Mary Jane Clark Books In Order

Publication Order of KEY News Books

Publication Order of Piper Donovan / Wedding Cake Mysteries Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Mary Jane Clark is one of the famous American authors who has written a couple of highly successful novel series based on the suspense genre. The first 12 books written by her in the beginning of her writing career are media thrillers and were influenced by the experience of Mary Jane in the broadcast journalism of over 3 decades. Besides the suspense novels, she has also written a few novels based on the Mystery & Thriller genres as well. In most of the novels written by Mary Jane, she has plotted murder mysteries which get investigated and eventually solved by the main characters depicted by her in the novels. She typically describes each of her primary characters as working for the KEY News, which is a fictional news world of the television created by her in her novels. After getting immense success from her suspense and thriller novels, author Mary Jane has decided to shift her focus towards writing wedding mystery novels titled, ‘The Wedding Cake Mysteries’. This novel series features an actress who later becomes a wedding cake designer and gets involved in several murder cases throughout the course of the series. The murder instances described author Mary Jane are typically meant to prevent the wedding ceremonies from taking place.

The other well known suspense novel series by her is titled ‘KEY News’, which also features several suspenseful plots throughout each of the novels of the series. Author Mary Jane Clark was born as Mary Jane Elizabeth Behrends in the year 1954 in The United States. She is the daughter of a special agent who used to work for the FBI and is famous for uncovering the espionage of the Russians at the time of the Cold War. Later, he worked on the kidnapping as well as extortion cases. Due to these professional activities of her father, the interest of Mary Jane in suspense began from a very early age. She went on to graduate from the Immaculate Heart Academy located in the Washington Township, Bergen County, in New Jersey, in the year 1972. Initially, author Mary Jane had the intention of working for a television news agency and hence, she earned her degrees in political science and journalism from the Rhode Island University. After completing her academic studies, Mary Jane began her professional career working as a desk assistant at the headquarters of the CBS News located in the New York City.

With the passage of time, she gained a vast experience and eventually became a writer and producer. The books written by author Mary Jane have been translated in more than 23 foreign languages worldwide. As of today, she spends her time in her homes located in Hillsdale in New Jersey and in Florida. She is blessed with a couple of beautiful children. Her daughter named Elizabeth is an actress while her son named David is suffering from the Fragile X Syndrome, which is a form of developmental disability. Author Mary Jane lives happily with her sweet and loving family. Apart from writing novels, she supports a non-profit organization named FRAXA Research Foundation. This organization works in the scientific research works related to finding a cure or a treatment for the developmental disability that her son suffers from. The former sister-in-law and mother-in-law of author Mary Jane are also quite popular American authors known by the names Carol Higgins Clark and Mary Higgins Clark respectively.

The Wedding Cake Mysteries series written by author Mary Jane Clark consists of a total of 4 books published between the years 2010 and 2014. Apart from the 4 novels, she has also written and published a couple of novellas in the series. All the novels of the series deal with the life of the central character named piper Donovan, who is described by the author as a struggling actress. Donovan goes on to leave her job as an actress and takes up the job of running her family business, of making wedding cakes. The first novel of the Wedding Cake Mysteries series was published under the title ‘To Have and to Kill’. It was released by the William Morrow publishing house in the year 2010. The plot of the novel is set in Manhattan and New Jersey, and revolves around the happenings in the life of the main character named Piper Donovan. In the opening sequence of the plot of the novel, Piper Donovan is introduced as an actress turned decorator of wedding cakes. She used to experience a hard time living in Manhattan, and therefore, she has returned to her parents’ home in New Jersey. Piper begins to help her mother in running the family business of making wedding cakes and gets asked by her friend named Glenna Brooks to make a lovely cake for scheduled wedding. But, the wedding gets ruined because of a murder which makes Piper Donovan determined to investigate the matter and protect her dear friend from getting harmed by the killer at her wedding.

One of the other initial novels of the series is titled ‘Footprints in the Sand’. It was published by the William Morrow publishing house in the year 2013. The plot of the novel deals with the plans of threatening a romantic wedding at the beach as the bridesmaid gets disappeared. Just like in the previous novels of the series, Piper Donovan comes forward to solve the mystery in this novel as well. In the opening sequence of the plot of the novel, the time period of the dead winter is depicted in which the struggling actress and the decorator of wedding cakes, Piper Donovan is excited to go to the romantic and warm beach of Sarasota in Florida. She goes on to enjoy the white and sandy beaches, the golden sunsets, and the soothing seas of the Gulf of Mexico. Piper Donovan has joined her family to the exciting place in order to attend the wedding ceremony of one of her cousins.

For the wedding, she is given the task of preparing the dollar festooned, sugar sand wedding cake, apart from being the maid of honor. However, the happy occasion takes a tragic turn when the bridesmaid goes missing mysteriously. An Amish teenager witnesses the whole event of the running off of the neighbor’s car, but is threatened to keep quiet. Later, a dead body is discovered from the beach. All the hopes of the family fall on the shoulders of Piper Donovan as she is expected to carry out the investigation and unmask the killer. She suspects a number of people to be the murderer, including the wedding planner, a doctor in the wedding, the best man, as well as the stepfather of her cousin. Piper Donovan also does not let go of the fact that the bridegroom might have planned his own disappearance for some benefits.

2 Responses to “Mary Jane Clark”

1. Mariette Feldman: 2 years ago

   I have read every book written by Mary Jane Clark & was wondering if there will ever be any more. It has been a long time since the last one was published.

   Reply
2. Christina Corn: 3 years ago

   I have read all your books and was wondering if you are going to write any more books? I really enjoy the way you write. Thank you.

   Reply