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Sweet Mercy, a stunning coming-of-age drama set during the Great Depression and Prohibition.
When Eve Marryat’s father is laid off from the Ford Motor Company
in 1931, he is forced to support his family by leaving St. Paul,
Minnesota, and moving back to his Ohio roots. Eve’s uncle Cyrus has
invited the family to live and work at his Marryat Island Ballroom and
Lodge.
Eve can’t wait to leave St. Paul, a notorious haven for gangsters.
At seventeen, she considers her family to be “good people,” not
lawbreakers like so many in her neighborhood. Thrilled to be moving to a
“safe haven,” Eve soon forms an unlikely friendship with a strange
young man named Link, blissfully unaware that her uncle’s lodge is
anything but what it seems.
When the reality of her situation finally becomes clear, Eve is
faced with a dilemma. Does she dare risk everything by exposing the man
whose love and generosity is keeping her family from ruin? And when
things turn dangerous, can she trust Link in spite of appearances?
Praise for Sweet Mercy
"In this coming-of-age novel, Christy winner Tatlock manages to offer
readers an eclectic mixture of suspense and romance combined with deeply
rooted historical elements... [She] presents endearing but flawed
characters who prompt readers to explore their own bases for judgment
and ethical criticism." --Publishers Weekly
"Lush physical descriptions offer a pleasing backdrop to this tale of mystery and romance that focuses on the necessity of love and forgiveness as well as the magnitude of God's mercy." --RT Book Reviews
"Lush physical descriptions offer a pleasing backdrop to this tale of mystery and romance that focuses on the necessity of love and forgiveness as well as the magnitude of God's mercy." --RT Book Reviews
10 True Facts About Sweet Mercy
by Ann Tatlock
Sweet
Mercy is
of course a novel, a story plucked out of my imagination. Most of the
characters and events are completely fictional. But not everything about Sweet Mercy is make-believe. In fact,
there’s much about the story that’s true. Here are 10 facts that come straight
from “the annals of history”:
1. The setting, Marryat
Island, is based on Hoppe’s Island that used to exist in the Little Miami River
near Foster, Ohio. I grew up hearing about the island because this recreational
paradise was owned by my great grandfather in the 1920s and 30s. My father
spent many summer days there as a boy, swimming, boating and “fishing for
crawdads.” The island as I recreated it is very similar to how it actually was.
2. St. Paul, Minnesota,
in the 1920s and 30s was a safe haven for gangsters. Criminals, bank robbers,
money launderers, kidnappers and murderers could all find refuge there without
being bothered by the authorities, so long as they conducted their business
outside the city limits.
3. Bank robber and
prison escapee Frank “Jelly” Nash moved into Apt. #205 at the Edgecombe Court
in St. Paul in 1931, the apartment recently vacated by the fictional Eve
Marryat and her family.
4. “Dapper Dan” Hogan,
underworld czar and owner of the Green Lantern saloon, was blown up by a bomb
planted in his Paige coupe in 1928.
5. During Prohibition,
moonshine was often made with rubbing alcohol, embalming fluid, antifreeze and other toxic substances that were sometimes
known to cause blindness, convulsions and death.
6. Due to the violence
of the times, one tailor boasted in his newspaper ad: “Bullet holes rewoven
perfectly in damaged clothes.”
7. Michael O’Brannigan,
a character in the book, is based on a famous wealthy bootlegger named Dean
O’Banion. O’Banion owned a flower shop, was a teetotaler and family man, and
had a great respect for the church where he had once served as an altar boy.
8. In the elaborate
secret system of transporting liquor during Prohibition, at least one
bootlegger ran his operation with the help of coded messages embedded in
children’s stories read over the radio.
9. Police, lawyers,
Prohibition agents and judges were all known to accept bribes to turn a blind
eye to the manufacture and distribution of illegal alcohol. Sometimes they were
paid off not with money but with liquor.
10. Al Capone collected
miniature ivory elephants, which he displayed on his desk. What is revealed
about Capone at the end of the book is also true, though I won’t tell you what
it is. You’ll have to read Sweet Mercy
to find out!
Meet Author Ann Tatlock
Ann Tatlock is the author of the Christy-Award winning novel
Promises to Keep. She has also won the Midwest Independent Publishers
Association “Book of the Year” in fiction for both All the Way Home and
I’ll Watch the Moon. Her novel Things We Once Held Dear received a
starred review from Library Journal and Publishers Weekly calls her “one
of Christian fiction’s better wordsmiths, and her lovely prose reminds
readers why it is a joy to savor her stories.” Ann lives with her
husband and daughter in Asheville, North Carolina.
Thank you for sharing with us today Ann! What a lovely book cover, and interesting era.
ReplyDeleteI do find this time period fascinating, as were the 10 true facts. Sweet Mercy sounds very interesting.
ReplyDeleteSounds wonderful. I love that era in reading. I have one of Ann Tatlock's books "Every Secret Thing" and can't wait to read it. Have the other two in the series in my wish list. Loved the 10 true facts too. Thanks for sharing. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing some facts on this book and author with us, I have read Travlers Rest and sounds like this would be great to read also. like that title "Sweet Mercy"...
ReplyDeletePaula O(kyflo130@yahoo.com)
a goodread member