“Mercy House” by Lubov Leonova

Picking up right from where my review of the previous book of the trilogy ended… Imagine the sinister castle with the dark corridors and dungeons hiding the sufferings of innocent victims – young girls who possess ‘destructive’ magic, something men ruling the world cannot allow women to wield, so they don’t lose their power… 

“Mercy House” by Lubov Leonova is the second book of the “Two Worlds: Beginning” trilogy. While the setting of the first book, “Reading You”, is Lana’s hometown Triville, book two takes the reader first to the capital of the kingdom, Middle Lake city, and then throws them right within the walls of the menacing Mercy House.

Lana must face reality. In the men’s world, her dream to become a detective cannot come true. Besides, her attempts at crime solving brought on some dire consequences that can’t be fixed. Lana has learnt the lesson and moved to the capital to study architecture at the university. Everything goes well. That is, apart from the amorous confessions of the young man whom Lana considered her good friend. Lana’s heart isn’t in designing buildings, but she had enough determination and other talents to keep up with the course.

And then, one day, Lana’s carefully constructed new life crumbles… She finds herself at the crime scene, and what she becomes a witness to puts her on the radar of the people young women generally prefer not to mingle with. Moreover, Lana learns what she can’t simply discard and forget. She is a detective at heart, and a mystery ignites her in a way that designing even the most elaborate house never will.

Despite the risks and dangers of this reckless decision, Lana becomes a Mercy Sister and travels to the Mercy House. Her task gets more complicated when she learns that her best friend Becca, who she thought was living peacefully in their hometown, Triville, is held captive in this gloomy place. Besides, she isn’t sure that she can fully trust her travelling companion, the one who has her own agenda for infiltrating the Mercy Sisters’ circle.

“Mercy House” offers a fascinating setting, which teases the reader’s imagination and versatile characters, whose motives we are left to guess until the end. Moreover, there are dark secrets that, if revealed, can bring the changes the people living in the magic kingdom the author has created on the pages of this trilogy certainly crave and some of them deserve.