Below is the complete list of Lynn Austin’s Waves of Mercy books in order. For this series, the chronological reading order is the same as the order of publication.
Publication Order of Waves of Mercy Books
About Waves of Mercy
Lynn Austin’s Waves of Mercy series is a two-book historical fiction sequence set primarily in Holland, Michigan, a community founded by Dutch immigrants in the nineteenth century. The series consists of Waves of Mercy and Legacy of Mercy and follows two women from different generations whose lives become connected through family history, faith, and the immigrant experience. Drawing on the real history of Holland and its Dutch Reformed settlers, Austin blends fictional characters with historical events to explore religious conviction, cultural identity, marriage, belonging, and the ways one generation’s choices shape the next.
Waves of Mercy alternates principally between Anna Nicholson, a young woman living in the late nineteenth century, and Geesje de Jonge, an elderly Dutch immigrant whose memories reach back to the founding years of Holland. Anna arrives in Michigan while questioning both her future and the religious beliefs with which she has been raised. Her circumstances bring her into contact with Geesje, whose personal history offers a very different perspective on faith and sacrifice.
Geesje’s story takes the novel back to the Netherlands and to the religious persecution and economic difficulties that encouraged groups of Dutch Christians to leave Europe for America. She is part of the generation that follows Reverend Albertus Van Raalte to Michigan, where the immigrants establish the settlement that becomes Holland. The promise of religious freedom is accompanied by severe hardship as settlers confront wilderness, disease, poverty, harsh weather, and the practical realities of constructing an entirely new community.
Austin places this immigrant history at the emotional center of the novel rather than using it merely as background. Geesje must repeatedly weigh personal desires against family obligations and religious convictions, while the settlement’s survival depends upon cooperation among people who have already risked almost everything by leaving their homeland.
Anna’s later story reflects another form of displacement. She is surrounded by expectations concerning marriage, class, and respectable womanhood, yet she increasingly questions whether the future planned for her is one she can accept. Her conversations with Geesje help connect the concerns of a younger American-born generation with the sacrifices made by those who established the community decades earlier.
Legacy of Mercy continues Anna’s story and develops questions left unresolved in the first novel. Her investigation into her family background becomes increasingly important as she tries to understand where she came from and what that knowledge means for the life she is expected to lead. The discovery of family connections forces her to reconsider assumptions about identity, social standing, and belonging.
The sequel also gives greater attention to Anna’s relationships and to the tension between outward respectability and inward conviction. As with much of Austin’s historical fiction, romantic decisions are inseparable from questions of faith and personal integrity. The central issue is not simply whom Anna will marry, but whether she can build a life based on truth rather than expectations imposed by family and society.
Holland itself functions almost as another character in the series. Austin draws on the city’s Dutch heritage, religious traditions, and historical development, showing how the settlement changes as the immigrant generation gives way to descendants who are increasingly American while still carrying a strong cultural inheritance. The contrast between Geesje and Anna illustrates that transition particularly well.
The two books should be read in publication order. Legacy of Mercy directly continues Anna’s personal and family story and assumes familiarity with the relationships and discoveries established in Waves of Mercy. Although each novel has its own major conflicts, together they form one continuous intergenerational narrative.
At its core, Waves of Mercy is about inheritance in more than the genealogical sense. Geesje’s generation passes down faith, memories, cultural traditions, and unresolved consequences alongside the community it built. Anna must decide which parts of that inheritance genuinely belong to her and which expectations she must challenge. Through their connected stories, Austin turns the history of Dutch settlement in Michigan into a study of how identity is preserved, questioned, and reshaped across generations.