The Mercy Step

by Marcia Hutchinson · 2026

Set in Bradford, December 1962, The Mercy Step follows the life of Mercy Hanson, a precocious girl born to Jamaican parents in a cold, industrial Yorkshire mill town. Struggling within a chaotic household marked by her father's volatile temper, her mother's religious devotion, and the systemic challenges faced by Windrush migrants, Mercy finds solace in her imagination and books. The novel is a sharply-witted and tender portrait of a young girl's quiet rebellion and her refusal to be broken by poverty, domestic abuse, and the constraints of her environment as she seeks a future where she can be seen and heard.