Rating: 
Summary: A story of trust and love mis-placed
Review: This was a great read. I enjoyed it throughly. Ms. Clark developes wonderful characters, and she uses them to masterfully keep you guessing to the end. Like most of Ms. Clark's novels this story has a surprise ending that won't dissapoint. After reading this book I felt as is I was looking for something more in the end, and it would be easy enough to spin a sequel from the open ending. That just isn't Ms. Clark's style however. Even with an ending that I felt left too many loose ends, I didn't come away from this read with any true dissapointment. I would definitely recommend this novel to any reader looking for suspense.
Rating: 
Summary: Plot Lacks Warmth, Characters Lack Personalities
Review: Before I Say Goodbye is a rather tepid, slow novel that never caught my interest. The main character Nell was much like the plot. They both lacked real direction or warmth. From the first page I thought that Nell was a bland character. The novel starts by Nell complaining that she is only `attractive' rather than beautiful or sexy. This sort of character always gets on my nerves as this kind of complaining is ridiculously unnecessary and petty. The novel is fairly slow and the suspense never `got to me' like it used to with Mary Higgins Clark books in the past such as Stillwatch. Nell reminisced a lot about her past marriage and her dead husband but I didn't think any of this sounded particularly heart felt, instead it came across as boring and only added in out of necessity. Eventually I thumbed to the end and read a fairly good twist in the plot although by then I was past caring about the assortment of characters. Overall Before I Say Goodbye was fairly tiresome and I could not finish it without skimming vast chunks. In the future I won't be snapping up any MHC books as I don't really like the characters that much anymore and the dialogue always seems strained and slow. The women MHC writes about could all be interchanged from book to book without anyone noticing. In terms of physical characteristics they are mostly tall and athletic and MHC seems to have a thing about making the male characters describe them as `classy' constantly. The problem seems to be that the characterisations never go very deep and so it's hard to fully understand or sympathise with the female lead character, which is a real shame. JoAnne
Rating: 
Summary: Before I Say Good-Bye
Review: Although this is not MHC's best work, this book is worth the read. Nell MacDermott is toying with the idea of running for office. Nell has doubts, and her husband's alleged scam is a definite negative obstacle. When he becomes a victim of a boat explosion, Nell begins to look into her husband's life and finds more than she bargained for! The characters are not as well thought out in this book as they are in most MHC mysteries. However, it is still entertaining.
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