Rating: 
Summary: Creative Story!
Review: "Popped" by gifted writer, Carol Higgins Clark was such a good story...creative and fun!When someone turns a reality show into a nightmare, P.I. Regan Reilly must deflate a cunning crook's plan before the high-flying finale in a hot air ballon turns fatal. Fun book. Fun Writer. (Buy the book!) (Recommended Reading!)
Rating: 
Summary: If her name weren't Higgins Clark....
Review: ...would she ever have gotten published? I rather doubt it. I have never been impressed with her writing, and her grasp of grammar is tenuous at best, but some of her books have been at least entertaining. Not so in this case--I'm having trouble getting through this slender volume. The story is simplistic, the characters superficial. The author gives us glimpses into her supposedly bright heroine's thoughts, but she seldom does more than state the obvious. There is something that has been bothering me about this series, but I haven't been able to put my finger on it until this, latest entry. The setting is supposed to be contemporary, the heroine youngish. Yet, the feeling and tone is not comtemporary, and the language and syntax of the thirty-something characters is much older. I'm not saying I want to hear a lot of bad language--I don't, but the lack of timeliness is jarring to say the least.
Rating:
Summary: We need a zero star rating
Review: I agree with most of the previous reviewers. This was poorly written, laughably plotted (and not in a good way), devoid of characterization, and an utter waste of time. How does the author continue to be published?? Could it be ... nepotism?
Rating:
Summary: Awful
Review: I have read all her other books, but I just am not able to finish this one. Every other chapter brings a new suspect. The characters are not likeable or well developed. And, as another person wrote, I don't care who did it. Boring and dumb.
Rating:
Summary: Ugh
Review: I picked up this book at a bookstore because I needed a book to read on a 6 hour flight and had already read all the Mary Higgins Clark novels available. Hoping that writing talent was genetic, I picked up this book. Quite frankly, it made me want to jump out of the plane. MARY HIGGINS CLARK FANS: do NOT assume that just because CHC is the daughter of a brilliant writer that she is a brilliant writer herself, because her books are shallow and awful. Terrible plot, terrible storytelling, and the "mystery" isn't mysterious at ALL.
Rating:
Summary: I wish I could have a "negative" star
Review: I read this all the way through because I have never started reading something I didn't finish. I can say one nice thing - it is a great guide book of how NOT to write a book.
The plot was weak, the characters, well, you couldn't care less what happened to them and sometimes wished something WOULD, and then on the fringes this boyfriend occasionally pops up. He is only introduced so that this book could end the way that it did - as the fulfillment of some 13 year old girl's fantasy. I work in a library and have always read a lot and this is truly the worst book I've ever read in 37 years.
Rating:
Summary: Possibly the worst fiction I ever read
Review: If there were a "zero" star rating on the Amazon system, that zero still would be too good for POPPED. Really, I am pooped from reading POPPED. Yet since it was the only book that I had with me on a plane trip, I was stuck with it.
The only mystery with POPPED is how a reputable publisher would dare to sell this nonsense to a trusting public, and that mystery is solved by a single word, "nepotism." Obviously, if author Carol Higgins Clark were not the daughter of best-selling author Mary Higgins Clark, she would be waiting tables, not writing novels.
Nonetheless, since the publishers must be making some money marketing mysteries under the "Higgins Clark" name, could they not justify assigning an editor to Carol's manuscripts? POPPED contains some of the worst grammar and syntax that ever has appeared in print.
Conceptually, POPPED must have had potential. The setting of the balloon festival in New Mexico--a setting which, of course, is not fully explored--should have been appealing. Everything in POPPED either is sketchy and unrealized or much too easily resolved.
The characters are so forgettable that, even while in the midst of reading this stupid story, I had to refer back to remember who was who. And the outcome was a surprise because there was not a single clue to lead a patient reader to the result. Oh, puh-lease.
Even Amazon's "Number One" reviewer ought to be ashamed of herself for giving POPPED a five-star review. There's a word for what Number One has become as a result of awarding this rating, and that word isn't nice.
It is sad to think of all of the decent authors struggling to sell their own novels when this piece of garbage, attached to the surname of a successful author--but not written by that successful author--is foisted on to an unsuspecting public.
Rating:
Summary: Too bad there's not a 0 star rating
Review: Nepotism, thy name continues to be Carol Higgins Clark. It's sad that there a good, talented writers who can't get published while this one continues getting published solely on her name.
I'm not sure which is worse -- the shallow cartoon characters that appear in each of CHC's books or her complete and utter lack of writing talent. After six books, Regan has still never been flushed out as a character, other than being a PI and the world's most perfect daughter. It's also gotten exceptionally silly the way CHC has to manipulate things so that all these characters show up in one place to be part of the story, including Regan's mother, "the best-selling author." I can only think of one book in this series where her presence has made any kind of sense to the story and wasn't just designed to shove her in there somehow to coo all over her perfect daughter. And the writing just gets worse and worse -- why can't people ever just say things instead of crying, declaring and piping in? Why is so much time spent on every silly little detail, such as what type of pajamas Regan put on when she got to her hotel room or the flavor of Chap-Stick found on the floor? Draw me a picture...don't drown me in words.
In the case of this particular book, it was by far the worst of the bunch. It was easy to figure out which couple would be declared the winner since all the attention was on them throughout the book. It was easy to figure out what would happen with the two shows at the end. And it if was designed to be some kind of zany slapstick, CHC fell far short of her goal.
Don't waste your time or your money. Stick with Mom.
Rating: 
Summary: TV competition and hot air balloons
Review: Regan Reilly, P.I. in L.A., gets a call from Danny Madley, an old school friend, requesting she fly to Las Vegas to help him out. He is producing a pilot for a reality TV show featuring three married couples. They have all had some problems in their marriages but say they want to make it work. They are vying for a chance to renew their vows in a wedding-cake-shaped hot air balloon and win one million dollars. Apparently things haven't been going very smooth. Many things have happened and he wants Regan to come help him keep any more things from going wrong.
He is in competition with Bubbles who is producing a pilot for a comedy TV show. Unbeknownst to him, she has been having trouble with her actors and things haven't gone smoothly for them either.
Many things continue to happen including Danny's parents arriving only to lose a bag of mail for advice columnists helping on his show. Worse than that, his mother read one of the letters and if the advice columnists don't pay overdue alimony, his pilot might not be finished in time. Since his parents helped cause some of this trouble, they find themselves in deep to help resolve it.
Regan begins to question whether all of the married couples are truly who they say they are. Then there's Roscoe, the man behind the contest of the two pilot shows. He is a real character and Regan doesn't really trust him. She has her boyfriend, Jack who is a New York Detective, checking into their backgrounds.
While I liked this book, first one I've read by this author, it was definitely not your normal mystery. There wasn't any murder. There was some investigation into the various characters, but not the normal investigation to solve a crime or murder.
I found this book to be an easy read and enjoyed the story line as it was different than anything else I have read. Even with many characters, I felt the author did a good job of describing them so that I was able to keep everyone straight. I recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: I put it down!
Review: What a disappointment. I have read this author's work in the past and found several of her books very enjoyable. This book is miserable. I read 3-4 books per week and I have NEVER failed to finish reading a book. This is a first. I've been reading the book for the past week and a half and I finally realized that I just don't care what happens in the end. I put the book down at page 175 and I am not even slightly curious about what happens. This one is going straight to the used bookstore for trade in!
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