the Shape of Mercy review

Recently I read the Shape of Mercy by Susan Meissner.  I really like Meissner a lot.  She is such a wondferful writer.  I love the way her books go back and forth between the past and present telling the story connecting the characters, and creating a parallel storyline.  This is the second Meissner book I have received from waterbrookmultnomah.com and I will definitly be reading more by her. Her characters are genuine and I care about them. I care as if they were real people.  This is an awesome read. 
  Shape of Mercy is a parallel story about  Mercy, a young woman in Salem during the witch trials and  Lauren, a college student in present day hired to translate Mercy's diary, and Abigail, an elderly woman who owns the diary.  The book goes back and forth telling the story of Mercy, an accused "witch" in Salem through excerpts of the diary and Lauren, discovering who she really is while reading the diary and getting to know Abigail.  The book starts with Lauren going against what is expected of her from her extremely wealthy parents by going to a state school and taking a job.  The job is to work for Abigail translating the diary as well as putting in into digital format.  She grows throughout the story and comes to a realization through lessons learned from both Abigail and Mercy that to judge someone by their cover and to judge someone by who they truly are still makes her someone else's judge.  Will be reading more of Meissner and that is a promise.