Review: Mercy

Title: Mercy 
Author:  Pam Dingée
Publication: Sept 24, 2013 by Amazon
Reviewed by: Taryn
Rating: 3 stars
Reason for Reviewing: Ebook provided in exchange for an honest review.

Eden has had a tough year and is trying to bounce back from the tragedy of her father passing recently, and she’s also hoping to learn to love and trust again all while going through a sticky divorce with the Dick.

Dom is Eden’s BFF’s brother, he’s also a bit of a player and a sexy distraction for Eden. He wants to earn Eden's trust, but she's been burned before and is skeptical. Can Dom help by being a good friend to Eden and steer her in the right direction?

Eden is 22 years old and has recently lost her father. She’s also going through a messy divorce with Richard, aka Dick. They’ve been married for 3 years, but Eden recently discovered Dick was being unfaithful. For the past month, Eden has been staying in her best friend Aly’s guest house as she saves money to get back on her feet. Eden and Aly work side-by-side at the same beauty salon, and they’ve been close ever since they met while earning their cosmetology degrees at the Las Vegas School of Beauty. Aly’s husband, Sloane, and her older brother, Dominic, work with Dick at Vegas Builds.

Eden can’t help but be attracted to Dom even though she is pretty sure he’s a big player. Soon she finds out that Dom’s feelings for her run much deeper than friendship, but Eden’s not sure if she’s quite ready to cross that friendship line into something more. She’s still nursing a broken heart and doesn’t want to get hurt again.

I’ve always enjoyed reading stories about people who were friends first before they fell in love. And Dom was definitely a swoonworthy love interest -- he was hardworking, loyal, protective, funny, cheesy at times...and of course, hot!

Mercy was a quick and easy read, but the conversational writing style took a little getting used to. It was very informal, almost like sitting down to have coffee or a cocktail with a friend and discussing the ups and downs of her love life. There were a few flashbacks which provided a peek into how Dom and Eden’s friendship and attraction grew over the years, and I wish there were more of these. A couple of times the point of view abruptly switched to Dom’s, and that was a bit jarring. Maybe if there had been more chapters included from his point of view it would have been a smoother transition for the reader. At times I felt annoyed with Eden’s immaturity, but then again, 22 is still pretty young and the characters’ actions seemed realistic for someone that age.

Despite these small issues, I found Mercy to be an entertaining read and would recommend it to fans of new adult romance.