Lazy Dog Coffeehouse
Pat Schrope

Sunday August 30th, 2-4pm
PAT SCHROPE, author
Discussion | Reading from her book
Q&A's | Book sale & signing

Books are on sale now at the Lazy Dog for $12.99 each. 

Call 544-4800 to make your reservation.

Style, Grace and Humor in Tragedy
Daughter Lost to Cancer Remembered With Love in Mother's New Memoir

Even in the darkest hours sunshine can break through.  A single ray can cast overwhelming joy.  In her new memoir, A Child of the King (published by AuthorHouse), Patrica Klinger Schrope celebrates the life of the daughter she lost to cancer, who at once embodied grace and courage.

            Schrope's story is a lesson for the wounded, according to reviewer Bernie Siegel, M.D., author
of Love, Magic & Mudpies and Love, Medicine and Miracles:

             This is a book with a heart. We who have not lived the experience are tourists and cannot understand. A Child of the King shares the life of a native who survived the wounds related to the death of her child from cancer and shows how we can heal and turn charcoal into a diamond under the pressure of life. We are all wounded and so can learn from Pat Schrope's life and experience how to survive, ultimately thrive and learn that love is the only thing of permanence.

            While the loss of her child was a devastating tragedy, Schrope presents the readers with a loving reminiscence.  "Love is what cemented all of us.  Love keeps us together forever. This is a love story," she writes, "...a heartwarming story that will reveal how we coped. In the midst of turmoil we liberally sprinkled fun, joy, delight and diversion."

            A Child of the King depicts a fiercely devoted mother, her daughters and the physician they came to rely on.

            "I have long said that it would be fine with me if my obituary someday would read simply, Pat Schrope, Mother. The word defines me, and Mothering is what I have done best in my life," she writes. "My world was shattered when my daughter, Tracy, contracted a cancer despicable enough to invade a child." Tracy was diagnosed with Wilms' Tumor, which attacks the kidneys, when she was 6 years old.  "Four years later, at age 10, the disease claimed my little girl. Thank God I was still a mother and nevertheless could sweetly embrace and cleave to my youngest daughter, then only 8."

             In writing her story, Schrope saw "an opportunity to offer help and inspiration to many others who are dealt illnesses and worse, the loss of their dear children. I realized that I was uniquely qualified to share much in regard to what helped us get through it.  Further, we were given the way to transcend the sorrow and to after all, endure."

            Schrope lives in central Pennsylvania. In addition to her eldest, Tracy, she has two daughters, Audrey Melissa and Katie Rebecca, a granddaughter, Emma Grace, and a wacky, wire-haired fox terrier, Trilby. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Schrope has written freelance for several newspapers, including The Patriot News, Harrisburg, the Lebanon Daily News, and the Citizen Standard. A Child of the King is her first book. 

Title	A Child of the King
Author	Patricia Klinger Schrope
Publisher	AuthorHouse, 2007
Length	104 pages
Price	12.99