Mercy by Sarah L. Thomson from Islandport Press

ABOUT THE BOOK
Fourteen-year-old Haley is struggling to cope – with her stepmom and baby brother, with her beloved cousin's terminal illness, with dropping grades at school. When she digs deep into her family history for a school project, she uncovers a disturbing New England tradition and a ghostly past. Haley must overcome her doubts and confront a vampire in order to save herself and her family.

Mercy, by accomplished children's author Sarah L. Thomson, is inspired by a true New England story. Mercy Brown and her family lived in Exeter, R.I., in the late 1890s, when the New England vampire tradition held powerful sway. When Mercy's family members began to die, fear struck deep in the hearts of the small community. Following Mercy's death, when her brother took sick, villagers convinced Mercy's father to exhume her corpse, dig out her heart, burn it and feed it to her brother. He too died – as Mercy had – from tuberculosis. Thomson's gifts as a storyteller and writer make great use of this disquieting true story to weave a unique and exciting coming of age story as Haley learns to live with change, loss, and death.

REVIEWS
" ... a refreshing reminder that much of what we call supernatural phenomena are very human indeed."
– Amy Benfer, The Barnes and Noble Review Best Young Adult Fiction of 2011; view the complete Top Ten List.

Don't read this book alone at night. This is a classic horror story where every detail of Haley's life seems real and ordinary except for the smell of death and clay in Aunt Brown's house; a beloved cousin wasting away from an unexplainable blood disease; and an ancestor's glove that appears to have crawled out of its box. Haley is researching Mercy, an ancestor who died of tuberculosis in 1892. As others in her family died, hysteria grew in this small New England town, until someone whispered the word vampire. But did Mercy ever die or is she still feeding? Thomson sharply captures images in words the way her character Haley captures them with her camera.
– VOYA Top Shelf Fiction for Middle School Readers 2011; view the complete list here.

"A beautifully told tale of supernatural folklore and ancestry that ends in a terrifying thrill ride readers can sink their teeth into."
– Amanda Marrone, bestselling author of Devoured

"Sarah Thomson's Mercy weaves the dark threads of an old New England legend into a contemporary tale of ghostly mystery that is both compelling and genuinely chilling. In a literary genre overrun with sparkling vampires and romance-novel angst, Thomson has crafted a welcome return to the shadowy terrors of graves and ghouls. I found myself unable to put the book down. A deliciously eerie way to pass a stormy night!"
Christopher Rondina, author of Vampires of New England

"In her novel, Mercy: The Last New England Vampire, Sarah Thomson got it right. Unlike so many other young adult vampire novels that cannot escape the fanged shadow of the fictional Dracula, Mercy is firmly grounded in the historical reality of vampires. It is clear that the novel's main character, Haley, understands that Mercy was a scapegoat and that it was fear of a mystifying illness that drove Mercy's family to perform a horrific ritual. As Haley so poignantly says of Mercy, 'this wasn't a horror movie ... It was her life.' "
– Michael Bell, author of Food for the Dead

"Unlike the romanticized vampires in much popular fiction, Thompson explores the more chilling side of vampires from old New England folklore and superstition in this spooky middle-grade novel with surprising depth... Thomson creates a spectacularly creepy and suspenseful mood for the book."
– ForeWord Book Reviews. Read the complete review here.

"Paranormal mystery meets family drama in a fictionalized, modernized exploration of a historical suspected vampire tragedy. ... [Thomson] writes a likable and appealing lead character, capturing both Haley's grief over her family and her difficulties finding where she fits into their lives."
– Kirkus Reviews

"In a crazy slew of vampire novels, this short tale by Sarah Thomson stands out. It's a fantastic blend of historical fiction and a chilling ghost story. This gives a new twist to the origin of vampirism and ties into a real and scary time in New England's history... Haley is a great character."
– Jessica Miller, Young Adult Librarian at the New Britain (CT) Public Library, on her blog, "I Read to Relax". Read the complete review here.

"It takes you on a breath-taking journey through time and space where you don't know what's going on but you hope it ends well. Beautifully done, vivid in detail and an EXCELLENT mix between fiction and true story. I would recommend this book to anyone!"
– Portland Public Library Teen Volunteer Justin B.

"Thomson seamlessly merges the historical and the chilling in this short tale. Teens sick of the paranormal trope, yet still looking for supernatural chills will enjoy this unique new take on the vampire and reluctant readers will enjoy its concise length. School and public libraries could enhance several facets of their collections with this title."
– VOYA

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Award-winning author Sarah L. Thomson has published more than 25 books for young readers. Her young adult titles include Dragon's Egg (Junior Literary Guild Premier Selection and Maine Lupine Award winner, 2007), The Dragon's Son, which Booklist called "a spellbinding tale of love, intrigue, and betrayal," The Manny ("worthy of Jane Austen," according to The Washington Post), The Secret of the Rose, and The Young Reader's Edition of Three Cups of Tea (a New York Times bestseller). A former children's book editor for HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster, she now lives and writes in Portland, Maine. Learn more about Sarah's work at www.sarahlthomson.com, and read our Q and A with Sarah here.

EXCERPT
“ That's where they burned her heart." Haley pointed toward a low stone wall that ran along the edge of the Chestnut Hill Cemetery. "Right there."

Melanie twisted her mouth and made a noise that sounded like yurghch. "Burned her heart? Why?"

"Because that's what you do with vampires."

"I thought you drove a stake though their hearts," Mel objected. "That's what they always do on Buffy."

Haley shrugged, getting out her camera. "Maybe vampires in Rhode Island are different. Anyway, that's what they did." She crouched down, holding the digital camera out, tilting it to try different angles. The pale slab of marble, leaning a little, centered itself in the screen and she took the photo – dirty white stone, faded grass shaggy at its feet, the late autumn sky, a chilly blue, distant behind it. The simple letters on the stone were sharp, in crisp focus. Mercy L. Brown. Daughter of George T. & Mary E. Brown. Died Jan. 18, 1892. Aged 19 years.

Haley switched the camera over to black and white. Now the image in the viewscreen looked eerie. She stopped the exposure down to darken it a little. A scene from an old horror movie. All it needed was a werewolf to come around the corner.

"So why did they think she was a vampire? And dig her up and everything?" Mel had perched on another headstone to wait.

Haley took the second photo and then backed up to get a wider shot, including the stone wall, the old graves surrounding Mercy's, a willow, bare of leaves, leaning as if it were cold, turning away from the wind.

"They didn't dig her up. She wasn't buried yet. She was in that crypt over there." The crypt was against the far wall of the cemetery, a low stone building with brush hanging over the sloping roof. It looked as if it had been dug into a hill rather than built up from the ground. "And they did it because people were dying." Haley clicked the shutter, took a step, clicked again. "Tuberculosis. Consumption, that's what they called it."

"Consumption. That sounds so romantic." Mel laid the back of her hand across her forehead and sighed. "Beautiful ladies, wasting away, leaving their heartbroken lovers behind… "

"Coughing up little bits of their lungs," Haley said without looking up from the camera. She switched it back to color. She wanted a wide-angle shot. All those gravestones.

She heard the toughness in her own voice as she answered Mel. Like it didn't bother her at all, the thought of somebody dying like that.

Nineteen. Mercy had only been five years older than Haley. Four years younger than…

All those gravestones. The picture in her viewscreen wobbled a little. ”

Q and A with Sarah Thomson
The author of "Mercy: The Last New England Vampire" talks about her inspiration and how she became a writer

Q: Where you did get the inspiration for Mercy?
A: Mercy was one of those books that popped into my head as the result of a bit of recreational research. I was wandering about on the web, idly searching for vampire legends from different cultures. Weren't there any Asian vampires, or African vampires? Was the eastern European tradition, the one that gave us Dracula and his spawn, all there was? What I ended up stumbling across was not folklore, but a startling historical fact: in 1892 in Exeter, Rhode Island, the corpse of an eighteen-year-old girl named Mercy Brown was disinterred and mutilated because her family and friends were convinced she was a vampire. I was surprised and intrigued to find a vampire legend so close to hand and so modern – chewing gum had been patented, bicycles were becoming popular, and the first professional baseball team was playing at the time Mercy's community was taking steps to rid itself of the vampire in its midst. Mercy and her family became the basis for my young adult novel.

Q: What were your favorite books as a child? What do you remember reading?
A: I remember constantly stealing my brother's copy of Lord of the Rings, and learning to move the books on either side of it in a little bit, so as not to leave a gap on the shelf that he would notice. I remember the Hardy Boys series too (with their bright blue spines) and the Tintin graphic novels. The Little Princess was another, such a comforting book – the lush descriptions were a sensual delight.

Q: What is the most useful thing you have done in your past to prepare you to write this book?
A: Learning to read attentively and critically is my best habit as a writer. The minute I read something I like, or something that scares me, or something that makes me cry, I'm picking it apart to see how the writer did it. How did he/she connect with my emotions, catch my attention, shock or astonish me? Paying attention to the structure of other books helps me no end when it comes to writing my own.

Q: How did you get started as a writer? How did you know that's what you wanted to do?
A: Well, nobody would pay me to read, so I had to figure something else out. And anyway, I have to admit that reading all day, every day, wouldn't quite satisfy me – because I have this quirk. No matter how much I like a book (or a movie, or a TV show, for that matter) some part of my brain is always re-writing it – changing the ending, giving a minor character more prominence, making sure my favorite people don't get killed off. I just can't keep my sticky little fingers off narrative; I always want to do it my way. Writing books is the only way I know to be in complete control of the story, to let it all come out exactly as I want it to.

Q: What books are on your bedside table right now?
A: Mary Poppins Comes Back by P.L. Travers (for comfort) and The Marbury Lens by Andrew Smith (to scare me to death)

Q: What are you working on right now?
A: My next project is a lullaby picture book, Around the Neighborhood. I wrote it for my daughter, now almost three years old. She used to burst into tears any time I tried to sing it to her.