Where Are The Children Now? - Mary Higgins Clark Alafair Burke Kartoniert (TB)

Maybe you asked yourself the same thing I did, do you have to read “Where are the Children” before this book!? I have not. I have in fact never read a MHC novel before. This might change now.I assume that it would have benefitted me to have read the first book, but I did fine without it. Of course the characters were all foreign to me and it took me. While to get the connections and who is who. But by chapter three I was sucked in.In case you have not read the prequel, like me, here is the summary. I usually do not copy paste them. But as I have not read the first book, it’s maybe better to just copy paste the blurb:“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 forty years later, we meet Nancy again. She is about to leave Cape Cod and move to the Southamptons. Not bad, if you ask me. She had a good life with her second husband, who passed away a year ago. Their two children Mike and Melissa are doing as well as they can. While Mike has accepted the past and moved on, Melissa has pushed all the memories back, but clearly has not moved on, the same as her brother has. Somewhat understandable. Melissa is happy with Charlie, who she met a year ago. He has a young daughter Riley. Melissa takes on the role of the stepmother.But someone else is not happy with Melissa’s happiness. She receives threats online and a lot of trolling. Then the unthinkable happens, Riley disappears. The nightmare is happening again.Who hates Melissa so much?Will they get Riley back?I might have fared better, if I had red the prequel, but I did fine. At times I was confused but the story was told kn a way, that was easy to understand what happened years ago. The reader is not left in the dark. The beginning was confusing to me, so many characters, maybe one to many POV’s, at least for my comfort zone. But as said above, after a couple of chapters I got into the story. It’s really well written, interesting and the characters are likeable and relatable. I will definitely have to check out older MHC books! At the end of chapter 37 my jaw literally dropped (never had that happen before…) and it all came to me. Brilliant!Was everything realistic? Probably not. But I try not to let that influence my reading experience. I am a simple girl. Either I like it or not, no matter how unreal. In this case, I liked the book. I’d call it a page turner. I was doubtful at first, but now I am the happier that I stuck with it!