Review: Waves of Mercy

Waves of Mercy by Lynn Austin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a touching story about immigrants from the Netherlands seeking religious freedom and safety.

The story is set originally in Leiden, in the Netherlands. A persecuted family leaves to go to the USA to find safety. They settle in Holland, Michigan with other Dutch families.

I love Lynn Austin's Christian novels and was surprised to be reading one that in some respects paralleled part of my own family's immigration story. My family came originally from Northern France where they were subject to religious persecution as Huguenots (Protestants in Catholic-dominated France.) They left there to settle in Belgium and my 10x Great Grandfather Johannes (or Jean) de la Montagne, went to medical school in Leiden. The same town this fictional family was from. My family sailed to New Amsterdam in 1636 before the name of the town was changed to New York. Johannes and his wife moved in with his two brother-in-laws. They had a home in Harlem which was then a small mostly-Dutch village north of New Amsterdam. They farmed the northern half of what is now Central Park. Johannes de la Montagne was the first college-educated doctor and surgeon to live in New Amsterdam.

Anyhow, since I already had an interest in immigrants coming from the Netherlands, I was thrilled to be reading a novel about a family that did the same.

This novel has a dual timeline as one of the characters is writing her life story, so those chapters become a flashback for her. It is quite an involved and complex plot. There's a satisfying ending which is what we always want in these types of books. My opinion is that it is well worth reading if you like Christian fiction.

This is not just a historical novel, but is also an intensely Christian novel that gives us much to consider about faith and the blessings of a Jesus-centered life. This novel kept me up until 5 am! I'm now reading the sequel.

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