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    Mercy House: A Novel
    Mercy House: A Novel
    Mercy House: A Novel
    Audiobook9 hours

    Mercy House: A Novel

    Written by Alena Dillon

    Narrated by Dawn Harvey, Catherine Ho, Scarlette Hayes and

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    “A life-altering debut featuring fierce, funny, and irreverent women who battle the most powerful institution in the world. This is the book we’ve all been waiting for.”—Amy Schumer

    She would stop at nothing to protect the women under her care.

    Inside a century-old row house in Brooklyn, renegade Sister Evelyn and her fellow nuns preside over a safe haven for the abused and abandoned. Gruff and indomitable on the surface, warm and wry underneath, little daunts Evelyn, until she receives word that Mercy House will be investigated by Bishop Hawkins, a man with whom she shares a dark history. In order to protect everything they’ve built, the nuns must conceal many of their methods, which are forbidden by the Catholic Church.

    Evelyn will go to great lengths to defend all that she loves. She confronts a gang member, defies the church, challenges her own beliefs, and faces her past. She is bolstered by the other nuns and the vibrant, diverse residents of the shelter—Lucia, Mei-Li, Desiree, Esther, and Katrina—whose differences are outweighed by what unites them: they’ve all been broken by men but are determined to rebuild.

    Amidst her fight, Evelyn discovers the extraordinary power of mercy and the grace it grants, not just to those who receive it, but to those strong enough to bestow it.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateFeb 11, 2020
    ISBN9780062989116
    Author

    Alena Dillon

    Alena Dillon is the author of Mercy House, which is in development as a CBS All Access television series. Her work has appeared in publications including LitHub, River Teeth, Slice Magazine, The Rumpus, and Bustle. She teaches creative writing and lives on the north shore of Boston with her husband, son, and dog.

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    Reviews for Mercy House

    4/5

    84 ratings11 reviews

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    • 4/5
      "You deserve to be safe. You deserve to love and be loved."

      Mercy House gave me another viewpoint of the Catholic Church, the women that dedicate their lives to it, and the challenges they face both internally and externally. It was a fairly fast read with interesting characters, a plot that was as predictable as it was unpredictable, and plenty of laughs despite the darker themes.
    • 4/5
      As with all big corporations, it starts out with an idea that needs to be taken to the next level but those that believe in this passion. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way greed, power and ego rear its ugly head and man takes over. In view of the recent troubles within the Catholic Church, I found this book compelling, well researched and extremely sad. Years ago, boys and girls entered the convent before they could figure out who they were or to squelch who they were, or put in the church due to too family obligations.

      Mercy House is a safe house for battered and abandoned women, run by 3 nuns, headed by Sister Evelyn, a kick-ass renegade, who understands that the role is not back or white, but many shades of grey. I fell in love with these forward-thinking older women, so unlike the nuns I remember from my parochial school days. This debut novel is not for the faint-of-heart, or for those looking for a light read. It will evoke many emotions...anger, sadness, disgust, redemption. It held my attention from start to finish. Please read with an open mind! Born and raised Catholic, this story ripped my heart out. I am happy to say that I have not know anyone like the hierarchy in this book, but believe wholeheartedly these problems exist and are just now coming to light. I thought the Mother Superior was to point. I am a ambivalent about the ending, but you can decide for yourself.

      Thanks to Harper Collins Publishing, William Morrow Paperbacks, Alena Dillon and NetGalley for this ARC. Opinion is mine alone.
    • 4/5
      Mercy House is a compelling novel. I thought it was well-written with intriguing characters. There were some slow spots but they did not detract from the story. I will provide my complete review soon.
    • 2/5
      Evelyn and her fellow nuns run Mercy House, a haven for abused and battered women. When the nuns receive word that they are to be investigated, Evelyn is shocked to discover that Bishop Hawkins, her old abuser, will be the inspector. Worried that he will discover the nuns unconventional and blasphemous practices, Evelyn is willing to do whatever it takes to save Mercy House.

      I struggled a bit with this book. I did not particularly like Evelyn, and some of the girls in Mercy House were equally unlikeable. Evelyn continually blamed her family for her vocation, which I found to be hypocritical and off-putting. I am not going to spoil the book, but the ending left too many things unresolved. Overall, a bust.
    • 3/5
      Alena Dillon’s Mercy House delivers an unconventional story about nuns, abused women, and the lengths they all go for the sake of safety. It starts slowly and with (what feels like) little direction, but when the central conflict becomes clear, it proves to be a mesmerizing, thought-provoking read.

      With Catholic nuns at the center of the Mercy House drama, I did struggle, at times, with the portrayal of faith. I felt frustrated more than once because of the choices and actions stemming from that faith—this book was not entirely right for me; still, I am glad to have read it.

      I received a complimentary copy of this book and the opportunity to provide an honest review. I was not required to write a positive review, and all the opinions I have expressed are my own.
    • 4/5
      Nestled in the row houses of Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood is a house with an angel doorknocker.  Mercy House, a refuge for women is run by three aging nuns, Sister Evelyn, Sister Maria and Sister Josephine who don't exactly follow all the rules of the Catholic Church to a tee.  The Sister's have helped many women find safety, heal and succeed in life.  They have also helped women obtain abortions, calm by practicing Reiki and have never discriminated based on any of the women's preferences.  All of the good work that the Sisters of Mercy House have done is threatened when Bishop Hawkins arrives to audit their house.  Hawkins has a damaging history with Sister Evelyn and is set on closing the house and preserving his reputation.  Sister Evelyn would rather go down than see Mercy House close and when Hawkins does just that, Sister Evelyn dives deep into her past to reveal all in order to save Mercy House and herself.

      Mercy House grabbed my attention with wonderfully thought out characters and an immersive plot.  From the beginning, I was amazed at how interesting a group of contemporary Nuns could be. Written mostly from Evelyn's point of view with flashbacks of her youth and interspersed with stories of the current residents of Mercy House, I felt like I got to know each of the characters well.  Thoroughly developed and distinct, the Nun's personalities and the young women's background's captured me.  Evelyn's story allowed me to empathize with her every step of the way and understand her motivations.  The story also focuses on contemporary Nuns and the issues of the Catholic Church.  It was great to see these Nuns portrayed in a very non-stereotypical way and have them be heroes for their residents as well as themselves.  These Nuns are portrayed as real people and some of the most caring and strong people around.  It was clear that these women created a community in Mercy House that extended throughout Bedford-Stuyvesant. Bishop Hawkins added a layer of suspense and an antagonist that I loved to hate. The tension he created with Mercy House and the secrets he tried to kept hidden was palpable in the atmosphere.  Overall, Mercy House is a unique contemporary fiction with amazing characters that focuses on the good and the bad that the world has to offer.

      This book was received for free in return for an honest review. 
    • 4/5
      If you say "Catholic" these days, there are any number of associations that come to mind: the Pope, church on Sundays, the sex abuse scandal. If you include nuns in your imagery, you probably envision either Maria at the convent in The Sound of Music, Whoopie Goldberg in Sister Habit, or more generically, nuns wielding rulers in Catholic schools across the nation. How often do you envision religious women who have given their lives over to God who do their own ministry and outreach among the poor, the reviled, and the forgotten? These crusading nuns do vitally important works in their community, living their Christian ideals every day. In her debut novel, Mercy House, Alena Dillon has brought to life one of these sisters, the safe shelter she and her fellow sisters founded, and their fight to keep it open in the face of malicious, institutionalized evil.

      Sister Evelyn was promised to the church as a young child, her father vowing to give her into the religious life if God would answer his prayers and return her oldest brother safely home from WWII. He did come home and she was forever after marked for the religious life, entering the convent as a novitiate at the age of 19. Fifty years later, she and two other sisters, Sister Maria and Sister Josephine, run Mercy House, a safe house for abused women in Bedford-Stuyvesant. They do not judge the women they serve but offer them the space and grace to heal the physical and the emotional wounds they carry when they arrive at Mercy House's door. In their ministry, the sisters sometimes stray from received Catholic doctrine on divorce, abortion, and more, choosing, as Sister Evelyn says, to make decisions from their hearts rather than their heads when confronted with the reality of the women's situations. Only now their mission is threatened by the arrival of Bishop Hawkins, who is looking into all of the orders for the Vatican. His past history with Sister Evelyn will make him even more likely to dig too deeply into Mercy House and set him on a campaign to shut it down. Sister Evelyn is equally determined to save this vital mission and is willing to sacrifice greatly in order to achieve her ends.

      Opening with Sister Evelyn welcoming a new resident in the middle of the night, the novel quickly introduces the damaged and vulnerable young women who are current residents at the house as well as Evelyn's fellow nuns. Evelyn herself is a wonderful character, both strong and weak, complex and intelligent, willful and determined. She has made compromises over her lifetime, compromises that she still grapples with, but she is fierce about her calling with these young women and her story is the one that takes the most focus of the novel. Her early life, both before and after her vows, alternates with the modern day situation at the house. Also interspersed in the narrative are first person descriptions of what landed them at Mercy House by each of the current residents. These tellings are horrific and graphic with abuse and neglect and they can be incredibly hard to read. But they are the true reality for many abused women and the horror of the characters' backgrounds helps to show the reader what is at stake should Mercy House be closed down. There is certainly much social commentary here, both on the systems that have failed these young women who have found themselves needing safe haven but also on the systemic abuses that the Catholic Church turned a blind eye to for so many years. The wealth of the Vatican and its representatives, in the person of Bishop Hawkins, is contrasted with the relative poverty of the women and the mission doing so much good in their local community. Dillon highlights the gross imbalance of power between the nuns and the priests within the church hierarchy and the irony of the "nunquisition," an actual examination starting in 2006 into the orders of nuns to ascertain whether they were in fact following Church doctrine or not, given the Church's blatant and blanket ignoring of the myriad illegal and immoral abuses by so many priests. But the book is not an all-encompassing condemnation of Catholicism, showing all but one wholly (holy?) evil character as complex, compassionate, and realistic human beings. The plot is fast paced, moving from one incident to another in Sister Evelyn's race to best Bishop Hawkins and keep Mercy House open, even as she is forced to consider just how far she can and should go in her quest. The ending petered out more than I'd have liked but it does also sort of fit to leave Evelyn just where she is, as life would. This is a gripping and dramatic story for those who can stomach the terrible abuse chronicled here and it certainly kept me reading well past my bedtime.
    • 4/5
      I will note that I was brought up Catholic but lost my faith a long, long time ago. That doesn’t mean I don’t find tales of nun, priests and their exploits still interesting. This book is so much more in that it is more of a story about the subtle abuses the church inflicts upon the women that serve it. Maybe not so subtle. These women dedicate their lives to their God and to the church and yet the Church sees them as less than second class citizens. No compunction about just tossing them to the fates rather than supporting them. But off of my soapbox and on to the book.

      Sister Evelyn is an older nun who was basically given to the church by her father for the safe return of his son from the war. It’s an Irish Catholic thing….She was indoctrinated from her earliest years that this was her fate and so she felt she had no choice. Her parents dropped her at the convent (pre Vatican II – if you are not Catholic a lot of this book isn’t going to make sense. But prior to the changes put through with this council in 1965 with Pope John XXIII nuns were severly limited. Well, a lot changed. The Mass was said in English. Woo hoo – it had been said in Latin. Way to make it user friendly, eh? As an aside, I remember my first Mass in English, with responses. I got scared. I didn’t know what was going on.

      Nuns could stop wearing habits and became more socially concious. This is how we meet Sister Evelyn and her fellow nuns at Mercy House. It’s a refuge for abused women in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, NY. Women can come at any time of day or night and they are given a safe place to stay/hide/rest/pray/recover.

      The book revolves around Sister Evelyn but there is a cast of very diverse and interesting characters from the holy to the very profane. It was a very compelling story and one I read in basically one sitting. The nuns and the residents of Mercy House all have interesting stories to share and it’s worth spending the time with them. If you are not Catholic you can just ignore the references to Vatican II or there is the google. At it’s heart this is a story about women, the strength they have and the crap they have to put up with in life – whether the woman is a nun or not.
    • 4/5
      This compassionate novel is about a group of nuns who start a shelter for women who are victims of domestic violence. We get a look into the lives of the residents as well as the nuns who run the house. Much of the story is told by Sister Evelyn who has been a nun for over 50 years. She is a strong and compassionate woman who wants to protect everyone - the residents, her neighbors and her friends. She is feisty and will stand up to anyone - muggers, drug dealers or anyone who tries to take advantage of other people. She is bitter about her family and the reasons that she went into the convent but she loves her life at Mercy House. There is a bishop that she has a history with who has decided to shut down Mercy House and she does her best to keep it from happening. It's a toss-up over who will win this battle because they both have secrets about each other. Sister Evelyn is also very funny and in parts had me laughing out loud. She is a character who will not soon be forgotten.

      All of the residents are there to escape from the person who is abusing them and find healing in their lives. There is a chapter by each one of the residents and even though they are very difficult to read, they give a good depiction of the cycle of abuse.

      Evelyn will do anything to protect Mercy House and the women it serves. She is a strong woman who fights to defend all that she loves and finds that mercy is not just for those who receive it but also to those who give it.

      Thanks to the publisher for a copy of this book to read and review. All opinions are my own.
    • 5/5
      Victims and survivors! A stunning tribute!

      Sister Evelyn runs a woman's shelter in Brooklyn along with her sister nuns. The work is challenging and often rewarding. Over the years Evelyn's concepts of Catholicism, her working faith have been confronted by the women's needs. This does lead her down a different path to that proscribed and opens up many questions. The crux however is that Sister Evelyn harbors a secret just as wretched as her charges. When the author of that secret, the vengeful Bishop Robert Hawkins targets their work for his "nun-quition" Evelyn's repressed past bubbles to the surface.
      Confronting issues involved with abuse and power within the church, I found this a powerful read. As well as the way the nuns must face the reality of their charges circumstances. I applauded the residents of Mercy House and I loved the way the nuns had become part of the local community. Their work quietly has earned the support of their neighbors is telling.
      Evelyn herself is a rather contrary character who goes from being a confident and brash lioness to a fearful rabbit when the Hawk comes. The rhythm of confrontation between them leaves Evelyn more and more devastated as the Bishop targets her and the Refuge and the women who are on a healing journey. Until Evelyn breaks through her own victimization nothing changes, and when that moment comes I was standing in the pews in solidarity alongside Mei-Li, Desiree, Esther, Lucia and Katrina when Evelyn "was joined by a line of soldiers who had seen the belly of combat and had survived—a small but fierce army." Yes!!
      A powerful read leavened with moments of humor and love!

      A HarperCollins ARC via NetGalley
    • 4/5
      I received an advance readers copy of this book from HarperCollins in exchange for an honest review.

      In a world seemingly full of predators, one brave nun of nearly 70, Sister Evelyn, protects her traumatized and diverse little flock of women with everything she’s got. Mercy House is a battered women’s shelter in Brooklyn, run by nuns, that is both being investigated by an arrogant bishop and threatened by a violent gang leader whose girlfriend has found shelter under its slightly shabby eaves.

      Between the bishop and the gang leader, Evelyn has far more reason to fear the bishop, who has returned from Evelyn’s days as a young novitiate like a dark shadow. Bishop Hawkins seems determined to close down Mercy House for being too “radically feminist.” Evelyn does come to face her own sins, but they are not the wrongs she’s accused of by the Catholic Church and sometimes by the public.

      I rarely find a character in a novel who makes me laugh, cry, and cheer out loud. Sister Evelyn is a rousing, radical literary hero of heart-stirring courage, brought to life on the page with great skill by first-time novelist Alena Dillon, and I couldn’t put “Mercy House” down.