Author: Erin Healy

Publisher: Thomas Nelson, Inc.

ISBN: 978-1-4016-8551-5

“For His mercies endureth forever” is written twenty-six times in the Bible in Psalms 136 alone. In Erin Healy’s House of Mercy, this same thread is weaved through a story of redemption, forgiveness and acceptance by realizing God’s everlasting mercy towards us.

This three hundred and seventy-five page paperback book depicts a white horse galloping in a silhouetted meadow at sunset with a woman’s half-face tilted downward on the front cover. The back cover has three paragraphs about the book and two reviews along with two photographs of other novels by the author. There were no typographical or grammar errors but a few punctuation issues. This reader wishes all pronouns related to God would have been capitalized for reverence. The book would be enjoyed by all sexes and ages of preteen above but is targeted to young Christian women. After the end of the story, there is a chapter dedicated to Healy’s next unrelated novel.

This tome is about Beth, a young twenty-something year old woman who lives on her family’s fifth-generation massive cattle ranch in Colorado in current day times. With her love of nurturing animals, she steals an antique silver horse saddle from one of the ranch hands to pay for a nearby friend’s horse’s eye surgery. To repay her, the friend offers her a ride on his ranch owner’s pure thoroughbred horse. The saying “you reap what you sow” comes full force around when Beth has an accident with the prized horse and it is injured and put down. The stud’s owner sues Beth and her family for not only destroying the famed horse but for multiple infractions, causing the family to consider selling all their land to pay the large debt.

The main subplot to the story is the supernatural, mystical wolf named Mercy that taunts, frightens, befriends and protects Beth whenever she tries to correct her sins or do things her way. After her father dies from a heart attack, the real or imagined wolf leads her horseback through the mountains of Colorado to the grandfather she never knew, where she realizes that it is God Who controls our comings and goings, not ourselves.

Without giving away the ending, this page-turner has fractured parental and sibling relationships with some being mended and a couple of self-absorbed characters that betray others along with themselves.  It includes spiritual references for one to think about God’s abundant, enduring mercies and how we can be merciful and forgiving to others. Wanting more, the reader is left feeling there is room for a good sequel to explain many of the loose ends

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