The Shape of Mercy by Susan Meissner
Synopsis
“We understand what we want to understand.”
Leaving a life of privilege to strike out on her own, Lauren Durough breaks with convention and her family’s expectations by choosing a state college over Stanford and earning her own income over accepting her ample monthly allowance. She takes a part-time job from 83-year-old librarian Abigail Boyles, who asks Lauren to transcribe the journal entries of her ancestor Mercy Hayworth, a victim of the Salem witch trials.
Almost immediately, Lauren finds herself drawn to this girl who lived and died four centuries ago. As the fervor around the witch accusations increases, Mercy becomes trapped in the worldview of the day, unable to fight the overwhelming influence of snap judgments and superstition, and Lauren realizes that the secrets of Mercy’s story extend beyond the pages of her diary, living on in the mysterious, embittered Abigail.
The strength of her affinity with Mercy forces Lauren to take a startling new look at her own life, including her relationships with Abigail, her college roommate, and a young man named Raul. But on the way to the truth, will Lauren find herself playing the helpless defendant or the misguided judge? Can she break free from her own perceptions and see who she really is?
Susan Meissner is the USA Today award winning and bestselling author of historical fiction with more than three-quarters of a million books in print in eighteen languages. A California native, she attended Point Loma Nazarene University and is also a writing workshop volunteer for Words Alive, a San Diego non-profit dedicated to helping at-risk youth foster a love for reading and writing.
Visit Susan at her website: https://susanmeissnerauthor.com/
and on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/susanmeissnerauthor/
on Twitter at @SusanMeissner or
on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/susan.meissner
My Review
Lauren Durough has grown up to become a priviledged young woman who has spent her early years trying to become the substitute for the son her father wanted but didn’t get. But she wants to control her own destiny. Instead of studying business, her college major is literature. She even takes a job to prove to herself and her roommate that she is not snobbish. When she sees an ad for a transcriptionist to a private party, she applies.
Abigail Boyles is a wealthy recluse who is a descendent of Mercy Hayworth, the author of the diary that Lauren is hired to transcribe. Abigail is very secretive and speaks only on rare occasions. Yet she handles with reverence the original diary of her ancestor.
Mercy Hayworth, a citizen of 1600s Salem, Massachusetts, leads a very strict religious life. Going against the laws of the colony, she keeps a private diary which is used against her. She soon becomes the victim of the trials and is condemned to die although she is innocent of the charges. In the end, she cheats the hangman and takes her own life.
As the three stories unfold and intertwine, we see how things change yet remain somewhat the same throughout the course of history. The reader will learn that each of us has to power to shape our futures if we but try.
I truly liked this story. For the romantics, there is unrequited love; for the history buff there are the Salem Trials; for the Christian reader there is the explanation of early American religion. The characters are clearly defined and come alive under the author’s pen.
Rating: 4.5 stars
Moonlight Musings 