Rating: 
Summary: Move Over, Mary Higgins Clark!
Review: I just finished "Kiss Her Goodbye" by Wendy Corsi Staub. This woman can flat-out write! She cunningly weaves the mystery throughout the book and keeps you guessing as to the identity of the killer, as well as turning the pages.Someone in Woodsbridge, a suburb of Buffalo, New York, is targeting young teenage girls who look a lot like Katie Carmody's daughter, Jen. But who? Is it the husband of Stella Galinski, the woman Jen babysits for? An elderly priest? Jen's father? A young drug dealer? And Katie has a secret of her own -- something somebody else knows which has to do with mysterious baby cries in the night and a gift-wrapped pink baby bootie left on Jen's pillow. This isn't the first book I've read by Staub and it certainly won't be the last. They get progressively better with each one. She's as good as Mary Higgins Clark USED to be and has my vote for the new "queen of suspense!" The only downside of the book were some obvious editing mistakes I picked up on -- like saying the family was from Ohio on one page and then saying Indiana on the next, and also that Stella Gattinski's twin daughters had her blonde hair and then saying their hair was red. Come on! I thought professional editors were supposed to do a better job than that!!
Rating:
Summary: Move Over, Mary Higgins Clark!
Review: I just finished "Kiss Her Goodbye" by Wendy Corsi Staub. This woman can flat-out write! She cunningly weaves the mystery throughout the book and keeps you guessing as to the identity of the killer, as well as turning the pages. Someone in Woodsbridge, a suburb of Buffalo, New York, is targeting young teenage girls who look a lot like Katie Carmody's daughter, Jen. But who? Is it the husband of Stella Galinski, the woman Jen babysits for? An elderly priest? Jen's father? A young drug dealer? And Katie has a secret of her own -- something somebody else knows which has to do with mysterious baby cries in the night and a gift-wrapped pink baby bootie left on Jen's pillow. This isn't the first book I've read by Staub and it certainly won't be the last. They get progressively better with each one. She's as good as Mary Higgins Clark USED to be and has my vote for the new "queen of suspense!" The only downside of the book were some obvious editing mistakes I picked up on -- like saying the family was from Ohio on one page and then saying Indiana on the next, and also that Stella Gattinski's twin daughters had her blonde hair and then saying their hair was red. Come on! I thought professional editors were supposed to do a better job than that!!
Rating:
Summary: suspense, atmosphere, plot twists
Review: I'm a big fan of Wendy Corsi Staub. I may have grabbed the first copy of this book. In general, she's great at building suspense and atmosphere--for instance, she will make you want to get up and check that your deadbolts are locked. You may find yourself looking out the window to be sure no one is watching you. She is a master at throwing in plot twists. You think you just got a clue to who the killer is, and she throws you a contradiction. You end up suspecting just about everybody in the book. This time, however, I not only guessed the killer but also some other things before they happened. I gave this a 4 rather than a 5 because the story was just a little too neatly wrapped up as well as highly unlikely to happen the way it did in real life. Part of the fun of mystery/suspense/horror stories comes from things happening to ordinary people in ordinary situations, i.e. this could happen to you. I enjoyed the book, read it straight through (with some interruptions like going to work) but I think the plot could have been better. A lot of it seemed out of the 1950s rather than the 21st century. I'll be anxious to see what others think.
Rating: 
Summary: An OK Read
Review: I'm a big Wendy Corsi Staub fan, but I didn't think this was one of her best efforts. There were too many separate things happening, and it took far too long to tie them all together, which made the book jump around all over the place and become confusing. There were also a very limited number of characters, which meant that even if you couldn't figure out who the guilty party was from the storyline (which was fairly easy to do), you could pretty much figure it out by process of elimination since there weren't many choices. Most of the main characters didn't come across as particularly likeable or intelligent, which also made it hard to feel for any of them. A decent enough read, but by far not her best work.
Rating: 
Summary: Wendy Corsi Staub is the new Mary Higgins Clark
Review: My first book by Ms. Staub was The Last to Know. I remember, while reading, that her writing style is similar to MHC. Both have a talent of including a host of characters in their books and somehow finding a way to tie all of them to the plot. Since reading The Last to Know, I have read all of Ms. Staub's books. Kiss Her Goodbye was a good read. I didn't figure out the killer until the killer finally identified himself. But all the clues where there and I kicked myself for not picking up on them sooner. I've read several of her books under the name of Wendy Markham and I have to say I enjoy her suspence novels better.
Rating:
Summary: Staub is a Star
Review: Such a great read! Kept me up well into the night. Highly recommended read. Staub has the ability to write a well thought out mystery that keeps the reader guessing until the end.
Rating:
Summary: An Okay Read.
Review: This book was okay but it wasn't anything to write home about. I found one of the main characters, Kathleen, to be so obnoxious that I could hardly get through the book. It jumps around a lot so often times I'd find myself getting aggravated since the plot wasn't stable at all. The ending was sort of lame, but it wasn't a horrible read. I just wouldn't be running out to buy the book.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic--read it in 2 days!
Review: This is the second book I read by Staub. It was one of my recommendations from Amazon.com, because I purchased the Mary Higgins Clark books. Keep those recommendations coming! I could not put this book down, and it kept me guessing until the end of the book. It's also a good adult book for young adults, and I will be recommending it to my 8th and 9th grade students who like Clark. I did pick up on some of the editing mistakes mentioned by another reviewer, but the action and suspense more than made up for them.
Rating:
Summary: Great Suspense Read
Review: This was my first book by this author and I will read more for sure. Easy to follow characters, lots of stuff happening throughout the book definitely kept me wondering who done it!
Rating:
Summary: SOMEWHAT OVERWROUGHT BOOK
Review: Wendi Corsi Staub's KISS HER GOODBYE is a clever, if somewhat overwrought, mystery. It's a little too long, and the shifting narratives and POV's keep it from being as effective as it could have been.
One of the main problems is Jen Carmody, the focal teenager. Once she finds out she has been adopted, she is unnecessarily cruel to her adoptive father, Matt. Surely the girl after 15 years should know whether or not her father loves her. Her reactions, while questionably comparable to a 15 year old, make her a very unlikeable character, and it's hard to feel any real fear for her.
Staub does well in keeping you guessing as to who the culprit is, throwing in a few red herrings along the way. The characters of John and Lucy, while an integral part of the storyline, are never really fleshed out enough to feel sympathy for them, either.
But, the bottom line, is: did it keep me interested? Yes, and it's ending is a surprise, even though you'll slap your head and say, "I Should have known." That's what makes Staub's books so interesting---she does surprise you!
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