Mercy Come Morning by Lisa Tawn Bergren ~ review

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: WaterBrook Press; Reprint edition (August 16, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307730107
• ISBN-13: 978-0307730107

Previously released as "Christmas Every Morning"

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About the book:

There are no second chances. Or are there? 
 
Krista Mueller is in a good place. She’s got a successful career as a professor of history; she’s respected and well-liked; and she lives hundreds of miles from her hometown and the distant mother she could never please. It’s been more than a decade since Alzheimer’s disease first claimed Charlotte Mueller’s mind, but Krista has dutifully kept her mother in a first-class nursing home.

Now Charlotte is dying of heart failure and, surprised by her own emotions, Krista rushes to Taos, New Mexico, to sit at her estranged mother’s side as she slips away. Battling feelings of loss, abandonment, and relief, Krista is also unsettled by her proximity to Dane McConnell, director of the nursing home—and, once upon a time, her first love. Dane’s kind and gentle spirit—and a surprising discovery about her mother—make Krista wonder if she can at last close the distance between her and her mother … and open the part of her heart she thought was lost forever.

My take on this book:

Krista Mueller is a professor of history working in Colorado, but Taos, New Mexico was once her home, and where her mother Charlotte Mueller who suffers from Alzheimer's  nursing facility is.  A nursing home that's run by Krista's first love Dane McConnell. Krista has only seen her mother twice in the many years she has been at the facility so when she gets a call from Dane telling her that her mother is dying of heart failure she hesitates to go because of unresolved feelings from the past. When an old songbook her mother has always had turns out to be her mother's journal, Krista starts to learn things about her mother that she never knew. What will Krista discover in the pages of her mother's journal?

"Mercy Come Morning" is about  a mother/daughter whose relationship was strained long before Alzheimer's disease developed. Krista's memories weren't happy ones, instead all she remembered was that she always tried to please her mother but never succeeded. She often felt unloved and unwanted, but when she starts looking back she soon starts remembering that there were happy times but she let the bad ones overshadow the good.It was nice to see Krista finally let go of the hurts of her past. 

For me this book started out a bit slow, and really there were no real surprises, but still I became invested in knowing how things would end. 

Overall a story with compelling  characters and a story line about finding forgiveness and letting go of the past.

A complimentary copy of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.