Maurier awards for Best Romantic Suspense, and she was an International Thriller Writers finalist for Best Paperback Original and a Romantic Times finalist for Best Romantic Suspense.Elliot applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, A Merciful Truth, and reported the following:
Page 69 of A Merciful Truth touches on one of the primary internal conflicts in the entire series. At the age of eighteen, my character Mercy Kilpatrick was cast out by her survivalist parents and now she’s returned to town as FBI agent. She is a law enforcement officer for the government, a profession that will never be respected by her anti-government father.Visit Kendra Elliot's website.
On page 69, she is interviewing an arson victim when she realizes he is a friend of her father. The young victim makes the connection at the same time and says, “I’ve met your siblings…I don’t recall your father mentioning an FBI agent in the family.”
“He wouldn’t bring it up,” is Mercy’s reply.
She’s hurt and stunned. This young man, new to the community, has been accepted into her father’s inner circle of survivalists, yet he continues to reject his daughter. Mercy and her father are both proud and stubborn; she clearly carries his genes.
A Merciful Truth is the second book in the series. In the first book, Mercy strives to patch her relationship with some of her siblings, but her father and oldest brother are still holdouts in Truth. This eats away at her pride and her inner child. No one can emotionally hurt her in the way her family does. She puts up a tough façade, pretending that the last fifteen years of estrangement have been a cakewalk, but deep down she wants acceptance.
Throughout the series, she vacillates between wanting her father’s approval and telling him to go to hell. To compensate for his rejection, she works hard to continue the prepping lifestyle she was raised in, telling no one that she secretly prepares for the end of the world. It’s her way of following her father’s expectations, but she hides her accomplishments, unwilling to let him know.
--Marshal Zeringue
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