This Dark Road to Mercy
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Jenna Lamia
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Erik Bergmann
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Scott Sowers
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By:
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Wiley Cash
About this listen
Hailed as "mesmerizing" (New York Times Book Review) and "as if Cormac McCarthy decided to rewrite Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird" (Richmond Times-Dispatch), A Land More Kind Than Home made Wiley Cash an instant literary sensation. His resonant new novel, This Dark Road to Mercy, is a tale of love and atonement, blood and vengeance, a story that involves two young sisters, a wayward father, and an enemy determined to see him pay for his sins.
When their mother dies unexpectedly, twelve-year-old Easter Quillby and her six-year-old sister, Ruby, are shuffled into the foster care system in Gastonia, North Carolina, a little town not far from the Appalachian Mountains. But just as they settle into their new life, their errant father, Wade, an ex-minor-league baseball player whom they haven't seen in years, suddenly reappears and steals them away in the middle of the night.
Brady Weller, the girls' court-appointed guardian, begins looking for Wade, and quickly turns up unsettling information linking him to a multimillion-dollar robbery. But Brady isn't the only one hunting him. Also on the trail is Robert Pruitt, a mercurial man nursing a years-old vendetta, a man determined to find Wade and claim what he believes he is owed.
The combination of Cash's evocative and intimate Southern voice and those of the alternating narrators, Easter, Brady, and Pruitt, brings this soulful story vividly to life. At once captivating and heartbreaking, This Dark Road to Mercy is a testament to the unbreakable bonds of family and the primal desire to outrun a past that refuses to let go.
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- By: Elizabeth Flock
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Nine-year-old Carrie Parker and her mother, Libby, are making a fresh start in the small town of Hartsville, North Carolina, ready to put their turbulent past behind them. Violence has shattered their family and left Libby nearly unable to cope. And while Carrie once took comfort in her beloved sister, Emma, her mother has now forbidden even the mention of her name. When Carrie meets Ruth, Honor, and Cricket Chaplin, these three generations of warmhearted women seem to have the loving home Carrie has always dreamed of. But as Carrie and Cricket become fast friends, neither can escape the pull of their families' secrets.
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Breathtaking
- By Pink Amy on 03-11-24
By: Elizabeth Flock
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361
- A Hard Case Crime Novel
- By: Donald E. Westlake
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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The men in the tan-and-cream Chrysler came with guns blazing. When Ray Kelly woke up in the hospital, it was a month later, he was missing an eye, and his father was dead. Then things started to get bad. From the mind of the incomparable Donald E. Westlake comes a devastating story of betrayal and revenge, an exploration of the limits of family loyalty and how far a man will go when everything he loves is taken from him.
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Numbers mean violence
- By Ryan on 03-23-21
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The Art of Crash Landing
- A Novel
- By: Melissa DeCarlo
- Narrated by: Johanna Parker
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Mattie Wallace has really screwed up this time. Broke and knocked up, she's got all her worldly possessions crammed into six giant trash bags and nowhere to go. Try as she might, Mattie can no longer deny that she really is turning into her mother, a broken alcoholic who never met a bad choice she didn't make. When Mattie gets news of a possible inheritance left by a grandmother she's never met, she jumps at this one last chance to turn things around.
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Unlikable character
- By RueRue on 09-18-15
By: Melissa DeCarlo
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We'll Fly Away
- By: Bryan Bliss
- Narrated by: James Fouhey
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Best friends since childhood, Luke and Toby have dreamed of one thing: getting out of their dead-end town. Soon they finally will, riding the tails of Luke's wrestling scholarship, never looking back. If they don't drift apart first. If Toby's abusive dad, or Luke's unreliable mom, or anything else their complicated lives throw at them doesn't get in the way. In a format that alternates between Luke's letters to Toby from death row and the events of their senior year, Bryan Bliss expertly unfolds the circumstances that led to Luke's incarceration.
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Great Story Except....
- By Willizz on 05-18-18
By: Bryan Bliss
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Where I'm Calling From
- Selected Stories
- By: Raymond Carver
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 16 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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By the time of his early death in 1988, Raymond Carver had established himself as one of the great practitioners of the American short story. Where I'm Calling From, his last collection, encompasses classic stories from Cathedral, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, and earlier Carver volumes, along with seven new works previously unpublished in book form.
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Love Carver, But Dietz Ruins It With Reading
- By Noirbat on 05-10-18
By: Raymond Carver
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Bone Dust White
- By: Karin Salvalaggio
- Narrated by: Amy McFadden
- Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Someone is knocking at the door to Grace Adams' house, and he won't stop. Grace thinks she knows who it is, but when she goes to her second floor window for a look she sees a woman she doesn't recognize. The woman isn't alone for long before a man emerges from the dark of the surrounding woods, stabs her, and leaves her for dead. Trying to help, Grace goes to the woman and is shocked to find that it's her mother Leanne - a woman who abandoned her 11 years before.
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at times hard to follow
- By cindy on 03-03-15
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Brighton
- A Novel
- By: Michael Harvey
- Narrated by: Stephen Mendel
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Kevin Pearce - baseball star, honor student, the pride of Brighton - was 15 when he left town in the back of his uncle's cab. He and his buddy, Bobby Scales, had just committed heinous violence for what they thought were the best of reasons. Kevin didn't want a pass, but he was getting it anyway. Bobby would stay and face the music; Kevin's future would remain as bright as ever. At least that was the way things were supposed to work, except in Brighton things never work the way they're supposed to.
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Mystery gets no better.
- By William H. Harrington on 10-27-18
By: Michael Harvey
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Pacific Beat
- By: T. Jefferson Parker
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 14 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Ex-cop Jim Weir thought he'd seen it all during his years on the force. That is until he saw the body of his sister Annie, brutally used by a monster in human form, then carelessly discarded. He'd never seen such grief ravage the face of his friend and brother-in-law Ray Cruz, a good cop on the Newport Beach Police Department. When Weir learns that the only witness swore the killer made his escape in a Newport Beach squad car, his disbelief turns to confusion and outrage.
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Bad, bad, bad...
- By Robert E. Orlando on 11-19-14
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Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?
- Stories
- By: Raymond Carver
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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With this, his first collection of stories, Raymond Carver breathed new life into the American short story and instantly became both the recognized master of the form and one of our best-loved fiction writers. Carver shows us the humor and tragedy that dwell in the hearts of ordinary people; his stories are the classics of our time.
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Humanity at the Breaking Point
- By Darwin8u on 03-31-19
By: Raymond Carver
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The Last Dead Girl
- By: Harry Dolan
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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On a rainy night in April, a chance encounter on a lonely road draws David into a romance with Jana Fletcher, a beautiful young law student. Jana is an enigma: living in a run-down apartment and sporting a bruise on her cheek that she refuses to explain. David would like to know her secrets, but he lets them lie-until it's too late. When Jana is brutally murdered, the police consider David a prime suspect.
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A great, dark read, appropriate reader too.
- By Karen on 05-01-14
By: Harry Dolan
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Marrow
- By: Tarryn Fisher
- Narrated by: Audra Pagano
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Margo is not like other girls. She lives in a derelict neighborhood called the Bone, in a cursed house, with her cursed mother, who hasn't spoken to her in over two years. She lives her days feeling invisible. It's not until she develops a friendship with her wheelchair-bound neighbor, Judah Grant, that things begin to change. When a neighborhood girl, seven-year-old Neveah Anthony, goes missing, Judah sets out to help Margo uncover what happened to her. What Margo finds changes her, and with a new perspective on life she's determined to find evil and punish it.
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HUH?? I'm so confused LOL
- By ❤️Cyndi Marie❤️🎧Audiobook Addicts🎧 on 09-15-16
By: Tarryn Fisher
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What listeners say about This Dark Road to Mercy
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Marty KY
- 08-30-22
Loved this book!
This was a really great story and the narration was wonderful. I couldn’t stop listening and love the ending. I read that others weren’t pleased with the way it ended but I thought it was great. Whoever did the narration for Easter was absolutely wonderful. I highly recommend this book and I
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- C. Andrew
- 01-14-23
Worth 2 credits
I really enjoyed this book. Being in Charlotte made listening even better as I recognized some of the place.
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- Benjamin
- 05-31-14
A very fine book
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Yes: Gripping story, with complex, imperfect characters.
What other book might you compare This Dark Road to Mercy to and why?
A land more kind than home, Mr. Cash's first book: A book about failed fatherhood told from multiple first person narrators.
What does the narrators bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
The female reader for the female protagonist lends nice tone and subtlety.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
Nope.
Any additional comments?
Nice work again from Mr. Cash. A very fine book.
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2 people found this helpful
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- TM
- 04-18-18
great book. great author. great performances.
its just great. i am going to listen to all of wiley cash's books after having heard this one. fantastic.
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- Janice
- 01-30-14
Well told but lacks punch
Wiley Cash set the bar very high with his debut “A Land More Kind than Home”, and as often happens, the highly anticipated follow-up fell just a little short.
Once again Cash uses the 3-voice format, and two of the three work. Easter Quillby sets the tone and tells the largest portion of the story, effectively communicating the very complex emotions that accompany abandonment and the need to grow up way too early. Brady – the court appointed guardian to Easter and her sister, is well written and believable but is essentially utilitarian to the arc of the story. But Pruett, the bad guy pursuing the girls and their father, is a cardboard villain with no more depth or motivation than The Terminator. Because the characters in each storyline don’t actually cross paths with each other in the chase, there is no exploration of their relationships beyond the one dimensional POV of each narrator. I think that was the reason this story lacked the punch in the gut delivered by “A Land More Kind”. That said, I do like the very end of the story – two small surprises that suggest how the story will move forward.
Which takes me to the narration. Again, 2 out of 3 narrators do their job well. Jenna Lamia shows why she is the go-to voice for young southern girls. Eric Bergmann lends Brady the seriousness of a man trying to do right to make up for a past mistake. But Scott Sowers takes an already stereotyped bad guy and caricatures him into a hillbilly Snidely Whiplash. I actually stopped listening to his chapters and ordered the Kindle version to get past his awful narration. (This makes the second time I have abandoned an Audible of his narration in favor of the print version). For overall narration, I can only give 3 stars because of Sowers.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Sharon Hagel
- 07-17-20
Great listening
Intriguing and loved the voices! The writer really did agreat job in making you fall for a character!
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- Tony Barrow
- 04-15-19
Baseball meets Suspense
I really enjoyed this book. I followed the baseball story interweaved in this book and made a great addition. Great story line. Worth a quick read.
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- Beverly
- 06-04-14
Well done
Would you listen to This Dark Road to Mercy again? Why?
I don't listen to anything twice, because too many excellent books are out there!
Who was your favorite character and why?
Easter seems very real, true to life and believable.
What does the narrators bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
Multiple narrators contributed to this book. The voice of Easter was exceptional.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
No
Any additional comments?
The story was so enjoyable that I purchased another book by this author.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Angela
- 02-29-20
A masterpiece!
Hands down the best book I have listened to since I became an Audible member. Everything about this story is perfect. I was a bit upset at the end but then I realized no matter what happened I did not want this book to end and that was what the problem was. Do you yourself a big favor and spend a credit on this wonderful piece of writing. It deserves every award and then some.
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- L. M. Roberts
- 06-01-15
A Safe Choice
This was a pleasant story, well told by a cast that presented the various characters nicely. It's not life-changing or even terribly memorable, but it kept me listening. This is an example of a book that is better on audio, and where having multiple readers was an excellent choice.
Two young girls who have been kicked around terribly by life, are faced with a choice: escape with the father they barely know, or face an uncertain future with grandparents they've never met? Unsurprisingly, they take off with Dad, and encounter unexpected adventure.
I could have done with more danger, and some actual resolution at the end. The characters are well developed (and this is emphasized by using multiple readers), the situation wonderfully conceived, but the plot is weak. It's as if Cash got too attached to the girls and didn't want to get them into too much trouble.
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