Toni Andrews

Mercy Hollings — (2007-2009) Publisher: I've never been certain I'm human. Oh, the X-rays and blood tests are normal, and most people have no reason to suspect I'm more than I appear to be. But if I tell you to do something? You do it — no ifs, ands or buts. I call my power the 'press.' My name is Mercy Hollings, and if you think that having the power to control people makes my life easy, you're dead wrong. Because when I get angry, everyone around me is at risk — Sukey, my friend who has frightening taste in men; my clients, who, ironically, come to me for help; my neighbors, who regard me as a loner; and Sam, a man who wants to know my darkest secret. I have hurt people in the past, and I don't want that to happen again. But now a powerful stranger is threatening the new life that I've made for myself. And I'm afraid my anger is taking over.

Beg for Mercy: Fooled again.

I think it would be nice if a book was identified up front as a paranormal romance instead of implying otherwise. Toni Andrews' Beg for Mercy is a romance novel, basically, and it has a little paranormal stuff thrown in to make it different from the thousands of other romance novels out there.

Mercy Hollings is an embittered, unknowingly beautiful, powerful paranormal who is so cliché that you have already read about her if you read paranormal urban fantasy. Toni Andrews is a good writer, but Beg for Mercy is definitely a romance novel — not for me.

But if you like paranormal romance, try Beg for Mercy. If not, skip it and read Patricia Briggs or Kim Harrison who write paranormal urban fantasy with romance as only a sidenote. —John Hulet