Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Mercy Snow

Title: Mercy Snow
Author: Tiffany Baker
Published: January 14th 2014 by Grand Central Publishing
Format: Hardcover, 336 pages
Genre: Fiction

I think it is a love hate relationship that I have with Tiffany Baker - I love her books, I get excited when I hear that she has a new one coming out, but at the same time, I dread them. Maybe it is me, maybe I become too invested in the characters, but by the end of the book, I find myself depressed. I adore the broken characters and even though I hope for the best, I know that they face the inevitable.

Ms. Baker draws full characters that seem to be stuck in a situation that they have very little to no control over, I do not want to say that they are victims of their circumstances, but there are no other words to describe them. Mercy Snow takes place in the paper mill town of Titan Fall, New Hampshire where the once thriving industry is in a down turn, the Androscoggin River is heavily polluted and the town has been hit with an accident involving a church bus and a much-loved young woman dead.

The McAllister family owns the mill and rules the town, but this accident has hit too close to home for them. Nate was in love with Suzie his whole life, but Suzie has a secret, she has seen Cal in town with another woman and now with Suzie is dead and the McAllister’s need to control this situation before everything is lost.

Enter the Snow children, Mercy, Hannah and Zeke. The last thing that this town wants is to be reminded of their father Pruitt and yet Mercy will not let go. She is determined to have this town remember her family and when the bones of Gert Snow are revealed and her relationship to the McAllister’s is brought to light.

There is not one character wasted in this book. Even Fergus the bus driver and his wife Hazel have intricate parts. At times, I think that Hazel took center stage and held all the pain that everyone was feeling.

There is magic in this book. The people, the places, the unspoken communication between Hannah and Gert, and the healing of the towns ailments. The answers were there and it did not begin with a red mitten, that is what might have caused the downfall, but it took a bunch of ragtag orphan’s to open the windows and bring light back to this town and the people and struggles that were being faced.

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