Easter and her sister Ruby are orphans living in the foster care system. They’re settling into their new environment and things are ok until their father, Wade Chesterfield, turns up. Easter can remember the last time she saw him: when he signed away his parental rights and vanished from their lives. Of course her mother was still alive then. Wade says that when he heard about their mother’s death, he wanted to be there for them. For Easter it’s too little too late but it’s enough for Ruby to give him a chance and her older sister isn’t about to abandon her. Little do they know Wade’s interest is thanks to a recent turn of luck on his part. But this same turn of luck has now set some pretty nasty folks on his tail—folks willing to use Easter and Ruby to get to their father.
Wiley Cash is one of the most exciting new voices in fiction today. His accomplishments with A Land More Kind Than Home and now This Dark Road to Mercy set him amongst the best in the industry in my opinion.
Cash divides the story between Easter, her guardian ad litem Brady Fuller, and Pruitt, the man sent to find Wade). Of the three Easter is the only truly good and mostly innocent character, a young girl on the edge of losing everything but still full of hope. Brady is an ex-cop whose story comes out as the plot develops, as does Pruitt’s motivation behind tracking Wade. The emotions that run through the story and drive each character—love, hate, fear, devotion—are so evident and carefully built that the reader has no choice but to become drawn in by the story, swept along from the opening chapter of a girl recounting her mother’s death straight through to the pitch perfect end.
2/14 Becky Lejeune
THIS DARK ROAD TO MERCY by Wiley Cash. William Morrow; First Edition edition (January 28, 2014). ISBN 978-0062088253. 240p.
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