Vivian’s job as an analyst in the CIA’s counterintelligence “vault” is about to become the greatest nightmare she will ever know, all because she did her job and uncovered a Russian spy sleeper cell on U.S. soil.

Not only has she hacked into the computer of a suspected Russian handler, she has uncovered the agents under his charge, but her “hack” did not go unnoticed and now she is caught between keeping her family safe and becoming a traitor to the country she has taken an oath to protect and defend. As her life unravels before her, she looks back on her past and realizes that not only has she uncovered Russian spies, but she may have slept with the enemy.

Karen Cleveland pours on the drama, shattering one woman’s sense of security while sending her plummeting into a dark world of spy versus spy. When her family is threatened, she becomes a lioness on the hunt, but even a lion would be no match for a pack of wolves and jackals. Is Viv prepared to play Russian roulette with her life? Who can she trust? Like Liar’s Poker, how much is she willing to bet on her gut instincts?

NEED TO KNOW by Karen Cleveland will reel suspense and espionage fans in from page one. Not sure if you are a fan? Trust me, you will be after reading this tangled web of love, lies and consequences as one woman attempts to outwit the Russian spy network that threatens not only her country, but her very heart-her family.

I received an ARC edition from Ballantine Books!

Publisher: Ballantine Books (January 23, 2018)
Publication Date: January 23, 2018
Genre: Suspense | Espionage
Print Length: 304 pages
Available from: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
For Reviews & More: http://tometender.blogspot.com

All I can say is WOW! I believe this is the authors first book and she definitely hit it out of the park. This is an espionage thriller with one twist after another, I couldn’t put it down. I couldn’t decide if the husband was a good guy or just a really good liar. The ending was a surprise to some extent, but I did have my suspicions. She couldn’t have done a better job tying up the end of the story. I will definitely check this author out if she writes another book! The rights to this book have been sold for a potential movie. It will make a great one, I will definitely go see it. Thank you to net galley for an advanced readers copy of this book for a fair review.

What a thriller!! Kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time!!

Vivian, wife and mother of four, is a CIA Analyst working on infiltrating a Russian cell through a cell leader's computer. She comes across a picture and her whole life as she knows it comes in to question. What would you do to protect that life? The life of your loved ones. Cleveland has created a character that is relatable and one that you root for in Vivian. The story takes off and never stops with the sense of urgency. One of the best Thrillers I've read all year.

Copy provided by the Publisher and NetGalley

This is a book that will make you want to read it slowly to enjoy the story while simultaneously wanting to binge-read it to know how it ends. It is a thriller with a strong storyline that pairs the current day story with the gradual unveiling of Viv and Matt’s history. ‘Need to Know’ follows Viv’s career at the CIA and how it impacts her personal and family life. It offers something that few other spy thrillers offer: a female spy first person point of view. This is a great book for readers who have enjoyed Chris Pavone’s books, and I look forward to more books from Karen Cleveland.

This is a great espionage thriller that drops the floor out from under the reader several times, and keeps you reading until the end. The twists and turns were interesting, and the author does a great job of making the characters seem like real people. The stress and pressure of working in the intelligence community while having a family was real, there's a reason spies are always alone. It really highlighted how easily any of us could be manipulated with the right leverage. The main character could have been a bit smarter, had more agency, as it always seemed like she was on the back foot, reacting instead of acting, but that's a small quibble for a fun read.

Need To Know is a remarkably well-written thriller by Karen Cleveland, who spent eight years as a CIA analyst focusing on counterterrorism. She clearly knows of what she writes as every sequence of events seems entirely realistic. And worse, plausible.

"Sometimes," she begins haltingly, "we think that shielding the truth will protect those we love the most."

Vivian Miller works for the CIA, particularly uncovering information regarding Russia. From the very beginning, we feel her shock as she comes across a folder entitled Friends which belongs to a handler named Yurey. She opens the folder to discover that one of the faces is very familiar to her.

It is the face of her husband.

What she does with that information, how she strives to protect her children and be faithful to both her country and her family, comprises the novel in its entirety.

It is a gripping novel, one that had me turning pages as rapidly as I could. It is one of those rare thrillers that makes you lose the sense of time and place as you seek the conclusion; dreading, but suspecting deep down, that what you are afraid is the truth will in the end be revealed as truth.

Need to Know brings into question what we accept as truth, and how far we will go to protect those we love.

Or, even ourselves.

I honestly don't know how I feel about this book.

I enjoyed the premise and plot...i had to keep reading to the end to find some redemption.

While I look forward to a continuation of the story / series - I found this to be little slow, especially since I didn't care for the characters. I really found the heroine TSTL with few redeeming qualities.

WOW!! Need to Know by Karen Cleveland was an amazing read. A brilliantly written story full of twists and suspense. A page turner for sure! You'd be crazy not to have this title in your library.

Fast-paced, entertaining, and original if not trying a bit too hard to be something that it's not. The main protagonist in this novel can be easily understood by every mother who is just moving too quickly in today's world. However in the end the story unravels as too unbelievable and trying too hard to leave one on the edge of one's seat instead of just giving the reader a pleasant send off from this beach read.

If I discovered that my husband of a decade isn't even close to who he claims to be and his truth goes against everything I've ever worked for and believed in, would I hang around even for the sake of our kids? Until it happens to me, I can't say for certain, but I seriously doubt it. But get pregnant by accident not once, but four times? Oh, hell no!

Such were my reactions as I read this otherwise totally engrossing debut novel that already is, according to several reports, slated to become a motion picture starring Charlize Theron. But setting aside my feelings that a professional woman like successful CIA analyst Vivian Miller simply couldn't, and wouldn't, make this many dumb decisions, I really, really enjoyed this book and all its psychological drama.

Vivian, you see, is trying to ferret out a Russian sleeper cell. One fateful day, she makes a breakthrough - and discovers the photos of five spies who are operating in the United States. Great news, surely; and for four of the five, that's true. The identity of one, however, chills her to the bone - bringing her entire married life into serious question and threatening the lives of her family, including the four children she shares with her much-loved husband Matt.

Now that she knows, she must wrestle with what she will do about it; at least the first quarter of the book deals with her angst in trying to rationalize her decision either way. Once she makes it, of course, there will be no turning back, and her life - and those of her husband and young children - will be forever changed (for better or worse).

Finally, she makes her choice, and from that point on, things turn exciting. Throughout, Vivian continues to fret over every word, action and facial expression coming from everyone around her, but the action is inescapable and the twists (most of them surprising) keep coming right up to the end.

As other reviewers have said, the book is reminiscent of FX TV's popular series, <i>The Americans</i>; visions of stars Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys danced through my head throughout whether or not I wanted them to. I also can see potential for the movie, and it might be interesting to see how the story translates to the big screen. I'll probably pass, since I'm not much of a movie-goer (especially if I've read the book). As for the latter, I absolutely recommend it and offer sincere thanks to the publisher, via NetGalley, for the opportunity to read and review an advance copy.

My problem with this book is varied. I began with high hopes, liking the premise of the book (CIA agent learns incriminating news about her much loved husband and father of her four children - what should she do?) I love spy novels so figured this one was in my wheelhouse. Unfortunately, I tend to be fairly critical, as I have read many government-type thrillers (ie. Child 44 if you want a seriously good Russian spy novel) and I also tend to be fairly feminist in my desire for more timely portrayals of women in today's world. The female lead, Vivian, has been with the CIA for years and we are supposed to believe that she is an important and valued member of the spy team vs. Russia. Yet she consistently behaves in an outrageously naive, might I even call it 'stupid,' manner. I found her behavior to be completely unbelievable in the context of the story. Why is it necessary to have the men be wily, manipulative, and brilliant spymasters, and yet leave the female to be shown as gullible and unintelligent, allowing her emotions to rule the day? Aargh, very frustrating and not at all what I want in my lead female roles in a spy novel. I understand the author was likely playing to her audience; I think I am just not part of that crowd. It is a page turner, but in the end I don't want a man to 'save' the woman from herself; I want Cinderella to kick some serious ass and show that brains and wile can outsmart anyone.

Meh. That's how I felt after I finished this novel. It wasn't great but it wasn't terrible. It was just meh. I couldn't sympathize with the character of Vivian, and the flashbacks were driving me crazy. I was expecting a spy thriller and to me this just did not deliver.

At first I was afraid a novel about Russian spies would be dry and overwhelmingly technical. Never fear with Karen Cleveland’s debut political thriller NEED TO KNOW. It’s hard to put down. The pace keeps pushing you forward through Vivian Miller’s first person perspective. Vivian is a mother of four, happily married to the seemingly perfect man, and she’s been assigned the best job a CIA analyst can get: Russia. Ballantine Books didn’t have to gamble too much in Cleveland as a debut author with this pitch. She also worked for years at the CIA and is a mother clearly with a talent for writing thrilling fiction.

I also worried that today’s political climate with evidence of Putin’s Russia fixing our 2016 Presidential election, that I would perhaps carry my real life anxiety over to my reading hours. I was fortunate. I was completely immersed in Cleveland’s version of the US and the metro DC area. I didn’t think I’d see Russia become our enemy again after we got past the 1980s, but here we are.

Vivian’s self doubt about every single choice she makes in life is heartfelt and honestly was tangible. I felt Vivian’s stress at work. I felt her stress at home. I understood her desire to want to believe the words spoken by people she cared for in her daily life.

There’s a mole in her office and the signs start to point directly back at Vivian. When her Top Secret software application called Athena finally breaks into a Russian’s computer, Vivian’s world is never the same again. She finds exactly what she set out to find: the identities of sleepers in Yury Yakov’s cell. Russians who have been in the states for so many decades that they blend in. They have jobs, families, retirement funds. All the things people are expected to have. Her findings are so painful when she recognizes one of the faces in the photos.

You the reader will volley back and forth just as Vivian does with wanting to believe in the good in people. Everything comes to a head the moment Yury and his ringleader begin to threaten Vivian and Matt’s children. Viv may hate guns and spend long days behind a desk, but no one, absolutely no one gets away with threatening her children. She questions how she could be so naive trusting people. It begins to look like every single person she’s had in her life has crossed a line to betrayal — either against her directly or the country.

The questions and doubt keep right on coming all the way through the Epilogue to the last page. It’s magnificent in its portrayal of anxiety, stress, and I will caution here for sensitive readers: a flashback about a miscarriage.

This book definitely gives you many exciting moments and while there are parts that you look at and can possibly see coming there are plenty that you won't. I definitely would recommend this book to anyone as the writer did a phenomenal job of setting the story up and delivering. I can't wait to see what comes next especially with the ending.

Holy guacamole, this 📚 is off the charts!

Whether you are into political thrillers or not, I highly recommend you grab this book, as it is so much more than that! I typically shy away from this genre, unless it comes highly recommended or has high ratings, which this absolutely does. This has to be one of my top 5 fav books for this year.

It reads quick like a novella, (my ebook came in at 219 pages) and there isn't a wasted word in these pages. The subject matter is so relevant to our world today, and being able to take a peek into what goes on in the CIA felt very real. And a bit scary, to be honest. <i>*The author was a former CIA Analyst, specializing in counter-terrorism, so her insight is hands on and it shows. *</i>

But that's the nuts and bolts of this story. What really got me hooked was how the author was able to create the tension and paranoia, so that I was right there with Vivian questioning everything I was reading. What is the truth? Who can you believe? Who can you count on for help? Do you go with your heart, or do you listen to your gut?

This plot is intricately woven, every possible scenario well thought out and executed perfectly. Every time I thought I found a loop hole, that door was quickly shut and another opened, taking me down a new path of possibilities. And the ending? Absolutely brilliant!!

I can't believe this is a debut novel. Coming this strong out of the gate, she has big shoes to fill for book #2, which I will be eagerly anticipating!

ARC provided by NetGalley

She works for the CIA and works on detecting spies. She's married, has children and life is good. At least it is until she finds out her husband is a Russian sleeper. She should turn him in but she can't. She loves him...

Ballantine Books and Net Galley allowed me to read this book for review (thank you). It will be published January 23rd.

When she talks to him about it, he admits it. Her world falls apart. It just gets worse. She tries to protect him and then the Russians begin to blackmail her into being an inside person in the CIA. She does something that won't damage much, but the threats escalate.

This is a cat and mouse world with death hovering around the edges. She believes in him but I'm not sure she should. They live through this crisis but I don't think her troubles are over yet.

With lots of suspense and tension throughout the story, this author keeps you reading. It's a scary look at how things can turn out even with the best of intentions. Who do you trust?

The protagonist is too wishy washy. She's an analyst yet misses the most obvious clues. And the ending is overly contrved. The premise is good it just didn't meet its full potential.

I loved this novel but I hope "Viv" does not become another "Sally Serial". With that said this is the "Americans" tv series but twice as good!! I loved it

I am so conflicted about this book. There was a lot I liked about it but at the same time, so much I really didn’t.

I thought the book was well written and the basic plot of the story was interesting. The fact that the author herself was a CIA analyst for several years added an air of authenticity to the book. And at times the suspense was incredibly intense.

Unfortunately, there was a flip side to all the good. I really disliked all the emphasis on the main character’s family. I understand why it was part of the story but it changed the whole feel of the book. I thought this book was going to be more of a straightforward thriller but instead it was more of a mashup of a thriller and a women’s fiction book. It was so touchy feely. All the flashbacks of her pregnancies, how much she loved her husband and kids, etc; it just droned on and on. But, I gritted my teeth and read on.

I am glad I finished the book because the ending made slogging through all the silliness worthwhile.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.