The Miracle of Mercy Land by River Jordan

Back Cover:   Mercy Land has made some unexpected choices for a young woman in the 1930s. The sheltered daughter of a traveling preacher, she chooses to leave her rural community to move to nearby Bay City on the warm, gulf-waters of southern Alabama. There she finds a job at the local paper and spends seven years making herself indispensible to old Doc Philips, the publisher and editor. Then she gets a frantic call at dawn—it’s the biggest news story of her life, and she can’t print a word of it.

Doc has come into possession of a curious book that maps the lives of everyone in Bay City—decisions they’ve made in the past, and how those choices affect the future. Mercy and Doc are consumed by the mystery locked between the pages—Doc because he hopes to right a very old wrong, and Mercy because she wants to fulfill the book’s strange purpose. But when a mysterious stranger shows up, Mercy begins to understand she may have to choose between love and loneliness . . . or good and evil . . . for the rest of her life. 

Author Bio:  RIVER JORDAN began her writing career as a playwright with the Loblolly Theatre group. She teaches and speaks nationwide on ‘The Power of Story’, is a monthly contributor to the southern authors’ collective A Good Blog is Hard To Find, and produces and hosts the weekly radio program CLEARSTORY with River Jordan, in Nashville, where she and her husband live. She is the author of Saints in Limbo and this is her fourth novel. 

My Thoughts:   This is a really good book.  I have to say it was not at all what I expected, but it grabbed my attention and my imagination right from the beginning and I was hooked and had to find out what was going to happen.  I love it when a book can do that.  Right up until the very end I was never sure what was going to happen next.  I think the main message of the book is that our lives are all interwoven together and that the choices and decisions we make can and do affect those around us.  If you get the chance, I would definitely recommend reading this book.

FTC disclaimer: This book was provided for review by Waterbrook Press.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Waterbrook Press book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”