Where Are The Children? by Mary Higgins Clark

I was looking at bestsellers from the 1970's listed on Goodreads and Where Are The Children? (1975) popped up.  I had never read Mary Higgins Clark before but the plot of Where Are The Children? caught my attention.  The backstory is the late 1960's in California where a young woman, Nancy Harmon, is living with her professor husband Carl and their two children, Peter and Lisa.  

But then Peter and Lisa go missing and are later found dead and we learn that Nancy's husband Carl shortly after this tragedy committed suicide.  The evidence points to Nancy and she is charged with Peter and Lisa's murder.  She is tried and convicted but her case is overturned on a technicality and cannot be retried since a key witness cannot be found.  And so Nancy is released from prison and set free. 

The book opens seven years after the trial. Nancy is now living in Cape Cod. She has changed her name and appearance and tried to rebuild her life marrying Ray Eldridge, a local real estate agent,  and they have two children, Missy and Michael.  The Eldridge family lives in a beautiful home in a quaint town where no one knows about Nancy's past.  Life outwardly seems like it is going well for Nancy but in reality she remains afraid and very protective of Missy and Michael.  And then the nightmare repeats itself when Missy and Michael go missing.

Where Are The Children is a novel where as the saying goes "the pages turn by themselves". I loved this book which is told from several points of view.  And the central question is where are Missy and Michael and who murdered Peter and Lisa seven years prior?

In addition to Nancy there are other interesting characters in this novel.  Jonathan Knowles for example, a retired attorney and neighbor of Nancy's who is a 1970's version of today's true crime podcaster.  He is determined to solve the case.  Also, Where Are The Children? touches on a disturbing topic that I was surprised to see brought up in a 1970's novel but clearly people were talking about this issue back then.

I am late coming to the Mary Higgins Clark fan club but now that I am here I will stay awhile and definitely be checking out at least two or three more of her novels.

Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed and Why Read Moby Dick? by Nathaniel Philbrick

Tiny Beautiful Things (2012) by Cheryl Strayed is a collection of the advise columns she wrote anonymously for the Rumpus magazine from 2009 to 2012.  Cheryl answered letters from readers seeking help under the pen name, Dear Sugar. 

People wrote in with relationship issues, grief over the death of a loved one, substance abuse problems, questions about one's career path etc.  Cheryl would choose certain letters to respond to in the pages of the Rumpus, often bringing up stories from her own life which might help the letter writer see a path forward.  

Tiny Beautiful Things is part self help book, part memoir.  Cheryl Strayed writes beautifully and as with Wild she is very honest about sharing the events of her life.  

Do I recommend Tiny Beautiful Things?  It's hard to say because Cheryl's advise is compassionate and well thought out.  But my issues and  worries were different than the letters profiled in this book and so there wasn't as much I could relate to.  That said, Tiny Beautiful Things would be a good book to read when you are in your 20's and 30's.  And over 12,000 have reviewed this book on Amazon with 88% rating it 4 and 5 stars.  

"I am not one of those purists who insist on reading the entire untrucated text at all costs.  Moby Dick is a long book and time is short.  Even a sentence, a mere phrase will do.  The important thing is to spend some time with the novel, to listen as you read, to feel the prose adapt to the various voices that flowed through Melville during the book's composition, like intermittent ghosts with something urgent and essential to say" - Nathaniel Philbrick, Why Read Moby Dick?"

I have never read Moby Dick.  It's a long book and I hear difficult to get through.  But Why Read Moby Dick? (2011) by Nathaniel Philbrick is only 129 pages and serves as a great introduction to Melville's masterpiece.  It's not surprising because Philbrick is an excellent writer.  Winner of the 2000 National Book award for In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex. 

And as Philbrick tells us it was the sinking of the Essex that partly inspired Mellville to write Moby Dick.  The other inspiration was Nathaniel Hawthorne.  Melville prior to meeting Hawthorne had been a popular writer of sea novels.  But Hawthorne's writing which included passion and darkness inspired Melville to go deeper with his fiction.  I have never gotten around to reading The Scarlett Letter either but at a little over 200 pages it is doable.  And I might take Nathaniel Philbrick's advise and dip into Moby Dick at various points to see how I like it.

The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against The Sea by Sebastian Junger

"It’s now way too late for anyone to back out. Not in the literal sense—any one of them could still take off running out the door—but people don’t work like that. More or less, they do what others expect them to. If one of the crew backed out now he’d sit around for a month and then either go to a welcome-home party or a memorial service. Either would be horrible in its own way. Half the crew have misgivings about this trip, but they’re going anyhow." - Sebastian Junger, The Perfect Storm

I saw the film The Perfect Storm  when it was released back in 2000 and the film has stayed with me all these years.   I have now gotten around to reading the bestselling book by Sebastian Junger and it was everything I hoped.

The Perfect Storm is a true story.  In October 1991 multiple weather systems converged in the North Atlantic with devastating results. Its been called the storm of the century with waves reaching 100 feet.  No one knew a storm of this magnitude was coming and so fishing boats went out to sea in the North Atlantic not knowing the life-threatening danger they would be facing.

One of those boats was The Andrea Gail.  The six men on this boat were sword fisherman: Billy Tyne Jr, Dale Murphy, Michael Moran, Alfred Pierre, Bobby Shatford and David Sullivan.  They never made it home.

Billy Tyne was the Captain of the Andrea Gail and at 37 he was the oldest person on the boat.  Billy treated his men well and he loved fishing.  For his crew though fishing was a job that they were not thrilled about.  That surprised me because I assumed fishermen love being out at sea but as Junger explains it, fishing is grueling, dangerous work.  And as David "Sully" Sullivan said before his final voyage on The Andrea Gail: "It's the money ... If I didn't need the money I wouldn't go near this thing."

And the risks aren't only that the boat might break apart and sink in a bad storm.  Being on deck is dangerous as well due to all the equipment on board.  Fishing hooks for example can go flying about and end up seriously injuring the crew.  And then there are the fish themselves.  The Andrea Gail was a boat that caught swordfish and they are dangerous animals.

The Perfect Storm also tells the story of some of the other boats that were in danger in the North Atlantic when the perfect storm hit.  We learn about The Satori and its crew members who were stranded in the middle of this storm.  Their boat was breaking apart but fortunately a coast guard team was able to locate and rescue them.  One of the brave coast guard members was Dave Moore who was dropped from an aircraft into the middle of this storm:

"He just skimmed over the top of the water, flying towards us,” says Stimpson. “When he gets there he says, ‘Hi, I’m Dave Moore your rescue swimmer, how are you?’ And Sue says, ‘Fine, how are you?’ It was very cordial. Then he asks who’s going first, and Sue says, ‘I will.’ And he grabbed her by the back of the survival suit and skimmed back across the water.” Moore loads Bylander into the rescue basket, and twenty seconds later she’s in the helicopter .... Moore’s the last one up, stepping back into the aircraft at 2:29"

That was a great outcome.  Sadly for the men of The Andrea Gail no one was able to locate and rescue them.  And also Sgt. Rick Arden Smith USAF who was on a rescue mission died n the storm as well.  

One final thing needs to be said about Captain Billy Tyne Jr.  When I saw the movie the image I got was that he was reckless.  A captain who ignored the bad weather report because he wanted to stay out longer so that he could increase his fish haul.  But the book does not show that. In the book by the time Billy Tyne got the warning that a very bad storm was coming the Andrea Gail was already on their way home.  Billy Tyne wasn't reckless.  The Andrea Gail was just unlucky that they were in the worst place they could be when the storm hit.  

I highly recommend The Perfect Storm.  You will learn about the lives of fishermen and their families, meteorology the town of Gloucester and the brave officers of the Coast Guard and USAF who put their lives at risk to rescue others in danger at sea.

A Great New Classics Reading Challenge for 2025

Here is a really fine 2025 classics reading challenge from Anne who runs the youtube book channel In Search of Wonder.   Anne's challenge is similar to the Back To The Classics Challenge which defines a classic as any book that was written at least 50 years ago (any book published no later than 1975).  Below are my choices based on Anne's prompts:

Jan:        Read a classic from your TBR list purchased before 2025 -  Walden by Henry David Thoreau.  

Feb:        Read a gothic classic  -  Dragonwyck by Anya Seton

March:   Read a classic children's book -   The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis

April:      Read a classic memoir - The Big Sea by Langston Hughes

May:        Reread a favorite classic - Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

June:       Read a classic book 500 + pages  - Men To Match My Mountains by Irving  Stone             

July:         Read a book Jane Austen might have read - Self-Control by Mary Brunton                              

August:    Read a classic in translation -  The Red And The Black by Stendahl

Sept:         Read a Shakespeare comedy - Much Ado About Nothing

Oct:           Read a science fiction classic - Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey

Nov:          Read a classic essay or book of essays - Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion

Dec:           Read a classic Christmas short story - A Christmas Dream, And How It  Came To Be by Louisa May Alcott 

Thank you to Anne and I love these prompts because they challenge us to read books we otherwise would never have thought of reading.

Hope everyone had a great holiday and a happy and healthy 2025 and alot of good reading!

My Favorite Books of 2024

I read 60 books this year and so I had many choices when it came to compiling my list of  favorites for 2024.  These aren't necessarily the best or the most critically acclaimed books I read this year but they are the books I liked the best.  Two of the authors: Tony Horwitz and George Gissing I have read before.  The remaining seven are new to me and so in no particular order here is my list of favorites for 2024: 

Not sure if I will read 60 books in 2025.  I might go for 50 books instead.  And Libby is such a wonderful reading service. Five of my favorite books I was able to borrow through Libby.  

I hope everyone has a very Happy New Year and that we read alot of great books in 2025!

Lone Women by Victor Lavalle

"There are two kinds of people in this world: those who live with shame, and those who die from it. On Tuesday, Adelaide Henry would’ve called herself the former, but by Wednesday she wasn’t as sure. If she was trying to live, then why would she be walking through her family’s farmhouse carrying an Atlas jar of gasoline, pouring that gasoline on the kitchen floor, the dining table, dousing the settee in the den? .. Was she planning to live, or trying to die? There were twenty-seven Black farming families in California’s Lucerne Valley in 1915. Adelaide and her parents had been one of them. After today there would only be twenty-six." - Victor Lavalle, Lone Women

I love books in which a character fleeing trouble or looking for a new start decides to pack their bags and head to hopefully greener pastures.  And when Lone Women begins 31 year old Adelaide Henry is escaping a very bad situation.  Her parents have been murdered and Adelaide is setting fire to their home.

What happened?  Did Adelaide kill her parents or was it someone or something else?  Regardless, Adelaide knows she can't stay in Lucerne Valley and so she decides to escape to Big Sandy, MT, a small rural community where the government is giving out free land to anyone willing to make a go of it.  Adelaide brings with her some books and a mysterious locked steamer trunk.  But if she is looking for safety Big Sandy may not be the place to find it.  In fact some of the town's people are as scary as what she is trying to flee from.  

Lone Women is a combination western and supernatural horror novel.  You find out early what the steamer trunk contains but learning this secret didn't spoil the book for me.  Adelaide is a sympathetic character and I became invested in her struggle to escape her past and start a new life.  But as Adelaide learns you can't leave your past or your family behind.  As much as you may want to move on, the guilt stays with you.

All of the characters we meet in Big Sandy are well drawn and they have their own secrets.  I recommend this novel and Victor LaValle is a writer worth checking out.

Christmas Books and Movies

It's the holiday season and I really enjoy Christmas novels and movies and so I decided to make a list of my favorites:

THE BOOKS

When I moved down to Florida in 2011 Burning Bright was one of the books I brought with me and I have it still (if I can locate where I placed it)  It's an anthology. Three stories set in Crescent Cove, VT.  And in each story a woman who is having trouble in her life around the holidays enters a candle shop and the candle each woman chooses has a certain magic to it which will lead to a happy ending.  Loved it.  And Magggie Shayne, Anne Stuart and Judith Arnold are very fine writers who will get you in the holiday spirit!

I keep telling myself I must read Fried Green Tomatoes and I will but in the meantime years ago I did read A Redbird Christmas which I highly recommend.  Time for a reread.

I purchased Christmas Witness Survival several weeks ago not knowing the author or what to expect.  But the plot interested me: 

Fleeing after discovering her fiancé is a murderer, Hailey Davenport thinks nowhere is safe this Christmas. Trusting another man is the last thing Hailey wants, but she reluctantly finds refuge in the back of Michael “Chap” Chapman’s truck. The security expert won’t let her face hired gunmen alone—even when danger follows them to his ranch" Goodreads

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this novel.  Hailey and Michael are characters with troubled pasts but they are well drawn and I really felt the chemistry between. them.  I intend to check out more books from Jane Choate and the Love Inspired Suspense series.

THE MOVIES

I saw A Town Without Christmas many years ago and what you want in a romantic film is chemistry and Patricia Heaton and Rick Roberts are wonderful together.  Also Peter Falk is very good as the angel who brings them together.  My only regret is that A Town Without Christmas doesn't get shown on TV anymore and that's a shame.

Discovered The Holly And The Ivy a few years ago when it was shown on Turner Classic Movies.  What a wonderful film with a great cast.  And the two aunts that arrive for the holidays are quite the pair!

No need to watch any other version of A Christmas Carol in my opinion.  The great actor Alistair Sim owns the role of Scrooge.  

Loved Prancer and Sam Elliot is so good as an apple farmer who is trying to raise his young daughter but he is struggling after the death of his wife.  And then over the holidays a reindeer arrives.

So those are my picks and if you want to share your favorite books and films for the holidays I would love to hear.