses us.”—Anita Heiss, finalist in the 2013 Australian of the Year Awards and best-selling author of Tiddas and Manhattan Dreaming

“Reading A Drop in the Ocean was everything a reading experience should be, endearing and enduring, time spent with characters who seem to be people I already knew.”—Jacquelyn Mitchard, New York Times #1 best-selling author of The Deep End Of The Ocean

"A novel about turtles, the fragility of life, and the complexity of love, A Drop in the Ocean will transport you to remote islands with its lyrical natural imagery. This is a story to savor, discuss, and share.”—Barbara Claypole White, bestselling author of The Perfect Son

“A Drop in the Ocean is about connection – between humans and between humans and the natural world. Jenni Ogden’s descriptions of life on a small island on the Great Barrier Reef, with its nesting turtles and exotic birds, sparkle like a brilliant sun on azure water. A Drop in the Ocean is a deeply affecting story of a woman’s journey to open up to love, life, and, most importantly, herself.”—Céline Keating, author of Layla and Play for Me

“This is a quietly majestic book, taking on quests for identity, for connection, for love, for self - always with dignity and with an impressive breadth of understanding. Like the turtles whose lives and habits are tracked in these pages, the characters at the heart of A DROP IN THE OCEAN move gently but with enormous consequence. Here is a book to lose oneself in - and then share, enthusiastically, right away.”—Robin Black, bestselling author of Life Drawing and Crash Course: 52 Essays From Where Writing and Life Collide.