The Miracle of Mercy Land Book Review

I have been so excited to be involved in Waterbrook Multnomah's Blogging for Books program. I love blogging and I love books and as a Tightwad I certainly love getting books for free so this program is literally MADE for me!

I recently received my second book to review. The book is "The Miracle of Mercy Land" by River Jordan. The book was received as a gift but the opinions are all mine.

Here are my thoughts on my most recent book:

I wanted to read this book because the premise seemed fascinating. The writing in the book was excellent. The description was great and feeling like you were right there with the main character, Mercy was very well done.

That being said I thought the book started slowly and it was very hard to get into. While the character was great and her situation was believable the action was slow to begin. The "book" that came to Doc Philips happened early in the book but then just sort of sat there. I had expected more interaction or more story of what happened while they were “in the book”. The foreshadowing was excellent, the wondering what was going on kept me reading the book.

Once the character, John Quincy was introduced, the book took on a new level of wondering who he was and what would happen. I very much enjoyed the building up of this character and the relationship between John and Mercy. All of the characters questioned if the book they had could change the past and how their choices affected one another.

Since I often like suspense novels I enjoyed the overarching sense of something evil or that something bad was going to happen. The author is very good at portraying that eerie feeling that something isn’t right, that something awful has happened or will happen. However, the “evil” didn’t seem fully realized. The premise was so good but not fully drawn out. I kept waiting for something awful to happen based on what I had been presented with but nothing really did.

Having completed the book I still have questions. There are things I still don’t understand and would have liked to. I believe the book is very character driven which is good but leaves the plot wanting. It is written well meaning it has “pretty prose” and a great Southern charm but my overall impression of the book was confusion.

If you enjoy character-driven books you will like this book because you will love Mercy and her relationship with Doc and her Aunt Ida but if you prefer plot-driven action this wouldn’t be the book you would enjoy. Because of that I have to give this book just 3 stars.

Book (and above image) can be found at Amazon.com