Rosie's Reviews

The Goodbye Season by Marian Hale

Mercy’s family is very poor, so her father goes to the city to work and she is sent to the Bonner farm to stay and help out. However, when an influenza epidemic kills one of the hired hands and Mr. Bonner falls ill, Mercy is sent back home for her health. When she gets there, she finds that her family has died from the flu as well, and she goes to the city to look for her father. She meets Emma Sayers, who lets her stay in the back room of her café. Eventually, she gets a job helping Cora Wilder take care of her children. She notices that Cora seems disturbed, and Cora’s stepson Daniel tells her that it most likely has to do with the fact that her mother and brother were both trampled by horses. Around Christmas, Cora learns that her father is coming, which seriously puts her on edge. When Mercy leaves on Christmas, she visits Emma and she pieces together that Cora’s father killed her mother and brother because he wanted land. She and Daniel go after Cora and her father, who went for a horse and buggy ride. They get there and try to stop Cora’s father, but he shoots Cora before being run over by the buggy himself. Cora dies, and Mercy leaves because there are no adults staying there, which would cause rumors if she stayed. Daniel proposes to her, but she says no because she doesn’t want to end up like her mother. She gets a job at an inn, but after one night she realizes what she wants, and it has been right in front of her.

This book was really interesting- there was a mixture of different emotions throughout the story: sadness, concern, love, anger, and confusion. I liked the romance between Daniel and Mercy because it helped Mercy see that sometimes, the very thing that you don’t want in life is actually the thing you want the most. Daniel is a good character, because he really cares about his stepbrother and stepsister, and even though he has a bad leg, he still puts himself to use fixing cars and buggies. On the Teen Reading Scale, I give this book a score of ‘mega-awesome’ and recommend it to anyone who likes historical fiction.