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Mercy Town
Nancy Chadwick’s Mercy Town is a tender and stirring story about grief, forgiveness, and the roots that keep us tethered to home, whether we like it or not. It follows Margaret “Ret” Payne, a reporter who returns to her rural hometown of Waunasha, Wisconsin, under the guise of a journalistic assignment. As she digs into the town’s latest development project, she’s forced to unearth the long-buried trauma of her younger brother’s accidental death and confront the emotional wreckage that followed. It’s a story that swings between past and present, personal memory and community reckoning, heartbreak and healing.
Reading Mercy Town hit me harder than I expected. Chadwick’s writing is patient. Her prose breathes, settling deep into the emotional grain of things without ever rushing. She’s especially good at capturing the feel of a small town. Its rhythms, its silences, its gossip, its grudges. The scenes between Margaret and her husband Jesse are warm and believable, full of the kind of understated affection that makes a relationship feel real. And Bean, Margaret’s younger brother, is rendered so vividly in memory that his absence aches. Chadwick doesn’t just tell us what loss looks like. She lets us sit with it, wander around inside it, and see how it shapes a life.
Some scenes leaned on introspection and repetition, and the back-and-forth between timelines occasionally blurred the story’s forward motion. Still, I appreciated that the book didn’t sugarcoat the complexity of grief. Margaret isn’t always likable, and she doesn’t have all the answers. But that’s what made her journey resonate. There’s something relatable in her hesitation, in the way she avoids her pain until it corners her. The way Chadwick threads this emotional unraveling through the lens of a journalist chasing a story made for a compelling structure.
I’d recommend Mercy Town to readers who enjoy quiet, character-driven novels with emotional depth. If you’ve ever carried the weight of unfinished grief or struggled to forgive someone (including yourself), this book will feel like a gentle, persistent tug at your heart. It’s not a fast read, but it’s a worthwhile one.
Pages: 248 | ASIN : B0DVD27S8R
Literary Titan Gold Book Award: Fiction
The Literary Titan Book Award honors books that exhibit exceptional storytelling and creativity. This award celebrates novelists who craft compelling narratives, create memorable characters, and weave stories that captivate readers. The recipients are writers who excel in their ability to blend imagination with literary skill, creating worlds that enchant and narratives that linger long after the final page is turned.
Award Recipients
Visit the Literary Titan Book Awards page to see award information.
Literary Titan Silver Book Award
Celebrating the brilliance of outstanding authors who have captivated us with their skillful prose, engaging narratives, and compelling real and imagined characters. We recognize books that stand out for their innovative storytelling and insightful exploration of truth and fiction. Join us in honoring the dedication and skill of these remarkable authors as we celebrate the diverse and rich worlds they’ve brought to life, whether through the realm of imagination or the lens of reality.
Award Recipients
The Adventures of Mrs. Hats: The Mayan Headdress by Christopher Corbett
Visit the Literary Titan Book Awards page to see award information.
THE SYMBOL
Tay Martin’s The Symbol: Awakening is a futuristic dystopian novel set in a technologically advanced world dominated by a repressive global Council. The story follows Louise Stuart, a fierce prosecutor dedicated to combating violence against women. Through flashbacks and vivid memories, we learn of her tragic past, including the brutal murder of her mother by her abusive father. These events shape her mission to dismantle systemic oppression and bring justice to survivors. Blending elements of science fiction, social commentary, and psychological realism, the novel explores deep emotional scars, the complexities of power, and the enduring human need for connection and hope.
The opening chapters with young Louise and her mother were raw and devastating. Martin doesn’t sugarcoat trauma. Instead, she pushes you face-first into it. Louise’s voice felt personal. Sharp but tender. I could feel her fear, her rage, her exhaustion. What gripped me most wasn’t the flashy futuristic world, though that part was cool, it was the quiet, painful intimacy of surviving and the way that pain echoes years later. Martin weaves together trauma and resistance with such care that you don’t feel like a spectator, you feel like a participant.
Sometimes the narrative leans into exposition, especially when it comes to describing tech or Council protocols. There were moments I wished the dialogue would let the characters speak with more silence and space. But then Martin hits you with lines so real they sting. The pacing could feel uneven, sure. But emotionally, it was constant. One minute, I was furious at the Council. The next, I was holding my breath as Louise tried not to fall apart. I also appreciated the warmth, her friendship with Emma, her complicated bond with Joe, her stubborn, enduring humanity.
I’d recommend The Symbol: Awakening to anyone who cares about justice, trauma recovery, and stories led by resilient, complicated women. If you like dystopias with heart, or character-driven narratives where healing is messy but possible, this is for you.
Pages: 239 | ASIN : B0FGDTR2PZ
Once Upon a Christmas Kiss
This Christmas, hatred burns hotter than love…
She’s built walls around her heart at Thunder Basin Ranch.
Then Mason Thompson storms in—charming, reckless, and completely wrong for her.
One blizzard. One night. One kiss that changes everything.
When Christmas Eve traps them together, enemies become lovers in the most explosive way.
But when her past threatens their future, can a jokester prove he’s the man she’s always needed?
Some Christmas miracles come wrapped in danger.
Once Upon a Christmas Kiss.
Where enemies-to-lovers meets holiday heat.
The Summer Knows
The Summer Knows follows Adrienne Harris, a single mother and weary chef, as she’s pulled back to her Florida hometown after a kitchen fire forces her estranged grandmother, Elizabeth, into vulnerability. With her teenage daughter Kali in tow, Adrienne is forced to reckon with the past she left behind. The ghosts of trauma, a long-lost love, the mystery of her daughter’s paternity, and a town that remembers everything. Across one summer, memories rise like heat off the pavement as Adrienne navigates decaying family ties, grief, and the haunting call of the Merritt house next door, once home to the boy she loved and the brother she lost.
What gripped me most about this book was the prose. It’s rich and lush in all the right places, but never heavy-handed. Pearsall doesn’t just write scenes, she pulls you into them. The dialogue is sharp and honest, and the characters, especially Adrienne, feel heartbreakingly real. She’s tired, brittle, often angry, but there’s a flicker of hope always buried deep, refusing to die out. Watching her wrestle with her own shortcomings as a mother, while trying to care for the woman who never quite knew how to care for her, was gutting in the best way. And then there’s Christopher, the quiet backbone of the town, and her past. He’s a steadying presence in the storm, and I found myself rooting for their complicated connection.
The story hits heavy emotional beats that don’t always resolve cleanly. It’s not a light read. There’s trauma here like death, poverty, abandonment, and Pearsall doesn’t soften those edges. At times, I found the generational conflict between Adrienne and Elizabeth exhausting, but maybe that’s the point. It’s not supposed to be easy. Some scars don’t fade, and some relationships don’t get fixed. I appreciated that honesty. Also, the mystery surrounding the Merritt boys unfolds slowly and subtly, but for me, the tension and slow burn only added to the beauty of the thing.
The Summer Knows is a story about coming home, not to reclaim the past, but to finally face it. It’s raw, evocative, and filled with aching truths about family, memory, and the kind of love that leaves a mark even when everything else fades. I’d recommend it to anyone who’s a fan of emotionally layered fiction, especially readers who loved Kristin Hannah’s The Great Alone or Ann Patchett’s Commonwealth. This book is for those of us who’ve ever been haunted by where we came from, and wondered if we could ever really leave it behind.
Pages: 339 | ASIN: B0F96DCBX1
LITERARY TITAN 