The Mercy of Thin Air

Occasionally there is a book that I can't put down, yet don't want to end. THE MERCY OF THIN AIR was one such book. I sacrificed a night's sleep to keep turning the pages, unable to stop reading, not wanting to lose the magic of this haunting tale of love, loss, regret and release. A part of me lingered within the pages for days. An indefinable ache, a momentary welling of tears kept me hovering within the vapor of Ronlyn Domingue's moving first novel. As has been said by others, her voice is original, her images tangible, breathtaking, and the reader is left hungry for more.

The Mercy of Thin Air is a lovely book. It is the first book I've read cover to cover in a long time. The basis of the book is a ghost story but the real story is how people come to terms with a lost love. In most cases a love story ends with some sort of resolution or understanding but when one of the parties is dead there is no resolution... only a hole in the heart that can never be filled. A great deal of the story is set in New Orleans in the 20's and it features a gorgeous blond feminist Raziela Nolan. She dies accidentally after graduating from college and while in the throes of an unexpected love affair. Her boyfriend and her family and friends are devasted and the book talks about how the living and the dead cope with loss. I highly recommend this novel. The story resonated with me and I could not put it down.

In late 1920s New Orleans, while at college Raziela "Razi" Nolan and Andrew O'Connell share a heated romance. In 1929 she slips at a poolside and dies. However, Razi who wanted to live forever finds herself at THE MERCY OF THIN AIR, a gray world in between the mortal plane and the afterlife. She can see back to her former home and over time learns she can slightly interfere with humans, but emotionally she was never able to watch what happened to her beloved Andrew after she died though she would constantly peek at others from their circle. That is until seven decades on earth have passed. She decides to learn about Andrew, but is interested in Amy Richmond and Scott Duncan. This pair seems so in love yet so troubled. Their relationship appears to be in jeopardy at least from what Razi can perceive. However, even as she feels an obsession to intercede and insure this pair makes it together, Razi tries to figure out why them. Razi is a tremendous protagonist looking back to life in the 1920s in New Orleans especially with her beloved Andrew, which enables readers to gain an interesting feel for the place and time. Her reflections on her life and on her post time existence in the thin air are well written and her amateur sleuth investigation from the other side is cleverly devised adding an aura of suspense. However, the tale belongs to the moral lesson of never take for granted loved ones or what the senses provide when one is alive. Harriet Klausner

The book, The Mercy of Thin Air, was an excellent book. There are so many chick lit books about with light airy romances, it was good to read this book telling of a love that would never die. The book had so many layers. The story of Razi, her death, and her neverending love for Andrew. Then there was the story of Amy and Scott - her "unforgettable" love who also died, her reconcilation of it to go on with Scott. Then there were the other ghosts. The children who did not know they died, the old woman who was stung to death in the front yard of her plantation but who still waiting for the Yankees to come, and all the others.