I love a good gothic, and I also go through phases where I’m fond of paranormals and ghost stories, so this month’s TBR theme – Here There Be Monsters – appealed to me. As I combed through my TBR, I stumbled across the Mercy Hollings trilogy of paranormals, so I decided to give Beg for Mercy a try. While this one has a plot point I found disturbing (more on that later), I did find a lot to like here and I suspect I’ll be finishing the trilogy.

If you like found family stories, this may appeal to you. The heroine, Mercy Hollings, has an ability she calls “the press.”  In other words, she can tell people to do things and if she accompanies this with a mental push of sorts, she can make them do it. When her abilities became known, her adoptive family returned her to the foster care system.  Now an adult, Mercy lives in Balboa, California, and is something of a loner. She has one friend, Sukey, but that’s about it. She fears hurting others, so she tends to distance herself.

As the book opens, Mercy is starting a business as a hypnotherapist. Sukey is her receptionist, and Mercy is hoping things will go well. However, a night out with Sukey and her sort-of boyfriend culminates in some horrifying events, and Mercy finds she has caught the attention of a local drug dealer. As it happens, she has also captured the attention of Sam, a mysterious man who has come to town to run a local business down on the water.

As Mercy finds herself trying to gather information and outwit the vengeful drug dealer, she also finds herself doing something very unexpected. Along the way, she’s starting to make friends and realize what it is to have people that have your back, at least to a certain extent. And then there’s the relationship she starts falling into with Sam.

Mercy can be a little aloof and prickly, but given her history, I found it understandable. The plot action in this book kept me going, and since this is a book from 2007, smartphones and GPS are not yet ubiquitous, and that added an extra bit of mystery to the story.

On the one hand, Mercy’s “press” abilities are vaguely defined. However, it’s made clear in the book that she only partially understands them herself, so it makes sense within the story. For a long time, Mercy only knew she was different, questioned whether she was even fully human, and she feared hurting others. However, she’s maturing and learning more about herself, and we start to see that journey reflected in how she uses and tries to understand her abilities.

I liked this book because it can be read on various levels. It is a fun adventure, with a touch of the paranormal. However, Mercy’s own thinking about her abilities provides food for thought for the reader as well. After all, if you can essentially make someone do your bidding, what responsibility does one then have to other people?  This is something Mercy wrestles with throughout the story, though I wish that the plotting could have been fleshed out a bit more vividly.

Mercy has developed a certain code of ethics with regard to “the press,” but we see her not always following her own rules for herself. At one point in the story, this led to a rather disturbing scene. Some may call it justified, but I found myself thinking about it for a long time.  I suspect that the characters will continue to wrestle with these questions throughout the trilogy, and I found this book a good introduction to the series, and I’d recommend seeking it out.