Book Review: Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth

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Mad Mabel  by Sally Hepworth  is a domestic thriller about the youngest person convicted of murder in Australia, Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick. Now 81 years old, Elsie is living on Kenny Lane and has been for the past sixty years. When a mother named Roxanne moves into Mabel's neighborhood with her seven year old daughter, an unlikely friendship forms between Elsie and the seven year old child named Persephone. As Elsie's secrets come to light, her world comes crashing down.  Having read quite a few novels by Sally Hepworth, I requested an Advanced Readers Copy (ARC) of Mad Mabel  without reading the synopsis of the story. I was thrilled when NetGalley and St. Martin's Press approved my request. The expected publication date of the book is April 21, 2026. Not knowing anything about the storyline before I started reading Mad Mabel  made the story much more interesting to me as I had no preconceived ideas. The tale was told from Mabel's perspective in alternating timeli...
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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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