Type of bind: Audio CD
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
Format: Bargain Price
Label: Simon & Schuster Audio
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster Audio
Quantity: 9
Printing Date: April 05, 2005
Publishing house: Simon & Schuster Audio
Sale Popularity Level: 1241601
Studio: Simon & Schuster Audio
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
Liza Barclay, aged 10, shot her mother while trying to protect her from her violent stepfather, ex-FBI agent Charley Foster. Despite her stepfather's claim that it was a deliberate act, the Juvenile Court ruled the death an accident. Many people, however, agreed with Foster and tabloids compared Liza to the infamous murderess, Lizzie Borden, pointing even to the similarity in name. Growing up with adoptive parents who tried to erase every trace of her past, her name is changed to Celia. Always, though, the fear hung over her and the family - that someday, her vengeful stepfather would reappear to harm her. Aged 25, a successful interior designer, she marries a childless sixty-year old widower and they have a son. Before their marriage, she had confided her earlier life to her husband. Two years on, on his deathbed, he tells her that he would want her to re-marry, but makes her swear never to reveal her past to anyone, so that their son would not carry the burden of this family tragedy - a promise that plunges her into a new cycle of violence. Three years later, happily re-married, Celia is shocked when her second husband presents her with a gift -- the house where she killed her mother. When the real estate agent who has made the sale recognises her and, soon after, is murdrered, Celia is accused of the crime. Once again, she is home -- the place where she is stamped as a murderess.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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I loved Mary Higgins Clarks' books at first. I read the very first five (from "Where Are the Children") to the fifth ("Stillwatch") and then stopped. They were all the same--some beautiful young woman (usually with kids) put in some terrible danger from her past. Unfortunately she hasn't changed her formula.
Liza Barton (at the age of 10) accidentally shoots her mother to death while trying to protect her from her vicious stepfather. She is found not guilty of murder and is adopted by a couple and has her name changed. 24 years later she has been married, widowed and has a young child. Her new husband buys her a house...and it just happens to be the house she grew up in! She keeps it a secret but then the bodies start piling up...
What a DULL book! 472 lllooooooonnnggggg pages till this is all finished. The book is slow and there are far too many characters thrown into it. It's also needlessly convoluted with some truly stupid jaw-dropping twists in it. There's also a HUGE logical mistake halfway through. Worst of all I was able to guess who was responsible AND why in about the very first 100 pages.
Long, slow and incredibly dull. Clark can do a lot better than this.
Rated by buyers 
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I admit this is my very first audio book with Mary Higgins Clark. But it was amazing. I listen to it in the car on my hour drive to and from work. I found myself over the weekend making excuses to get in the car just to keep up with the story. It is very well written and the woman reading the story does an amazing job of changing her voice to suit the charater she is reading. I'm hooked and now looking for more books written by MHC and read aloud by the same woman.
Rated by buyers 
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I'm an avid reader who has nothing against a long book, but this 472-pager could have used some editing. Spoiler Alert! I figured out all the "bad guys" and who the heroine's new honey would be at the very beginning of the book (and I'm typically not very good at these things), so after that it was just a matter of slogging through the material to the predicted ending. I've been reading MHC for 25 years, give or take, and as another reviewer said, her earlier books were genius and are much, much better in terms of being spookier and psychologically thrilling.
The heroine in this book, as yet another reviewer said, is rather dopey. One would think that a lady with millions of dollars to her name and a history of killing would not be so blindly trusting. At the end of the book, she's undergone a head-spinning recovery from major trauma that appears to have been caused by meeting yet another man. Ugh.
I cannot recommend this book. It's OK.....but I try to recommend only books that are actually enjoyable. This one just doesn't make the grade.
Rated by buyers -
The novel has quite a clever premise and the easy style keeps you reading. My main quibble with Mary Higgins Clark is that her heroines tend to be a bit feeble-minded and the bad guys are irredeemably bad and unbelievable. However, she certainly knows how to write drama. For another great drama set within a "haunted" house, try The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons.
Rated by buyers -
Are you kidding me? Who could not love this book.
I read it in 4 nights. A surprising ending too.
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