Review: Mercy by Rebecca Lim

Mercy by Rebecca Lim


My rating: 3 of 5 stars


3.5/5 stars I did really like this


Mercy is a being who is forced to borrow the lives of people whose bodies she briefly inhabits. Having just sorted out the life of a young woman in an abusive relationship, Mercy is next suddenly dropped into the body of Carmen, a 16-year old choir girl headed to rehearsals for a major concert. Mercy quickly adapts to her new surroundings and works out who is a friend to her, and what everybody's name is. Mercy is used to being the strong character giving her host body the reason to stand up for herself or to escape a bad situation- however Mercy cannot find any obvious fault in Carmen's life besides bad skin and a bit of taunting from her schoolmates. It is when she is placed with her host family, a family in the midst of grief for their daughter- a choir girl who was kidnapped 2 years ago- that Mercy realises that it might not be Carmen who is in need of help, but the Daley family, and that what is needed is someone with an instinctive intuition about people to help solve the mystery of Lauren's disappearance. Mercy/Carmen meets Lauren's angry brother Ryan who has never given up hope of finding his sister, and is now the only one left who believes that she might still be alive.


Mercy is a good story, a very fresh new take on angels, and an engrossing mystery story, dealing with high school bitchiness and competition, and also the danger of obsession. I really enjoyed this book but I wish that there had been more of a romance between Mercy/Carmen and Ryan, as it never really got started. They were good together once they had started to trust each other, but there was never anything between them until the end. There is also a mention of this angelic force of brothers who might be a danger to Mercy, but they are just a lingering possible threat in the background and never really elaborated on. Those are my only complaints really though, I did enjoy this book, and am going to read the sequel Exile as soon as I get a chance!




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