Allison’s life is turned into turmoil when she gets the news that her husband has been brutally killed and that she is under investigation for being a part of his drug trafficking; her assets are frozen, the police have searched her home and she has nowhere to turn as her parents are deceased and mother in law has never liked her. Allison is confronted with having to repay her husband’s drug debt while balancing her life, her daughter, the police and the druglords. . Some of what she does to resolve everything might make a great movie, but was a little extreme for me to fathom which is why I rate this a 4 in lieu of a 5. In the end, Allison and her daughter realize what’s actually important in their lives and work together to start over. Thank you NetGalley for an advance copy of this novel and thanks also to the author and publisher.

I enjoyed the book as a whole, even through the beginning was a little bit slow and full of many people to try and keep up with. You weren't sure if anyone and everyone discussed was going to be part of the twist and turns. I did enjoy it. There was a lot of profanity otherwise I did enjoy it.

This book was definitely a page turner and I actually really enjoyed it. I just didn’t care much about what happened to the characters in this book, but definitely recommend if you are looking for a good psychological thriller.

I was given this book for an honest review. This book was ok. Not really anything exciting until the 3rd to last chapter. I never really felt anything for the Allison or even Sarah. Allison's husband was a jerk and Allison seemed to live in a bubble to have not noticed anything with her husband! Poor Sarah was winey though pretty typical for a teenager. I never figured out how old Allison was. I normally would have read a book like this very quickly but this one took a long time.






















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2.5 stars

This is a fast-paced read, which I appreciated. However, it was also predictable and repetitive, which took away from the overall enjoyment of the story. I didn't care for the daughter, which made it hard to care about whether or not she was saved.

Trigger warning: murder, drugs

Not a bad read but a bit to predictable and repetitive for me and it was a book where I thought have I read this before or something similar but it’s very readable ..

Blown had me from the beginning. It's Allison's story. She, her husband Tom and their daughter Sarah lived a life in the fast lane. They had money and all the bells and whistles of a wealthy family. But Allison was unfulfilled. They were a member of a country club where she didn't fit in. She had a witch of a mother-in-law who hated her, and her relationship with her daughter was unraveling. And then Tom ended up murdered.

He had been a drug dealer, which Allison knew nothing about. The police had had him under surveillance for some time and Allison was none the wiser. One day a package was delivered to her. It was a cell phone with a voice message telling her where she needed to go. It frightened her and she threw it away. Eventually Tom's handler, Goliat, caught up with her and told her that Tom owed him $125,000 and that the debt was now hers. Because the police had frozen all of her bank accounts and credit cards, she had no money. So Goliat convinced her to take over Tom's clientele. She was afraid, but she did it.

And then the DEA contacted her and promised to get her out from under the eye of the police because they thought she knew about her husband's dealings. They also praised her a new identity and relocation. All she had to do was lead them to the key players: Goliat, the Priest and Rottweiler. The DEA agent suggested that she take on a bigger role for Goliat, which she did. He told her she needed to deliver a large sum of money to the Priest along with one of his guys, Julio. They travelled to Mexico where the Priest lived,and made the delivery. While there, Rottweiler showed up and there was a shoot out. All three of the Priest's guys were killed, and six of Rottweiler's men were killed, along with Julio. While Rottweiler was trying to convince the Priest to see things his way, Allison took a broken piece of glass and stabbed him in the thigh. It turns out that he was the one who killed Tom. While he was agonizing over the stab wound, the Priest shot him. While all this was going on, the DEA was outside having a shoot out with Rottweiler's men.

Allison wanted to get out of there, so she stole the Priest's Mercedes and drove to a place that Jake, a close friend of Tom's, told her to go to. Jake had praised to help Allison out as an unpaid debt to Tom. Jake had left an old car for her and a prepaid cell phone. She drove to the designated spot on Humboldt. It was a marijuana farm owned by Jake's friend, Chip. Jake had new driver's licenses and social security cards for Allison and Sarah. She decided to stay there and work for Chip. Her relationship with Sarah worked itself out and they were closer than ever.

They left behind their pretentious life and her miserable mother-in-law, the woman who had threatened to take Sarah away from her. All in all, they had a good life. I really enjoyed this book. I liked the fact that the characters were believable. I could see this situation happening in real life. It was a good read.

This was a fast-paced read. I liked the characters for the most part and the writing was superb. My biggest criticism is that it got awfully repetitive in places.

A thriller full of twists and turns, as well as phenomenal pacing. I really enjoyed this book. It was a great mix of intrigue and edge-of-your-seat writing. While most of the characters were complete jerks (to the point of annoying me), I still enjoyed seeing the MC try to survive and protect what she loves.

What I liked:
- The main character was pretty solid. While she didn't have any particularly likable traits, she did feel relatable and proactive.
- The pacing was excellent. Every time I went to read it, I found myself going through thirty pages really fast. It never felt like it was dragging or full of filler.
- The story itself is pretty good, though I wish we got a chance to see her husband when he was still alive, so we can form some kind of opinion on him earlier. A lot of it is just taking other characters' words for it and it felt a little...empty. However, this wasn't a major issue.
- The writer wants you to hate the villains (of which there are many of every type) and they do a good job of it

What I didn't like:
- The daughter was insufferable. She had maybe two out of thirty scenes where she was being nice (or rather, not a complete jerk). Since the whole story hinges on wanting to protect her, I wish the character had at least one redeeming quality. She is bratty, rude, and incredibly selfish. I am aware that teenagers, in general, may act that way but it's so extreme that it made me wish she would be out of the picture.
- It was a bit tiring to have nearly every character be evil (especially in the first half). Luckily, this changed in the last quarter (and worked to help you be unsure who was on who's side) but it can be tiring to have the MC constantly be battling bratty people all the time

Overall, it was a good story with phenomenal pacing. It isn't anything groundbreaking but for a thriller about dealing drugs under pain of death, as well as showing a mother trying to protect her daughter, it did a great job. I would recommend it to be people who love this genre.

So, I finished this book feeling slightly disappointed. I’m glad I persevered with it, as I did almost give up on it but I think the story as a whole was worth reading

I loved Once Upon a Crime and I thought this book was be just as good. I was definitely let down by this novel. The storyline seemed repetitive and just not there. The characters just didn't seem to be built up as much as other novels and the main characters were not memorable. This particular novel didn't stand it to me as much as other novels.

Blown is a fast paced mystery thriller featuring secrets, family relationship.

Alison's life went upside down when her husband was murder, and somehow involved with drugs dealing and gang. Grieving for the loss of her husband while all of her accounts are frozen, Alison struggle to keep her head above water.

There are times where I find Alison's character annoying, as sometimes her actions are super immature and irresponsible.
Besides that, she associates with toxic friends, constant argument and disagreement with her mother-in-law, plus I often find that her relationship with her own daughter--Sarah is unhealthy at some point

Trigger warning: murder, drug usage, violence

This book was sent to me by Netgalley electronically for review. It is a mystery with murder and much intrigue…was her husband guilty? How would she and their daughter survive? Not to mention a vengeful mother in law…friends…pretend friends…drug lords…money gone…themes running throughout the book…the language was rough…something I see no reason for…the story intriguing…

4* Decent intro to this author, but I would've liked to see what happened to the MIL from hell!

This tale started off slightly slow then raced off and never paused. I wasn't expecting that Alison would turn out to be as hard as she was, or be as cool under pressure, but I think it was a question of needs must.

Not everything got explained - Jake, who played a big part in how Alison and her daughter's lives panned out, exited, and there was no mention of Miguel, who turned out to be a more decent character than I first expected. He had hopes of going to MIT or some such uni, but come the end of the tale, he was absent. The MIL from hell needed her comeuppance and then some. I wanted to find out about the detective who tried to coerce Alison into helping and the DEA agent and whether Alison would be looking over her shoulder for the rest of her life. Yes, I know that some tales don't end with everything dotted and crossed but this is where the tale lost the 1* for me.

ARC courtesy of Sterling & Stone and Netgalley, for my reading pleasure.

I want to start by saying I don't care for the book cover very much. If I judged this book by the cover I wouldn't have been interested in reading it at all. The book starts off pretty slow but it ended up being a really good book! It was such a good book that I even ended up reccomending it to my grandmother and my aunt which is something that I rarely ever do. I really loved how descriptive the author was with the characters. By the middle of the book I had felt like I knew the main characters on a personal level. This was my very first time reading a book by this author and it definitely will not be the last. Thank you for letting me read and review this book I really do appreciate it!

This book was a little different than I thought it was going to be?! Not sure if I read the blurb correctly?! When it started out I almost started a different book but I'm glad I stuck with it! This storyline was very interesting, it had the usual, suspense, intrigue, and a bunch of bad guys and very few good guys! Lol but I really enjoyed reading this one! I will definitely recommend reading this book! It was well worth reading! Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for sharing this book with me!