Holy page turner, Batman. This is such a good book. Thanks Netgalley for the ARC. I have no clue what I would do in her situation. ( )

Really exciting, easy to read spy thriller. Sometimes strains the boundaries of suspension of disbelief, but a fun read for an afternoon. ( )

I got this book as an ebook ARC from NetGalley a long time ago. I just checked and it was published back in January of 2018 so it really was a long time ago. Dang. I sometimes really suck at the "advanced" portion of the ARC deal...

Anyway, I waited so long that I was able to enjoy the audio version. And I did enjoy it. The narrator did a good job - a very nice job - and I was sucked into the story pretty quickly. I thought I knew where the book was going but there were some twists and turns that made the experience even more than I expected. I don't normally read spy books but I'm glad I picked this one up.

My only real issue was that the ending was pretty anti-climactic and felt like it happened a bit too easily and quickly. It didn't take away from my enjoyment overall though.

OKAY! Scratch that. That'll teach me to start my review while still listening to the ending. I thought I was listening to the epilogue but I wasn't. :-)

So if you haven't read Need to Know yet because you meant to but your TBR pile got away from you, here's your reminder!

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for putting it on my radar! ( )

Need to Know is one hell of a book! I'm especially happy to say that it did fulfill all my expectations!

What do you do when you, through your job discover that you are living a lie? That this discovery will threaten your life, your husband life, and your children's lives. That is what Vivian Miller discovers one day at her job as a CIA counterintelligence analyst. She is running a program trying to discover Russian sleeper cells in the US. And, she succeeds. And this starts off a living hell for her.

One could really feel with Vivian in this book. Her whole life is in ruin and she is now having to make serious decisions, protect her family and betray her country? Or turn in all the information she has and by that destroy her family.

The story is tense and captivating and I loved reading the book. I thought the ending at first was a bit too "Hollywood". A bit too cheesy and happy, well I thought so until I realized that the author had one more surprise in store. Wow! What an ending! ( )

I didn't put it down once I started it. Each chapter ends with a thrilling twist that keeps you reading. It was good and I should rate it 3.5 stars or round up to 4 but it really is just a basic mystery novel and doesn't really compete with a 4 or 5 star book. ( )

I received this book as an advance copy from NetGalley and so glad I did! I rarely give 5* but this book deserves it. Wonderful writing and, while I thought I had things figured out (I was right), the plot was tricky enough. ( )

This was an incredibly tense read. What would you do if you were were a CIA analyst and found out your husband of 10 years, with whom you have four children, has been a Russian spy for 22 years?

Vivian Miller does what she can to keep her family safe. Surprise ending! ( )

Full Review: Thank you so much to Random House and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review this thrilling spy novel by Karen Cleveland. I squealed when I saw I was approved to read this. I have been enthralled with the idea of Russian sleeper cells and the real/not-real dilemma any relationships that might form as they try to assimilate into American lives ever since seeing the first season of “The Americans.” And this AMAZING offering by Karen Cleveland absolutely lived up to everything I had hoped for.

Without giving too much away, because half the fun of this novel is the clever way Cleveland whips you around one shocking corner after the next, Vivian is an analyst working for the CIA on a project to uncover Russian sleeper cells—Russians who have been posing as Americans and can speak fluently with no accent. She and her husband Matt have been married for ten years and have four kids. When new information is decoded, Vivian is in for the shock of her life.

The majority of the novel is spent handling the fallout, and also answering questions like what do you do when your life is being ripped apart? It’s easy to think we would make one choice when we think of things in black and white, but Karen Cleveland does such a brilliant and nuanced job of illustrating the bleakness of the way monsters operate, and how when your back is against a wall, you might find yourself willing to consider things you once considered unthinkable. Just brilliant work.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from the author.

Please excuse typos. Entered on screen reader. ( )

Hahaha.
Wait a sec, lemme just roll my eyes first.

Anyways. One good thing about this book was that no one was called Grigor Andolov or Foma Kinyaev or any other pseudo-Russian barely-Slavic nonsense. Thank you, Karen Cleveland, for the real, normal and believable Russian names.

And that's it.
The rest is bad :)

I don't even know where to start with our dumb dumb dumb protagonist who is supposed to be this super clever, algorithms-creating CIA analyst but who is just… dumb.
She works ‘the Russian account’ but doesn’t even speak the language. Although forget the speaking, she doesn’t even read Cyrillic.
She cannot manage to properly delete a file or doesn’t realize the CIA probably, just probably is tracking all user activity on their computers. I mean... That’s the CIA. Hello.
Apparently she also cannot use contraception properly because she and her husband whine and whine about not having enough money and time for their family but have four (FOUR) kids.
Also the tech details (hahaha) were so incredibly deep and specific, as in “i checked the drive - how? - i ran the diagnostics” or “i turned the active mode on” or “i created another algorithm (in like 2 days) which will find every Russian sleeper in the US”.
Oh my.

And surprise of the year (aside from the fact that the CIA does track the user activity): I was reading the acknowledgements at the end of the book and not having found even one mention of CIA / FBI consultants was like “ah, yeah, of course, now it makes sense”, and THEN I read that the writer herself used to be a CIA analyst. TADA!
How come that the book still reads as if the author just watched a couple of B-list spy movies and went from there, I have no idea. ( )

This is a tough one to review. Parts of the book have you sitting on the edge of your seat, while other parts seem to drag on endlessly. Overall very enjoyable with a few unexpected twists, but also with quite a few predictable moments. ( )

It had been years since a book kept me up all night - but Karen Cleveland writes "page-turners" so well - I couldn't put it down!. With her CIA background - you are left wondering how much truth is in her books. ( )

Originally the book grabbed me and about half-way through it dragged. I feel like there was repetition but I can't point to specifics. I have forgotten almost everything except the ending was intriguing. ( )

I am very excited about the release of this debut spy thriller written by former CIA analyst Karen Cleveland. I was lucky to receive a digital advance reader’s copy a few months ago and have been recommending it for a while for customer holds.

The reviews have been mixed, so all I have to say is that I stayed up until 1 a.m. two nights in a row, work nights (!) in order to finish it. I don’t read books to find the faults; I read them for pleasure, and this one fit the bill for me.

The main character, Vivan, is a married CIA Analyst (natch) with four young children. She works for the Counterintelligence Center, Russia Division, which is searching for agents who are running sleeper cells in the U.S. During the course of her research, she discovers something ominous that directly affects her family, and that is where the book really takes off. Written in the present, with flashbacks to her relationship with her husband, it is almost impossible to stop reading.

Even Lee Child says, “Prediction: If you read chapter one, you’ll read chapter two. If you read chapter two, you’ll miss dinner, stay up far too late, and feel tired at work tomorrow. This is that kind of book. Superb.” I have to concur with his statement on this book, as that is exactly what happened when I read it.

The author does a fabulous job of ending many of the chapters with bombshells that left me gasping. The suspense and tension in this book were so high that at times I covered my eyes with my hand with just enough room to peek between my fingers at the text I was reading! That was really a first for me in the hundreds of books I’ve read as a bibliophile and librarian. I wanted to skim the pages at times to get to the next part of the story. My emotions were all over the place while reading it, and I even read the ending three times, just to let it all sink in. It’s not without a few flaws (plot holes), but the story was so enjoyable that I happily overlooked them when I saw them. Need to Know will make a great movie, and I’m pretty sure it’s already been optioned. I’m always so impressed with debut authors who pull of such great first novels. Highly recommended! Happy Reading!
( )

Gaslighting: the novel. I liked the premise enormously, but it makes me crazy to see men convince women they should ignore their instincts. ( )

If Vivian Miller is the type of counter-intelligence analyst we have working in national security, we're in deep doo-doo. She's a real dum-dum. I wanted to slap her upside her indecisive, "mommy-brained" head once I was into the story. She uncovers something shocking after hacking into a Russian spy's laptop. Now who can Vivian trust? Certainly not her husband Matt, right? Well... we don't know. There's too much repetitive and boring self-examination of her married life. Without specifics on her work (she creates algorithms) at the CIA, it was hard to be drawn in -- it's less thriller and more family drama. The heart of the Russian spy story is slow to build and pretty sketchy. She doesn't speak Russian and yet she's a major player on this counter-intelligence team? Ridiculous. How much convincing about what she uncovers does Vivian -- a supposedly high-echelon national security analyst -- need? She certainly doesn't show much analytical smarts. Author Karen Cleveland does a lot of irritating "tell" about how Viv and Matt care about their kids, ad nauseum, and not enough "show," making the twists and the unveiling of her flat characters' true selves rather underwhelming. ( )

Having just caught up on The Americans, that’s all I could picture while reading. It gave me anxiety more than a thrill. Will definitely be a decent film, especially with Charlize Theron as Vivian. ( )

Really well written story regarding a CIA analyst (and a mother) fighting for what is best for her family. ( )

The hype that brought me to this book was mostly accurate. It is fascinating to read a novel about a CIA analyst, written by someone who was a CIA analyst for a decade. The premise - what would you do if your work to uncover suspected Russian sleeper cells in the US identified your huaband of seven years and father to your four children as a suspect. I suspect that, as the book unfolds, there will be a complex hiw-do-I-get-out-of-this? plot.

Unfortunately, this book is not for me. The pace is slow. The emotions are too wholesome. The characters are vamilla. I expected more anger and more scepticism. There's too much motherhood and apple pie here for me to enjpy myself.

After two hours of a nine hour book, I've decided that I don't Need To Know. ( )

What a scorching debut! I read this via The Pigeonhole so read this in 10 staves over 10 days but I definitely think that this would have been a book I would have read in one sitting. It was torture waiting 24 hours for the next instalment after being left on so many end of chapter cliffhangers and I even set my alarm 30 minutes early so I could read the last instalment before going to work. It really is THAT good and I don't want to inadvertently reveal any of the plot so I'm going for a brief review.

Need to Know is a book that constantly has you questioning 'what would I do?' as Viv cracks a Russian spy's computer and sees her husband's picture among his assets. What would you do? Call your boss and destroy your family or hit delete and go home to your husband, the spy? What a moral dilemma for Viv and it's easy to say you'd do one or the other until you're actually presented with the same situation. I didn't blame Viv at all for her actions although could see her getting deeper and deeper into a hole from which she could never climb out of.

My huge question was 'can Viv trust her husband, Matt?' and I changed my mind over and over again. I went from yelling 'don't trust him' to thinking that their whole life couldn't be a lie...could it? The whole book reminded me of a series of 24 with the suspense and tension building with each chapter, so I wasn't surprised to learn that Universal Studios have acquired the movie rights to Need to Know. If it's half as good as the book, it'll be AMAZING!

Need to Know is an edge of your seat suspense filled thriller that begs a follow up and consider me on my knees begging you for a sequel, Karen Cleveland. A 100% definite 5 star read; do not miss this book!

This is my honest and unbiased opinion of my first, but definitely not my last, Pigeonhole book. ( )

2.5 Stars. This is a basic Political Suspense novel, and the only real twist is that it should be listed under the Women's Lit genre rather than Suspense. I had no idea that this was going to be about women's issues, i.e. having a miscarriage, being a mom, the guilt about being a working mom, etc. I am a woman, I am working mom, and yes, these are all valid issues but not ones I wanted to explore in this type of a beachy escapism novel. And not only that, none of these things really helped the story.

Additionally, I agree with a another reviewer who said the main character is mind numbingly stupid. Which brings the whole idea of suspense to a screeching halt. There was no suspense. I had all of the plot "twists" figured out about 1/2 way through.

There are a lot better suspense novels out there to read by the beach or pool, so don't waste your time on this one. ( )

This was mass market rubbish, pedestrian and predictable. Unrelatable - no, unlikeable - characters, thin plot, absurd denouement - pretty dismal really. I did hang on until the end, so that's something, I suppose, but how I regret the time I wasted on it now. ( )

Really? Everyone loved this? Totally predictable, God how I detested the main character. Ugh. It was compelling, if two dimensional, I'll give it that. ( )

"A dedicated CIA counterintelligence analyst" makes a lot of uninformed choices about her work and her personal life without much intelligence or analysis. Throughout the book, I just felt like Vivian was being manipulated by her husband after she discovered that he had been working for the Soviet Union for most of his life. ( )

Not a perfect book, but a fun book. It's probably on really worth 4.5 stars. I kept turning pages as fast as I could read them.

Great book for fans of the TV shows Homeland and The Blacklist. Like those shows, the main character is a female government agent that has to deal with a huge change in her life due to her job and the choice she makes there.

This book is almost a clean read besides a brief instance of violence. I didn't notice many (if any) swear words and there is no mention of sex. ( )

Vivian Miller is an elite CIA analyst working to uncover Russian sleeper agents in the US. She has four beautiful children and a seeingly perfect husband. On day at work while looking at files, she discovers that her husband of ten years just may be an undercover Russian operative. Just what lengths she will go to protect her family which is everything to her and, most importantly, just how much of her relationship with her husband is an outright lie. ( )