I'm going to warn you right from the start. Once you start LITTLE MERCIES you won't be able to put it down. Right from the very first chapter, Heather Gudenkauf is going to pull you in and she doesn't let you go until the very last page. Your heart will break for Ellen and what her and her family are going through.

Ellen Moore is a social worker and has seen the worst things that people can do to each other. Her life is very busy between work and her family, but she is handling it as best as she can. Until one stifling hot summer day, Ellen is called out to a domestic situation, completely distracted, and makes a horrible and heart breaking mistake. What she goes through because of what has happened, will tear at your heart strings and keep you wondering...there but for the grace of God...it could happen to anyone and does happen everywhere and sadly, almost every day.

Ten-year old Jenny Briard comes from a troubled family. Her father is a drunk and keeps moving her from place to place. If he has a job, things are good for a little while. Then before you know it, he loses his job and starts drinking again. Her mother left years ago, after one of her boyfriends beat Jenny up real bad.

LITTLE MERCIES is the story of how Ellen and Jenny are both dealing with a difficult period in their lives and how their paths cross. You will want to hug Jenny and take her home with you. How could a ten-year old have to deal with so much?

LITTLE MERCIES also has another amazing character: Maudene, Ellen's loving and thoughtful mother, who gives unselfishly. I just love her and I am so happy that she is there for Jenny! The world needs more people like her. Jenny and her Dad are planning to move and are waiting at the bus station, but when the police arrest her Dad, Jenny ends up in a bus traveling on her own. When she gets to Iowa she is all alone having to fend for herself, until she meets Maudene, a local waitress who comes to Jenny's rescue.

LITTLE MERCIES is told in the alternating points of view of Ellen and Jenny as their worlds collide. While Ellen fights the legal battles and her husband and children are in a state of confusion and chaos, her mother takes runaway Jenny into her home.

LITTLE MERCIES is sometimes hard to read. The writing is perfect, that isn't the problem. It is reading about what some children have to go through with their own parents. That being said, I devoured LITTLE MERCIES and I know you will too. I have always enjoyed Heather Gudenkauf's books in the past and LITTLE MERCIES does not disappoint. I want to tell everyone I know to read LITTLE MERCIES.

LITTLE MERCIES makes you face one of those terrifying "what ifs" which you really never want to even think about ... how would you cope if everything you loved was at risk of being taken away from you and it was all your fault? How could you live with yourself and what would you do? Would you be able to be strong enough to survive what Ellen went through? What about Jenny? Their stories are going to stay with you for a very long time.