When Day Breaks

Written by Mary Jane Clark

Narrated by Isabel Keating

Eliza Blake, veteran of the morning show and now the anchor of the KEY Evening Headlines is suddenly thrust into the spotlight when Constance Young, the undisputed star of morning television, is found at the bottom of her swimming pool. Eliza is committed to finding out who wanted Constance out of the way, and why.

But the mystery runs deeper than anyone expects. Why was Constance wearing a precious artifact and where is the missing treasure now? Eliza soon learns that Constance has more enemies than she could ever have imagined. The closer Eliza gets to unmasking the murderer, the closer she gets to becoming the next victim.

Eliza marshals three KEY News co-workers to help. Annabelle Murphy is able to switch from producing to investigative work at a moment's notice. B.J. D'Elia contributes brains, brawn, and a much-needed male perspective. And on-air psychiatrist and recent KEY News hire Dr. Margo Gonzalez has a frightening propensity to figure out what suspects may really be thinking. Together they come to form the ""Sunrise Suspense Society,"" relying on each other, their ingenuity and courage tested to the limit, in this nail-biting media thriller in which everyone is a suspect, and every word is a clue.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperAudio
• Release date: Jun 5, 2007
• ISBN: 9780061450853

Mary Jane Clark

Mary Jane Clark worked at CBS News for nearly three decades. Her twelve KEY News media thrillers were inspired by that experience. Envisioning the Piper Donovan/Wedding Cake mystery series, Mary Jane enrolled in cake-decorating classes and researched unique wedding locations. The daughter of an FBI agent and a mother who customized cakes for the neighborhood kids when she was growing up, Mary Jane has two grown children and splits her time between New Jersey and Florida.

Reviews for When Day Breaks

[leahboyer · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Constance Young had a great career; a rising star in tv news. When she decides to change networks, she is found dead in her pool. Eliza Blake is determined to solve the murder mystery. She enlists the help of co-workers to find the answer.

[leahhenderson · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Constance Young had a great career; a rising star in tv news. When she decides to change networks, she is found dead in her pool. Eliza Blake is determined to solve the murder mystery. She enlists the help of co-workers to find the answer.

[lyndainoregon · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The drowning of a television celebrity in her home pool causes an uproar which becomes a firestorm when it's revealed that she was murdered. Colleagues at the television station manage to bumble their way into identifying the murderer, but not until well past the time when Careful Reader has already sussed it out.

This book is listed as the first of a series.

[tymfos · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Even without reading the description on the dust jacket, it's pretty obvious, from the start, who is going to get murdered in this book. Beneath her down-to-earth public facade, Constance Young is your stereotypical selfish, egotistical celebrity, and her enemies are legion -- hence, the available pool of suspects is even deeper than the swimming pool where her lifeless body is found.If Carolyn is a stereotype, so are many of the supects. We have the fanatic who is in love with her, the assistant who has been constantly browbeaten by her, the author whose life seems ruined by her predatory reporting, the arrogant producer who feels betrayed by her move to another network, the long-suffering sister who has been abandoned to care for their elderly mother alone, and the usual assortment of professional rivals in the TV industry. Thiis is one of the weaknesses of the book. Even the apparent "good guys" (or gals) seem more shallow stereotypes than living, breathing people. I didn't feel I really got to know any of the characters in the course of the story, with the possible exception of Eliza.The plot itself was a decent mystery, which moved along at a fairly quick pace; but there were no plot twists that really took me by surprise. I must say, I did not guess "whodunit" until the very end, when the author (with a rapid series of revelations) was obviously ready to allow readers the satisfaction of figuring it out just before she made the guilty one totally obvious.I found this to be a fast-paced, competently-written mystery, but nothing special.

[mreade_5 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I finally finished When Day Breaks last night. It wasn't that it took me long to read, I just had a few things on my shelf ahead of it (including The Best of Friends).I enjoyed it. I really liked the Eliza character and wished there was more about her and her daughter and Mack. I take it I'd probably get more if I read more books in the series. I liked the suspense of the story and liked the clues that were left behind as to the killer's identity. I will confess that I don't usually put too much thought into whodunit while I'm reading. Oddly I'm much more compelled to do that when I'm watching a mystery on TV.There were many many characters in the book. I found there were a few too many to keep easily straight. I should have kept a list going. I have written in my Bookography the names of at least 8 which I felt were essential to the plot. That's really too many to get to know well in any given book.Was it just me? Did anyone else find they wished they had a cast of characters to help them keep it all straight? (I'm embarrassed to admit that at the funeral I was still struggling to place everyone...especially I remember wondering who Jason Vaughan was)