Mary Higgins Clark Short Stories

Where to Find and Read Mary Higgins Clark Short Stories

Most people who come looking for these have already read her novels and want to fill the time between books with something shorter. That's reasonable. Her short fiction isn't as well known as the novels, but it exists in several different collections, and tracking down the right edition can be annoying if you don't know what to look for.

I ran into this myself recently. I wanted to compile a reading list for someone who asked me about her early work, and I discovered that two of her short story collections go by slightly different titles depending on the printing and region. One is called Someday, Somewhere, which originally published in 1978. Another is Trespass, from 1987. There's also a later collection titled Remember Me? from 1995. A few retailers list these under slightly different names, and some older paperback editions drop short stories from later reprints. I ended up cross-referencing three separate bibliographies and checking WorldCat to verify which stories were in which editions. It took longer than it should have. Here's what actually works for getting your hands on these, sorted by convenience: Audible audiobook editions. This is probably the easiest route. Audible has full narration of her short story collections, and the narrators are genuinely good — not the generic AI voices they started pushing a few years back. The Remember Me? collection is fully available there. You pay one credit per item through the subscription, or you can buy individual titles. If you already have the Audible membership, this costs essentially nothing extra beyond your monthly credit.

Kindle eBooks. Amazon carries most of the collections. The Someday, Somewhere collection sometimes appears as a standalone Kindle edition, but more often it gets bundled into the "Mary Higgins Clark Collection" box sets. If you just want the short stories and not 400 pages of novel material, make sure you're buying the right SKU. The Kindle versions run roughly $4 to $8 each. Sometimes they drop to $2.99 on sale. Paperback originals from used bookstores. This is where the pricing gets interesting. Trespass and Someday, Somewhere both have multiple print runs. A used copy in decent condition on AbeBooks or eBay typically runs $3 to $6. But here's the thing nobody tells you — some later printings of Someday, Somewhere are missing stories that appeared in the first edition. I learned this the hard way when I bought a 1990s reprint and it had four fewer stories than the listing claimed. Always check the table of contents against the original publication date before committing. Library copies via Libby or Hoopla. If your library has these, they're free. The wait times are usually short — less than a week — since these aren't the most requested titles. A physical library copy is often cheaper than buying a used one once you factor in the time you spend waiting for shipping.

Which Collection Actually Has the Good Stuff

The short answer is they're all competent but uneven. Clark's real strength as a short story writer is the domestic thriller angle — the kind of premise where someone's ordinary life gets turned upside down by something hidden. She does it with economy. Her stories are usually 20 to 40 pages, which means she doesn't waste time on setup. The standout collection for most readers is Remember Me? It includes the story "The Lady in the Car," which is one of her tighter pieces of suspense writing. The title story from Trespass is also solid. The Someday, Somewhere collection has some of her earliest work and shows the style still forming — some of it feels like draft material for the novels she'd publish shortly after. Here's something people miss when they approach these: Clark's short stories are structurally very similar to her novels. They open with a normal situation, introduce a threat or mystery within the first few pages, and escalate quickly to a confrontation. If you've read Where Are the Children? or Let Me Call You Safety, you already know her rhythm. The short stories just compress that same arc into a smaller space.

Common Problems When Buying These

The biggest issue I've seen repeatedly is duplicate purchases. Several of these collections have been re-released by different publishers over the decades. HarperCollins, Signet, Ace — they've all put out versions. The stories inside are the same, but the formatting and sometimes the selection of stories differs. If you buy one from Amazon and another from Barnes & Noble without checking, you'll end up paying double for essentially the same book. Another problem is ebook availability. Not every short story collection has been converted to digital. Some older Signet paperbacks from the 1970s and 80s simply don't exist as eBooks. If you're dead set on reading a specific story that only appears in a now-out-of-print collection, your options are a used physical copy or interlibrary loan. If you're starting out and just want the best introduction to her short fiction, I'd recommend Remember Me? It has the broadest availability across formats, the stories are consistently strong, and it's the collection most likely to be in a library near you. From there you can branch out to the earlier work if you want to see how her style evolved.

I don't think any of these require more than an afternoon to read. That's the point of short stories, really. You pick one up, finish it before dinner, and decide whether you want another. Clark writes efficiently enough that even the weaker stories are over before you get bored.