“Never underestimate the power of a group of women. Fierce, thoughtful and dramatic—this is a story of true courage.” —Susan Wiggs, New York Times bestselling author
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 … 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.
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In Mercy House, Alena Dillon gives us one of fiction’s more unlikely lovable heroines: elderly, dynamic Sister Evelyn, whose tale—and that of her housemates—is as unexpected as it is moving. This is a thoughtful, accomplished debut.
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.
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,
Never underestimate the power of a group of women. Fierce, thoughtful, and dramatic–this is a story of true courage.
Mercy House by Alena Dillon is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. Catholic Sister Evelyn runs a safe house for women in Brooklyn along with two other sisters. Their stories and those of the women they care for, added to societal issues facing both women and the Catholic church in the 21st century, make for a terrific read. Sister Evelyn rocks! Comedian Amy Schumer and CBS are reportedly developing a movie based on the book. Highly recommended.
From the moment she stepped onto the page, I loved Sister Evelyn for her straight up street talk and witty comebacks. The quiet way the sisters handle the raw trauma that seeps from all the characters in Mercy House is authentic, and what they all do in the end is quite surprising!
I read this book as a non-Catholic & found it moving beyond measure. Who knew nuns were real people with real life challenges?
Very interesting book about women living in shelter after domestic violence.
This was an amazing book! I loved all the characters and their unconventional way of coping with what life throws at you!
There was a strong storyline with interesting characters who are fighting a patriarchal system.
The book was very good until the last four chapters. Not sure why the author decided to go in that direction but it ruined the story. She should have written a better ending for the Mercy House
This novel was unfortunately realistic. The Catholic Church has put its reputation and monetary values before its parishioners.
Sister Evelyn runs Mercy House, a refuge for battered women. She believes in her work and knows that she has made a difference in the lives of many young women, but she is very nervous about the bishop’s visit. Bishop Hawkins and Sister Evelyn share a terrible secret, and he is out to destroy her.
Well-written and with great humor and candor, our author confronts a serious topic here. The characters she has created are realistic and easy to fall in love with. This is a story of an “underdog’s” triumph. I love this story. I especially love Sister Evelyn!
Mercy House is the first book I’ve read by this author and I was impressed. It is a very well written book that touches on the sensitive, and mostly unheard of, sexual abuse of nuns by priests. Mercy House, located in Brooklyn and run by Catholic nuns, is a haven for the abused, neglected and abandoned. Sister Evelyn is a fierce protector and will do whatever she has to to safe Mercy House. When the nuns learn that Bishop Hawkins is coming to inspect Mercy House Evelyn is determined not to let him ruin what they have worked so hard for. There is a dark disturbing history between Evelyn and the Bishop. When the Bishop stoops to threats and intimidation against Evelyn she fights with all her might. I found the book to be very interesting and a good read. I am hoping for a sequel as I would love to know what happened to Sister Evelyn and the other nuns as well as the occupants of Mercy House. I do recommend this book!
Favorite Quotes:
Ever since Evelyn entered the convent fifty years ago and was required to rise with the sun, she worshipped sleep like it was a false god.
She’d never been to Rome, she’d never met the current Pontiff, and she had virtually no desire to do so. Pope Benedict XVI wore red velvet capes with ermine fur trim. He commissioned his own cologne, which Evelyn called Pope-pourri. He was chauffeured around in a Mercedes… That lavish lifestyle bore little resemblance to her experience in Bedford-Stuyvesant…
She spread her lips into a smile so artificial it insulted her cheeks.
The evangelical minister Pat Robertson said Haitians are paying for their sins with that 7.0 magnitude quake. I am terrified that he is right. Sister Evelyn came downstairs in the middle of the night and found me in the living room rewatching clips of Pat Robertson,… “Don’t you listen to that giant-eared moron. He’s equal parts hate and insanity,” she said.
Desiree’s current johns were low-income, most surviving on government subsidies. She aspired to move up the ranks and become a high-class call girl, a corporate lady of the night, from streetwalker to Wall Street. You couldn’t claim Desiree wasn’t ambitious.
“I’m like a Cadillac. This ride is built for comfort.” Desiree swiveled her hips and then took a comically large bite of her sandwich. “More like a Lincoln Town Car. Room for the whole family,” Lucia said and slapped Desiree’s backside.
My Review:
My heart was seriously bruised and battered while reading this highly evocative and stunningly crafted tale of an elderly hard-working yet disillusioned nun. She had been repeatedly sexually abused by a priest as a novice and never told anyone, now fifty years later he was the Bishop who was sent to investigate and interrogate with the singular purpose of closing down her abused women’s shelter. Oh, the irony. And I do loves me some clever irony. This was my first exposure to the brilliant wordcraft of Alena Dillon and I was quickly caught up in her mesmerizing and powerful word voodoo and sucked into a heart-squeezing vortex that transported me to a run-down dwelling with an angel knocker on Mercy Street in Brooklyn, New York. I inhabited that residence with an oddly and uniquely compelling hodgepodge of residents, each with a troubling and heartbreaking past as well as an equally challenging present.
The storylines were gripping and taut with tension, frustration, disheartening circumstances, despair, and eye-opening revelations. I was continually struck by the quality and perceptiveness of the writing, which was staggeringly emotive, skillfully assembled, and laced with insightful observations and descriptions of the various types of pain – body, mental, emotional, and of the psyche. I grew to appreciate each of these complicated women, especially the mouthy ones. And going forward, I will never look at a can of Lysol the same way ever again.
Mercy House by Alena Dillon
What an amazing story and an amazing debut by Alena Dillon.
Jumping into this book, I was not sure I would be interested in reading about the Catholic Church and the religious cover up as part of its dark history. However, I was completely wrong. I loved the story of a renegade and badass nun unlike those I have had in my parochial school.
Sister Evelyn, our protagonist and once a nurse, runs the Mercy House, located in Brooklyn, a safe haven for the abused and mistreated women with nowhere to go. Along with Sister Maria and Sister Josephine, they will go to lengths to protect those under their care. Sister Evelyn’s father placed her in the convent as a promise to God for sparing his son from death. Though this was not Evelyn’s choice, she accepted being a nun to please and gain her father’s good graces.
The Mercy House is under scrutiny and is set to be visited by Bishop Hawkins who shares a dark history with Evelyn. The sisters’ unconventional methods were put into question by the church and leads to Sister Evelyn’s position within the Catholic Church.
Dillon’s gift is writing these formidable characters that were amazing – from the sisters and the residents of Mercy House, you will find an attachment for them and grow to love them. The story moved fast and the plot grips you so much that you have to know what will happen next.
Sister Evelyn truly is an unlikely heroine you will love! She does not conform, is lead by her heart and common sense, not outdated rules created by men in one of the largest institutions in the world, and she is loving, forgiving and for the lack of a better word, a Badass Nun!
I highly recommend this book for its amazing storyline, easy to read, great dialogue, strong women, and puts face front the history of abuse and sexism in the Catholic Church in a way that is not preachy but thoughtful and heart warming.
BOOK REVIEWu2063u2063
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Mercy House by Alena Dillonu2063u2063
Pub Date: February 11, 2020u2063u2063
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-DESCRIPTION-u2063u2063
A row house exists in Brooklyn for women who have been battered and broken. All they have to do is look for the angel. Sister Evelyn, along with two other nuns, runs this house under the Catholic Churche’s eye. Bishop Hawkins comes in determined to shut down Mercy House and with it, Sister Evelyn.u2063u2063
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-THOUGHTS-u2063u2063
1. I instantly fell in love with the characters. There was no false perfection. They were flawed and real, each with their own specific voice.u2063u2063
2. I loved that the author included stories of the residents throughout the book. How different their stories are, yet they all end up at Mercy House for the same reasons.u2063u2063
3. This was one of those books that is very relevant today. Women’s reproductive Rights, the hypocrisy of the church, and what powerful men can do to silence women.u2063u2063
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-RATING-u2063u2063
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4/5 starsu2063u2063
I recommend this book!u2063u2063
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-SIMILAR RECOMMENDED READS-u2063u2063
Beyond the Pointu2063u2063
Mrs. Everythingu2063u2063
Big Lies in a Small Townu2063
MERCY HOUSE by Alena Dillon is an intense, well-written novel that is sure to cause a bit of controversy, especially for those raised in the Catholic Church and still believe that the Church can do no wrong. Mercy House is a home run by three nuns to give a safe haven to women who have suffered abuse and have no place to turn. Sister Evelyn and her two fellow nuns do what they think is best for these women, even if it conflicts with the Catholic Church and its teachings. Things are going well until the Church decides to take a closer look at Mercy House.
Told mainly from Sister Evelyn’s point-of-view, the story is interspersed with chapters told by the current residents, giving a glimpse of the women and how they ended up needing Mercy House. Sister Evelyn is strong and has come up with some unconventional ways to keep Mercy House When the Church sends a Bishop to look into Mercy House and make recommendations, it’s clear he has his own agenda and history with Sister Evelyn and others in the neighborhood safe. When Bishop Robert Hawkins arrives for his investigation into Mercy House and to make his recommendations, it’s clear he has his own agenda and a history with Sister Evelyn.
Sister Evelyn is a complex character shaped by her family from the beginning, when her father makes his bargain with God, and continuing through her life as she trains and ultimately becomes a nun. She has her secrets, buried deep, and her feelings toward her family colored by her own perceptions and feelings. It was interesting to watch how the events unfolded and how Sister Evelyn came to understand that her thoughts and feelings of the past and her family may have been skewed by her perceptions and how she dealt with the revelations.
MERCY HOUSE is a well-written and engrossing novel that delves into the changes, difficulties, and abuses Nuns faced as they navigated changes in the Church and their place in it and society. It’s an intense read and it surprised me how quickly and thoroughly I became engrossed. If you are sensitive to descriptions of sexual abuse, both of adult women and children, you may have a hard time reading it.
This was a serious read, so it seems frivolous to say I enjoyed it, but the writing was excellent and the characters well-drawn. I highly recommend this to anyone who is looking for something just a little different and unexpected.
Thank you to NetGalley for my advanced review copy. All opinions and thoughts are my own.
#MercyHouse #AlenaDillon #WilliamMorrow#NetGalley #TheBookClubGirls
I received a free electronic ARC copy of this modern novel from Netgalley, Alena Dillon, and William Morrow Paperbacks. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I have read this novel of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work. I am pleased to recommend Alena Dillon to friends and family. She writes a warm, positive tale peopled with complex but enjoyable protagonists and shines a light on empathy and sensitivity.
Set in 2010, Mercy House follows three Catholic nuns who have made a place for themselves in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn for 26 years, from Vatican I when they wore traditional black woolen ‘nun’ layers of uniform and were completely silenced in the workplace and lifestyle of women, through Vatican II when they wore an abbreviated veil and calf-length clothing and into the present day where they wear conservative street clothing – and are still stifled when policies and regulations and freedoms of women in general and Catholic women, in particular, are in question.
We enter the world of not only these ladies of the church but those of their focus for Mercy House – women escaping from abusive relationships and domestic violence who need a safe haven, of which there have been hundreds over the 26 years of the presence of Mercy House at 284 Chauncey Street, Brooklyn. The Angel doorknocker is the only indication that good works take place in this five-bedroom, 100-year-old rowhouse.
Of the Order of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Mercy, we have Sister Evelyn, ‘Evie’, now 69 and hobbling with widespread gouty arthritis. She achieved a Masters in Nursing and worked for many years for the church in that capacity. Evelyn was pledged at four years old to the sisterhood by her hooligan father. When her health began to slow her down, she was the driving force in opening and keeping the doors open at Mercy House. Sister Maria was responsible for most of the cooking, which included healthy snacks to be passed out around the neighborhood, and a daily ritual of Reiki on a pad atop the kitchen table for the Sisters and residents as well. Sister Maria joined the sisterhood after a childhood that included the repeated viewing of The Sound of Music and The Flying Nun, but she always had a smile and made the best of every day. Sister Josephine entered the Order in the years before Vatican II and found comfort in the rituals and pageantry of the Church and its devotion to knowledge. She was able to use the Sisterhood as a bridge to higher education, and in her lifetime she earned a doctorate in theology and two master’s degrees, one in nursing and one in philosophy. These ladies offered compassion, health care, and a bolthole to women, usually young, who are in danger from their life partner. Occasionally hard-drawn religious ‘laws’ have to be softened or erased, and each person helped at Mercy House has a unique need for the type of help and understanding that will get their lives back on track.
The Vatican didn’t always see it, that way. And Bishop Robert Hawkins comes into the picture, wanting nothing so much as to stifle Sister Evelyn, for good. She has personal knowledge of his lechery back in the day and is not ashamed to expose him. He has threatened to expose Father John, the priest at the local church who is a childhood friend of Evelyns. John will be labeled a homosexual if Evelyn shares anything of Hawkins misdeeds of long ago. Will he be able to shut down Mercy House?
Awe inspiring. That is exactly what I think of Mercy House by Anna Dillon. I not only fell in love with the nuns in her book, I was in awe of their caring and understanding of the work they were doing to help other women who needed shelter and healing.
I was raised in the catholic church but left as an adult. I had an aunt that was sent to the convent by her father when she was 16 years old. She was older than Sister Evelyn but, also, experienced the transition from Vatican I to Vatican ll. She chose to leave during that transition. I learned a lot from this book about the suppression of the nuns by the men who run the Catholic church from the Pope down. It spoke of sexual abuse, rape and homosexuality within the church. We have all heard of the priests that were protected by the church.
This book made me sad, mad and happy. I cried and I laughed and even found myself praying for the church and its people. I don’t think I have ever read a book that has hit me as hard in the heart as this book did. It is written with so much compassion and love. I can’t say enough about Mercy House. Anna Dillon wrote a remarkable, historical debut novel.
I recieved a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for Fair and honesty review.
Mercy House by Alena Dillon is a story about the power men have over women as well as the privilege they exert. It is gritty and gruesome also heartbreaking. Evelyn has been a Catholic nun for over 40 years. He father convinced her to join the order after he promised God that she would if he brought her brother, Sean, home from war. Sean came home; Evie went to the convent. That is where it started. There was a priest there who sexually abused Evie and convinced her it was her fault: she tempted him; that if she told she would be the guilty one, not him. Some years later, after nuns took off their habits and could live away from the convent, Evie and two other nuns opened a home for battered women. It was a non-descript house on a non-descript street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant portion of Brooklyn. For twenty-five years they saved lives in that house. Sometimes part of saving a life was taking another one in the form of abortion. Sometimes they just accompanied the woman; sometimes they paid the bill. They did many other things in this home that the Church didn’t approve of but they kept a low profile and helped women. Until one day when the Bishop came to call.
Men do have power and privilege but not all men use it to hurt women. We are seeing the worst of the lot in this story. We are also seeing the power of the Catholic Church at its worst, sadly a place it has been for many years. This book was painful to read…it was one horrendous thing after another…but realistic, especially in this neighborhood. It is the story of humankind; of women; of families; of lack of communication. Would I choose a diet of this book, which I’m sure is possible? No I would not. Am I glad I read it? Absolutely. It shows the triumph of love over evil. I recommend it, but not on a day you are already depressed.
I received a free ARC of Mercy House from Netgalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. All opinions and interpretations expressed herein are solely my own. #netgalley #mercyhouse