The Mercy of the Sky

Praise for The Mercy of the Sky

“Bailey ramps up the tension with a skilled hand, following the tornado’s path through town until residents emerge from the wreckage to a landscape they ‘no longer recognized.’ Her artistry will leave more than a few readers gasping for breath.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Nail-biting chronology drives the plot… . Bailey’s prose vividly evokes the tornado’s power and menace. Storm chasers will find thrills in this tale of nature’s wrath.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“The book is excellent—well-researched, well-told, with a strong narrative that reads like a disaster novel … It’s difficult to imagine that anyone other than an Okie could tell the story so confidently and so well.” –The Oklahoman

“Holly Bailey’s The Mercy of the Sky is a gripping, heartbreaking, and heartwarming account of the monster tornado that ravaged Moore, Oklahoma, in 2013. It will leave you emotionally drained but glad you journeyed into the heart of this extraordinary storm with Bailey as your guide.”
—Daniel James Brown, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Boys in the Boat

“I read The Mercy of the Sky with absolute fascination. This gripping book tells the story of one resilient Oklahoma town and the immense killer tornadoes that ripped through it. Holly Bailey brings together riveting science, human drama, courage, tragedy, and redemption to create a quintessential American story. Powerful and moving.”
—Douglas Preston, #1 New York Times bestselling co-author of The Monster of Florence

“Holly Bailey’s riveting writing brings you to the center of the storm—and it’s terrifying. She makes you feel a community’s loss—and it’s devastating. And she brings you inside people’s lives as they heal—and it is inspiring. Bailey is a brilliant storyteller who is no outsider to Moore. She’s a hometown girl with a keen sense for Oklahoma’s character and resilience. You feel that on every page.”
—David Greene, host of NPR’s Morning Edition, author of Midnight in Siberia

“Holly Bailey makes you feel the wrath of a killer tornado. She makes you taste it, smell it, and hear it. No one who reads The Mercy of the Sky will ever be able to unfeelingly brush past headlines about funnel clouds reaching from the sky to spread destruction again.”
—Tom Shroder, author of Fire on the Horizon: The Untold Story of the Gulf Oil Disaster

Holly Bailey is a correspondent for Yahoo News and was Newsweek’s White House correspondent. An Oklahoma City native, she now lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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