Catherine’s Mercy
Dublin, Ireland, 1822. Catherine McAuley inherits a great fortune from her employer, which he hopes she’ll use for good works. She uses the money to found an organization to care for and educate the city’s many poor women and children. Meanwhile, in the house of cruel Lord Montague, two maids, world-weary Grace and innocent Margaret, suffer the unwanted amorous attentions of their employer. After Margaret attacks Montague in defense of her virtue, she seeks Catherine’s aid. Soon after, Grace is fired without a character reference, eventually leading her to the workhouse and then prostitution.
This extraordinarily well-researched, strongly faith-oriented book is based on the real founder of the Catholic Sisters of Mercy, Catherine McAuley, who is considered Venerable by the Catholic Church. The characters are a mixture of historical figures and invented ones. Catherine herself is well-written, with faults devised by the author to humanize her and allow the audience to relate, something that works quite well. Her strength and refusal to bend to the wills of the men around her, ranging from her brother to the parish priest, cause conflict within the story while also keeping the reader invested in her undeniably compelling tale. Although she eventually caves to demands to turn her lay organization into a formal group of religious sisters, she manages to do so largely on her own terms. All of the point of view characters are women, which adds to the female-centered nature of the narrative.
Although Grace’s subplot briefly falls to the wayside in part three, it is resolved quite dramatically and satisfyingly in the final chapters.
