Where Are The Children Now?

tags: mystery, sequel

⭐⭐

From Goodreads

The legacy of the “Queen of Suspense” continues with the highly anticipated follow-up to Mary Higgins Clark’s iconic novel Where Are The Children?, featuring the children of Nancy Harmon, facing peril once again as adults.

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. In that story, a young California mother named Nancy Harmon was convicted of murdering her two children. Though released on a technicality, she was abandoned by her husband and became such a pariah in the media that she was forced to move across the country to Cape Cod, change her identity and appearance, and start a new life. Years later her two children from a second marriage, Mike and Melissa, would go missing, and Nancy yet again became the prime suspect—but this time, Nancy was able to confront the secrets buried in her past and rescue her kids from a dangerous predator.

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.

Just like the original, Where Are the Children Now? keeps readers guessing and holding their breath until the very last page.

I can't remember when I read and what was the last book I read by Mary Higgins Clark. It was so long ago. Where Are The Children is the most memorable of Mary Higgins Clark's books. When a sequel popped up in the library's recommendations, I had to borrow it although I have stopped reading her books more than 15 years ago. 

Mary Higgins Clark's writing style was simple without using big words but she had the ability to create complex interesting characters, although sometimes the stories are too forced. What I liked was her great sense of humor which is lacking in new novelists.

I already had low expectations before reading so I don't get disappointed. Alafair Burke did her best but she is no Mary Higgins Clark. Her main character Melissa, the girl who was abducted in the previous book almost has 2 personalities, one was brilliant and the other was brainless. How can she marry a guy and not meet any of his family and friends. She hardly knew what he did for a living, never noticed his home office desk is almost empty. She only started looking at his past after the child disappeared. SMH. 

The police were incompetent and never bothered to investigate meticulously if Melissa was indeed guilty of child murder.  

Knowing Clark's usual suspects (hint: close friends and even family), I guessed correctly who was one of the culprits. Why was this sequel even written after more than 30 years and the original author already dead? 

Not recommended

Enola Holmes 2

tags: action, adventure, comedy, female sleuth, Victorian period

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Sequel to Enola Holmes streaming on Netflix. Millie Bobby Brown as Enola Holmes is a good actress and her character is entertaining. She and Henry Cavill as Sherlock have real rapport and fun to watch as brother and sister. As predicted, she and Lord Tewkesbury are an item confessing their love for each other. Her brother, Sherlock, has a bigger presence in the movie. They, with a little help from Tewkesbury, work together to find a missing woman and the death of a factory worker. I liked it regardless of the terrible and contrived version of Moriarty.😒

I am looking forward to the next movie although Dr. Watson will be played by an actor of Indian descent. *sigh* Can't escape this trend.

The movie made me bake a Scottish cake called Dundee Cake. It is a simple fruitcake with no spices nor candied fruits. The recipe with photos is here.

The Hidden Palace

tags: fantasy, favorites, golem, historical fiction, jinni

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

from GoodReads

Chava is a golem, a woman made of clay, able to hear the thoughts and longings of the people around her and compelled by her nature to help them. Ahmad is a jinni, a perpetually restless and free-spirited creature of fire, imprisoned in the shape of a man. Fearing they’ll be exposed as monsters, these magical beings hide their true selves and pretend to be human—just two more immigrants in the bustling world of 1900s Manhattan. Having encountered each other under calamitous circumstances, Chava and Ahmad’s lives are now entwined—but they’re not yet certain of what they mean to each other.

Each has unwittingly affected the humans around them. Park Avenue heiress Sophia Winston, whose brief encounter with Ahmad left her with a strange illness that makes her shiver with cold, travels to the Middle East to seek a cure. There she meets a tempestuous female jinni who’s been banished from her tribe. Back in New York, in a tenement on the Lower East Side, a little girl named Kreindel helps her rabbi father build a golem they name Yossele—not knowing that she’s about to be sent to an orphanage uptown, where the hulking Yossele will become her only friend and protector.

Spanning the tumultuous years from the turn of the twentieth century to the beginning of World War I, The Hidden Palace follows these lives and others as they collide and interweave. Can Chava and Ahmad find their places in the human world while remaining true to each other? Or will their opposing natures and desires eventually tear them apart—especially once they encounter, thrillingly, other beings like themselves?

I waited 8 long years for this sequel to one of my favorite fantasy novels and it is worth the wait. Chava and Ahmad spend their time bickering and start doing things separately. When Ahmad's only friend and business partner Arbeely dies, he holes himself up in their building for more than 3 years forging and constructing a 4 story steel spiral staircase with glass landings. He doesn't go out and nobody has seen him nor the inside of his building, the neighbors are getting worried.

Chava leaves the bakery where she teaches newly hired bakers. When the people around her who don't know she is a golem notice that she doesn't age, she leaves the bakery and attends college. She changes her name to Charlotte Levy and starts working as a teacher at the Asylum for Hebrew Orphans. 

Highly recommended for fans of the first book, The Golem And The Jinni.