The Mercy Step – Marcia Hutchison

READ FOR WOMEN’S PRIZE

The Mercy Step follows Mercy, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants growing up in Bradford in the 1960s. The seventh daughter in a large family, she spends much of her childhood navigating a crowded home, a deeply religious community and a world governed by adults whose rules she increasingly questions. Told from Mercy’s perspective across the first eleven years of her life, the novel traces her growing understanding of her family, faith and place in the world.

She just knows that there is sadness inside her like an oil well. Someone has struck tears. It’s gushing and she can’t stop it.

RACHEL
● The Mercy Step is particularly poignant because some of its events are inspired by the author’s own life. Essentially, it is the coming-of-age story of a Jamaican child growing up in 1960s England, in a dysfunctional family where everyone learns to navigate around her father’s temper and her mother’s attempts at survival.

Mercy is let down at almost every step of her childhood, by her family, her church and the wider community. But ultimately the most painful betrayal comes from her mother, who is incapable of being either a protector or ally and becomes complicit in the harm.

It’s a hard read. There isn’t a great deal of glass-half-full content. Knowing that parts of Mercy’s story are drawn from real experience though made it feel important to keep reading. What hope there is comes from Mercy herself and her growing ability to assess her situation and strive for something better. There are no grand transformations or fairytale endings though and that may not satisfy readers looking for a plot-driven or escapist novel.

Published 2026
Cassava Republic Press
288 pages