Seems like summer has arrived already. I am grateful for the rain we have had so far, and grateful to not have been hit with some of the storms Texas has had.
Our Mystery Book Club continues to go strong. For this month, we read:
Where Are The Children Now by Mary Higgins Clark and Alafair Burke.and an option to also read Where Are The Children by Mary Higgins Clark.
Where Are The Children Now was published in April of 2023. Where Are The Children was published in 1975. I was very interested to see what the differences would be in a book from 1975 vs 2023.
Where Are The Children
This was Mary Higgins Clark suspense debut novel. "Of the fifty-six bestsellers the “Queen of Suspense” Mary Higgins Clark published in her lifetime, Where Are the Children? was her biggest, selling millions of copies and forever transforming the genre of suspense fiction."
Where Are The Children Now?
About: " Now, more than four decades since readers first met Nancy and her children, comes the thrilling sequel to the groundbreaking book that set the stage for future generations of psychological suspense novels.
A lawyer turned successful podcaster, Melissa has recently married a man whose first wife died tragically, leaving him and their young daughter, Riley, behind. While Melissa and her brother, Mike, help their mom, Nancy, relocate from Cape Cod to the equally idyllic Hamptons, Melissa’s new stepdaughter goes missing. Drawing on the experience of their own abduction, Melissa and Mike race to find Riley to save her from the trauma they still struggle with—or worse."
My thoughts and impressions:
I read the first book, first. Where Are The Children. I probably read it in 1975 also. I read many of Mary Higgins Clark books and really liked them.
This first book is less than 300 pages and reads very very fast. The suspense starts right away and never stops. The author very successfully keeps you away from who but gives you peeks into where and how. I loved how the author untangles what has happened and how we get to the conclusion, never breaking the tension. I did not have the feeling of "I know who did it."
Where Are The Children Now:
The second book is very good also. We get enough of the backstory about the first book, that you do not need to read book one. But you don't get the feeling of book one, of course. I haven't been able to find out if Mary Higgins Clark had this book outlined, partly written etc. or did she and Alafair Burke take turns writing chapters, or did Alafair Burke take a partially written book and finish it. Nevertheless, they did a good job of building suspense. There where parts that you want to scream at a couple of the characters and say " Hey look at that.!"
The differences; the suspense built up slower, and I almost couldn't believe this would happen again to the same family. I did have a pretty good feeling of who was involved at some point, but it was more of " I think so and so, no...maybe not...Oh yes I think so." But there were other aspects I was quite surprised with.
In the end, I liked book one Where Are The Children the best. Not that I didn't like Where Are The Children Now. Book one just really had me on the edge of my seat quicker and through the entire book. It flowed slightly differently.
As I said, this was our May Mystery Book Club selection(s). Only about a third of the members were able to read book one also, six or seven people. But all seemed to like book one best. Almost everyone else liked book two. We all liked Nancy, the mother from book one, role in this book. The story hit a little too close to home for a couple of people who have small children I think. There is no graphic violence or descriptions of abuse in either book, by the way.
All in all both were two thumbs up.
