Winner of the 2016 Alex Award

Best Book of 2015 -- Kansas City Star

In this intricate novel of psychological suspense, a fatal discovery near the high school ignites a witch-hunt in a Southeast Texas refinery town, unearthing communal and family secrets that threaten the lives of the town's girls.

In Port Sabine, the air is thick with oil, superstition reigns, and dreams hang on making a winning play. All eyes are on Mercy Louis, the star of the championship girls' basketball team. Mercy seems destined for greatness, but the road out of town is riddled with obstacles. There is her grandmother, Evelia, a strict evangelical who has visions of an imminent Rapture and sees herself as the keeper of Mercy's virtue. There are the cryptic letters from Charmaine, the mother who abandoned Mercy at birth. And then there's Travis, the boy who shakes the foundation of her faith.

At the periphery of Mercy's world floats team manager Illa Stark, a lonely wallflower whose days are spent caring for a depressed mother crippled in a refinery accident. Like the rest of the town, Illa is spellbound by Mercy's beauty and talent, but a note discovered in Mercy's gym locker reveals that her life may not be as perfect as it appears.

The last day of school brings the disturbing discovery, and as summer unfolds and the police investigate, every girl becomes a suspect. When Mercy collapses on the opening night of the season, Evelia prophesies that she is only the first to fall, and soon, other girls are afflicted by the mysterious condition, sending the town into a tailspin, and bringing Illa and Mercy together in an unexpected way.

Evocative and unsettling, The Unraveling of Mercy Louis charts the downfall of one town's golden girl while exploring the brutality and anxieties of girlhood in America.

• We started tracking this book on December 5, 2014.
• This book was $12.74 when we started tracking it.
• The price of this book has changed 103 times in the past 3,727 days.
• The current price of this book is $2.99 last checked 14 hours ago.
• This book is at its lowest price in the past six months.
• This lowest price this book has been offered at in the past year is $0.75.
• The lowest price to date was $0.75 last reached on July 6, 2024.
• This book has been $0.75 one time since we started tracking it.
• The highest price to date was $14.99 last reached on May 7, 2015.
• This book has been $14.99 4 times since we started tracking it.

• Literature & FictionLiterary FictionPsychological
• Literature & FictionLiterary FictionMystery, Thriller & Suspense
• Literature & FictionGenre FictionPsychological

• Publication Date: March 10, 2015
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Lending: Disabled
• Print Length: 355 Pages
• File Size: 2,328 KB