Exile by Rebecca Lim

Release Day: 9th June, 2011

Publisher: Harpercollins

Pages: 292pgs

The Story

Mercy's search continues . . .

Mercy is an angel with a shattered memory, exiled from heaven for a crime she can't remember committing.

So when she she 'wakes' inside the body and life of eighteen-year-old Lela Neill, Mercy has only limited recall of her past life. Her strongest memories are of Ryan, the mortal boy who'd began to fall for her - and she for him.

Mercy soon discovers that circumstances have forced Lela into waitressing at Green Lantern, a busy city cafe frequented by suits, cab drivers, strippers, backpackers and the homeless, while caring for her terminally ill mother.

Just as Mercy is adjusting to Lela's life, her beloved Luc, reappears in her dreams, and she begins to glimpse her true nature and true feelings for Ryan. What she does not know is that her attempts to contact Ryan may have explosive consequences for everyone around her.

Meanwhile, 'the Eight' - the angelic beings responsible for her banishment - remain determined to keep Mercy and Luc apart, forever . . .

The Review

What can I say about Rebecca Lim's EXILE, the sequel to Mercy? She has done it again! I think what I love most about Lim's YA angel series is that 1) she's an Australian author and 2) the storyline itself is so intriguing and bloody HELL interesting, reminding me a lot of Stephenie Meyer's The Host! In the previous installment of the Mercy series, we were introduced to Mercy - a girl who has no memory of why she's forced to return repeatedly to Earth to inhabit a human females' body for a certain period of time. The thing is, Mercy has no idea how long she will be "borrowing" these human bodies and let's just say it's all really complicated . . . in a good way of course. Nonetheless, Mercy is always dreaming of Luc, her beloved and now, she cannot help but think of the mortal, Ryan, the boy she met in the last book Mercy.

In this new installment EXILE, this time Mercy "wakes" up inside the body of eighteen-year-old Lela Neill who spends her days working at a local cafe - serving the likes of suits, cabbies and strippers - and with her also caring for her ill mother. At the beginning, I couldn't help comparing Lela to Mercy's last inhabitant . . . Carmen. To be honest, I'm not sure who I liked better, but you can easily tell that Lela's lifestyle is much more depressing and quite sad, considering she's so very young and still has to act as the parent where her ill mother is concerned. I guess you could say Lela's life is running higher on an emotional level than Carmen's life ever was, still . . . both girls are very different.

As in the previous book, Mercy's dreams revolve around the mysterious Luc, with he himself as an angel who has searched for Mercy for a very long time but 'the Eight' wants to keep them apart. This time round I found Luc to be pretty straight forward, in terms of him helping Mercy to recover some lost memories as well as giving her some simple directions. While I don't necessarily trust him, but in the next few books it'll be interesting what will unfold between him and Mercy.

Now, moving on, EXILE has more to do with Mercy's forgotten past and I loved the fact there was more history involved . . . can't wait to read more despite it's frustrating ending!!! I mean, why must these novels end on such a cliffhanger - well not a MAJOR cliffhanger - the ones that leave you wanting more! Anyhow, it was good to see Ryan - the second love interest if that's what you would call him - whom we met in Mercy and it was a pity that him and Mercy never got to interact as much as I wanted them too. But the nonetheless, I'm sure we will be seeing him in the future installments . . . I get the feeling he's apart of something BIG when it comes to Mercy and her past.

Overall, if you haven't read Mercy yet please do! While the angel and demon worlds are rocking the YA book world - some great and others not entirely - but Rebecca Lim's world is twisted in a very interesting way and even in EXILE, it proves that she knows what she's doing!

The Rating

4 / 5 stars