Book Review: Missing Since Monday by Ann M. Martin

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Missing Since Monday by Ann M. Martin follows Maggie and her older brother when their father and stepmother leave on a long-delayed honeymoon, trusting the siblings to care for their four-year-old half sister, Courtenay. When Courtenay fails to come home from daycare one Monday afternoon, Maggie and her brother are thrust into a frightening mystery. With no adults around to help, they must piece together what happened and find a way to alert their parents before it’s too late. This standalone novel for readers ages eight to twelve was one I completely missed as a kid, but as an adult and a longtime fan of Ann M. Martin’s The Baby-Sitters Club  series, I couldn’t resist picking it up. The first chapter or two felt a bit choppy to me at first, but once the story found its footing, everything began to come together nicely . Because this is a short children’s book, the characters aren’t deeply developed, which is to be expected. That said, Martin does an excellent job conveying Maggie’...
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Book Review: Kiss the Girls and Make Them Cry by Mary Higgins Clark

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kiss the girls & make them cry mary higgins clarkMary Higgins Clark's latest book Kiss the Girls and Make Them Cry was published shortly before her death and is one of my favorites by her. The novel is about an investigative journalist named Gina Kane who is tipped off about woman who had a terrible experience at REL News. When Kane starts investigating the story, it goes sideways.
Like most of this author's books, Kiss the Girls and Make Them Cry was an easy read, and I was immediately drawn into the story. The main character being a journalist likely helped draw me in as I wanted to be a writer in some way, shape, or form. Early on, I suspected one person as the "bad guy", but I quickly started suspecting another person about halfway through the book. I wasn't sure which way it was going to go, but the further I read, the more sure I was it was the latter. I rushed the last forty or fifty pages to see if I was correct, and I was.
One thing that I loved about this book was that Mary Higgins Clark mentions numerous places that I have visited for one reason or another. These locations included Peachtree City, GA; Dayton, OH; and Ft. Myers, FL. I love the fact that she highlighted the #MeToo movement, which is such an important movement, and I love the fact that it will live on in a book so future generations might actually look it up and see that it was indeed something very real in today's world. 
Kiss the Girls and Make Them Cry made me want to go back and read all of Mary Higgins Clark's books that I've previously read. I gave this book five out of five stars.

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