Welcome to my website! My hope and prayer is that you will know me better as a writer after spending time here and that you will visit my website often.

Books take us to places we have perhaps only imagined and introduce us to intesting people - both real and invented - whose lives inspire, teach and sometimes transform us. Books entertain but they can also enlighten and educate; they can motivate us to attempt great things. That is my goal as a writer, and your friend, that the stories I write will always leave you with a message of hope after you have read the last page.

The Shape of Mercy
Waterbrook Press
ISBN 978-1400074563

Reluctant heiress Lauren Durough takes a part-time job to prove to herself she is more than a rich girl who’s been handed everything. She becomes the literary assistant to Abigail Boyles, an 83-year-old retired librarian who tasks Lauren with transcribing a diary that had belonged to Abigail’s ancestor Mercy Hayworth, a victim of the Salem witch trials. 

Lauren finds herself drawn to this girl who lived and died four centuries ago. As the fervor around the witch accusations increases, Mercy becomes trapped in the worldview of the day; unable to fight the overwhelming influence of snap judgments and superstition, and Lauren realizes that the secrets of Mercy’s story extend beyond the pages of her diary, living on in the mysterious, embittered Abigail.

The strength of her affinity with Mercy forces Lauren to take a startling new look at her own life, including her relationships with Abigail, her college roommate, and a young man named Raul.  But on the way to the truth, will Lauren find herself playing the helpless defendant or the misguided judge?  Can she break free from her own perceptions and see who she really is?

"Life-changing"
“Meissner's newest novel is potentially life-changing, the kind of inspirational fiction that prompts readers to call up old friends, lost loves or fallen-away family members to tell them that all is forgiven and that life is too short for holding grudges. Achingly romantic, the novel features the legacy of Mercy Hayworth—a young woman convicted during the Salem witch trials—whose words reach out from the past to forever transform the lives of two present-day women. These book lovers—Abigail Boyles, elderly, bitter and frail, and Lauren “Lars” Durough, wealthy, earnest and young—become unlikely friends, drawn together over the untimely death of Mercy, whose precious diary is all that remains of her too short life. And what a diary! Mercy's words not only beguile but help Abigail and Lars together face life's hardest struggles about where true meaning is found, which dreams are worth chasing and which only lead to emptiness, and why faith and hope are essential on life's difficult path. Meissner's prose is exquisite and she is a stunning storyteller. This is a novel to be shared with friends.”

- Starred Review, Publishers Weekly

"Insights... are stunning"
“Meissner has a gift for intriguing, meaningful stories, and this novel is no exception. Lauren's present-day life is mirrored in elderly Abigail's and again in the diary of Mercy Hayworth, who lived in the 17th century. The spiritual content is light, but the insights into perception and prejudice are stunning.”

- Romantic Times Magazine, 4 ½ stars