The Mercy of Thin Air

In 1920s New Orleans, Raziela Nolan's magnificent love affair is interrupted by her untimely and tragic death. Immediately after, she chooses to stay between -- a realm that exists after life and before whatever lies beyond it. From this remarkable vantage point, Razi narrates the story of her lost love as well as of the relationship of Amy and Scott, a young couple whose house she haunts seventy years later. It is their own troubled story that finally compels Razi to slowly unravel the mystery of what happened to her first and only passion, Andrew, and to confront a long-hidden secret.The Mercy of Thin Air entwines two heartbreaking and redemptive love stories that echo across three generations and culminates in a finish that will leave readers breathless. It is a poignant and brilliant first novel that beautifully captures the nature of love and shows how it transcends all barriers -- even death.

Two strands: first the story of Razi Nolan, growing up in New Orleans in the 1920s, smart, fearless, set on breaking the comfortable family mould by making a career as a doctor. Then she falls in love with Andrew O'Connell and her plans become complicated. She is never able to tell Andrew what she has decided about her future as, one summer morning, she accidentally drowns. By choice, and from where she narrates, she stays between this world and the unknown; every memory of her life remains perfectly intact.
More than seventy years later, Razi finds Andrew's once-treasured bookcase at a garage sale. She watches a young couple take it home, Amy and Scott, burdened with secrets of their own. As their once close relationship unravels, Razi remembers her past with Andrew and how she comes to understand what their love ultimately taught her, how he coped after her death, and how the story of Amy and Scott reflects so much of her own.
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### From Publishers Weekly
A gothically tinged historical take on *The Lovely Bones*, this debut novel manages to carve out some of its own territory. In late 1920s New Orleans, Raziela "Razi" Nolan carries on a passionate college love affair with Andrew O'Connell (while planning to be a gynecologist). She desires immortality ("One lifetime isn't enough to make all the trouble of which I'm capable") and gets her wish when she slips poolside, dies and finds herself in a state "between life and whatever comes next" in which she may observe the world she's left behind and even meddle mildly. As she learns the rules of "the between" Razi finds it too painful to keep track of Andrew. But 70 years after her death in 1929, she is curious to know what happened to her beloved and is drawn to a young couple, Amy Richmond and Scott Duncan. Domingue captures the equally repressive and uninhibited culture of 1920s America, creates a convincing world of "the between," and gives nice shape to the loving but troubled relationship of Amy and Scott as Razi uncovers her connection to them. The novel lacks a fully distinctive voice, but is certainly several cuts above the genre mysteries and historicals it most resembles. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
### From Booklist
Echoing Alice Sebold's *The Lovely Bones* (2002), debut novelist Domingue places her protagonist, Razi Nolan, "between," that is, in the place where souls go after death, perhaps for decades, before proceeding to whatever comes next. Razi dies in a drowning accident in July 1929, just after graduating from Tulane. Headed to medical school, she was involved with the dissemination of, at the time, illegal birth control information to unmarried women. Now, 70 years later, Razi attempts to find out what happened to Andrew, the love of her life. A parallel plot involves a young couple, Amy and Scott, who are drifting apart because Amy is unable to forget her first fiance, who died tragically 6 years earlier. In each plot, so different in time and place, Domingue takes a probing look at what produces strong and independent women, be it environment, education, or genes. Though Domingue gets a little bogged down in the intricate details of hidden family ties, the well-drawn characters of Razi and Amy ensure that this is an engaging tale. *Deborah Donovan* *Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved*