What if you were an angel in exile...but you had no memory of why you'd fallen?

Mercy is a fallen angel who repeatedly wakes up in a new body following each time she's helped someone through a personal crisis. She doesn't know why she's doomed to this existence, only that she must somehow try to better that person's life while she's there.

This time, however, she wakes up as a foster child of a deeply troubled family, whose 18-year-old daughter Lauren has been missing for two years. The mystery unfolds slowly as Mercy and Ryan, the missing girl's twin brother, follow various clues and interview different people who might know more than they volunteer about Lauren's disappearance.

The blend of suspense, romance, and the supernatural come together beautifully in this first book of a quietly dazzling new series. Mercy's powers are extraordinary, but as a girl who is drawn to the human boy she's trying to help and who is struggling with her own issues, she's also an extremely relatable and likable character. Complicating matters are her dreams of her lost love, an angel who yearns for Mercy but warns her that taking action in this particular lifetime will mean that they will never again come together.

Mercy also contains lovely imagery of music and song, and even if readers are able to guess the identity of perpetrator towards the end, they'll still enjoy the well-written story, compelling characters, and complicated connections drawn by this talented Australian author. The book wraps up the mystery of Lauren's disappearance in a satisfying way, even as it jolts readers with the painful recognition that Mercy must now leave the boy she's beginning to care for. Fortunately, the sequel Exile is expected to come out in June of this year, with Muse to follow in 2012.

Like Unearthly and Angel , this is a book that isn't content to merely use the mythology of angels as a backdrop for shallow high school melodrama or cruel, controlling relationships; instead, it's a beautiful allegory for the power of love and faith wrapped up in a dark and engrossing mystery.

This review is also available at The Midnight Garden, and an advance copy was provided by the publisher.