For five years, a man named Tony has worked on a ranch in Montana and lived with two kids in a house rented from the boss man, Nick. They are on the run from a crime family, the kids' father and grandmother, and now Tony realizes they have been located and it's only a manner of time before they are captured. They go back on the run, heading into the mountains first by horses, then by plane, but the bad guys are not far behind and there's a blizzard is moving in. Can they make it to safety in time?

This is an edge-of-your-seat tale of survival. An action/adventure story, pitting good against evil. But as Brennan says in her Acknowledgements, at its core, it's also a tale of family, forgiveness, and hope. I enjoyed these characters, my favorite being Nick, the rancher, who is brave and honorable, and not quick to judge. The grandmother however is a really evil piece of work!

This is my first taste of Allison Brennan's writing and I'll definitely look forward to reading more of her books. I received an arc of this thriller from the author and publisher via NetGalley. Many thanks! My review is voluntary and the opinions expressed are my own.

North of Nowhere is a standalone novel by Allison Brennan. The book is packed with action and suspense as we weave through the tale of a crime family. Boyd McIntyre is the next in line for the family business but he must find his children first. His best friend and partner in crime abducted them years ago and Boyd has finally found their hiding spot. His plan spins out of control when he realizes he is not the only one after his kids.

I really enjoyed this book.

There's a lot- a lot-going on in this fast paced novel about a family with, shall we say issues. Boyd is a bad guy while his sister Ruby and his kids Kristin and Ryan are not. Kristin and Ryan have been hiding out but their peace is about to end, just as very very bad weather hits Montana. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. This isn't deep and it's often over the top but It would be great for travel.

A highly entertaining albeit sometimes implausible thriller set in the mountains of Montana. Picture a family on the run from the mob, only to discover that mob is truly the family and truly the mob. Toss in a massive blizzard, a plane crash, and lots of bullets flying and you have the genesis of the story. There’s more…. So much more… but you’ll have to read it to find out!!! Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this one!

Thanks to Macmillan Audio for the ALC.
This book is action packed and doesn't stop from beginning to end. Now at the beginning, there is a lot going on, but I found once I got going, it was easy for me to keep all the different characters straight. I also found that the balance between the present action and the necessary insight was handled perfectly. I don't always need extreme depth to my characters, yet there is enough here to make me care about these kids and everything that is going on around them. This book takes place during a blizzard and is very atmospheric. It was the perfect backdrop for a book filled with tension and unease.

Kristen and Ryan were in hiding with Tony and then for for an LA family that had millions due to drug dealing and other nefarious activities because The mother Maggie was murdered and Tony was blamed he was also a wanted fugitive there ain’t ruby wanted to be nothing like her lawbreaking family so she entered the army for seven years and then went to college and married a cop Trevor who was eventually murdered
Because no one leaves the family unpunished. After living in big sky Montana for five years Tony is used to seeing knowing who the locals are so when he sees two guys in a vehicle with California plates he knows Boyd has found them. He makes a mad dash to a hidden Cappin but unfortunately he is shot during their getaway and eventually when bored catches up to him he is murder leaving the two children to fend for the self on the day of a blizzard in time is running out. I had such high hopes for this book and although it was good I don’t think it was great. It was a lot of talking and walking and have a lot of different people involved in this chase to find the children that was the local sheriff Paxton, Her aunt Ruby, Nick Lorenzo and his son Jason NLA detective her dad Boyd his cousin Theo and two local goons that he hired and on and on I was waiting for some really great cat and mouse activity but as I said although it was entertaining it was still kind of disappointing. Not every book is going to be for every person and I just think although I’d love this authors books this one just wasn’t for me. I want to think Net Galley and the publisher for my free arc copy please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.

The two children of a mob boss find themselves being hunted by their dad. I thought this might have more mystery elements like many of Brennan’s other books but it was pretty much like an action book from the start. I also don’t love mob themes but that’s just my personal preference!

After five years in hiding from their murderous father, the day Kristen and Ryan McIntyre have been dreading has arrived: Boyd McIntyre, head of a Los Angeles crime family, has at last tracked his kids to a small Montana town and is minutes away from kidnapping them. They barely escape, but are caught deep in the wilderness with a storm approaching. Their Aunt, who is NOT part of the crime family sets out to help them. Can they all come together and get away?

Allison Brennan's North of Nowhere is allegedly a standalone thriller that takes place in Montana. 16-year-old Kristin and her 10-year old brother Ryan McIntyre, who is deaf, have been hiding away from their brutal crime family for 5 years with Tony Reed after Kristen witnessed her father killing someone, and also saw her own mother killed while trying to escape the family. The kids father, Boyd McIntyre, has been searching for the kids, and has finally found them after following the trail of Boyd's former best friend, Tony Reed, who was also his second in command.

Boyd’s plan is to kidnap them back but in the ensuing mêlée, Tony is shot and he and the kids get away in a private plane which soon thereafter crashes. Tony desperately sends Kristin and Ryan ahead into the woods for help – and, unwittingly, directly into the crosshairs of an upcoming storm and groups of both friends, and enemies who are urged on by money and revenge. One of the friends, is none other than Ruby McIntyre who spent 7 years in the military after she ran away from her despicable mother Frankie McIntyre who rules the family with an iron fist.

Ruby has her own reasons for staying hidden as her ex-fiance was likely killed because he got hold of evidence that could have put both Boyd and his mother Frankie away for life. The final party is Nick Lorenzo - a local rancher who hears about the crash and seeks to save the kids without knowing anything about their situation - his son Jason, who grew close to both Kristen and Ryan in the 5 years they've spent on the ranch. Meanwhile, enemies from the past are after Kristen because she witnessed something that changed her life, and forced her into protecting herself, her brother, and Tony. None of them know that Frankie McIntyre – the kids’ grandmother – looms large over the picture, and she will do anything, including, setting killers to bring the kids back.

Thoughts: Although the author does a fairly decent job filling in the blanks to what really happened to Kristen, Tony, and Ruby, I would have loved a prequel to dig deeper into why Boyd was allowed to be released from prison early. I would also have liked to know more about Ruby and her fiance Trevor as well as Tony's relationship with Kristen's mother that got this whole story started. As much as I hate snow, this story would have lost something in translation if the key characters weren't forced to survive a major snow storm that puts everyone in the same dangerous environment.

One of the thing I agree with other reviewers is Kristen's deep seeded hatred of Boyd and the fact she thought that Ruby had intentionally left Kristen and her brother behind to deal with the family dynamics and the awful things that resulted. Boyd honestly thought he was the hurt party in everything that happened. If Boyd wanted to actually be a good father, he could have taken Kristen and her brother and ran as far as he could from his controlling mother. Overall, this is an action packed thriller with a cast that comes close to 10 people being involved in telling the story.

Allison Brennan’s latest standalone, NORTH OF NOWHERE, is an adrenaline-fueled action suspense crime thriller in a race against time during a blizzard as two siblings fight for survival to escape a murderous crime family.

Kristin (Kris-16) and Ryan (11-deaf) McIntyre have been hiding from their murderous father, Boyd, head of a LA crime family (McIntyre organization) for five years.

He has tracked the kids to Big Sky, Montana, where they have lived with Tony Reid. Tony had done everything to protect them, and they considered him their father. They always had a backup plan, knowing one day Boyd would come for them.

Plan B was a remote cabin more than three hundred miles from Big Sky with enough food and wood to last them all winter until they could disappear again. Plan B is where he would steal his boss's twin prop and fly to Ennis, land in a field, steal a car, and head to the cabin near the Canadian border, swapping out cars—same endgame, different path. Time was not on his side because he had to get them out before Boyd arrived.

Tony knew Boyd would kidnap the kids and kill him (out of their sight). Tony was his former best friend and partner. Boyd wanted to punish Tony.

Five years, two months, two days. That was how much time Tony had stolen from Boyd.

Things do not go as planned. The plane crashes, and Kristen and Ryan find themselves on the run in the Montana wilderness with a blizzard on the way. Their aunt, Ruby (Boyd's sister) has been in hiding too; however, she is alerted by Tony's employer, Nick, that something is amiss, and she and Nick Lorenzo head out to rescue them.

Boyd and his men are in pursuit and will stop at nothing to bring them in. Will they be able to reach the kids in time?

The impending blizzard, predators, and a team of killers are after them. Boyd has hired a tracker to find them. Who will find them first?

NORTH OF NOWHERE is a complex, twisty, action-packed wilderness adventure thrill ride with heart-pounding suspense. Told from multiple points of view, Kristen, Tony, Boyd, and Ruby and a cast of supporting characters —all the while not knowing who to trust.

A story of survival, adventure, and mystery. At the core of the story is family, forgiveness, and hope.

Atmospheric, the Montana setting is a character; vivid descriptions and the weather, wilderness, and snowstorm blizzard compound the suspense. I enjoyed Nick, his son, Ruby, and the Sheriff. My first book by the author, and I look forward to reading more.

I read the e-book and listened to the NORTH OF NOWHERE audiobook narrated by Eliza Foss for an engaging performance read with tension and suspense.

Thank you to Minotaur Books and Macmillan Audio via NetGalley for a gifted ARC and ALC for an honest review.

Blog Review posted @
JudithDCollins.com
@JudithDCollins | #JDCMustReadBooks
My Rating: 4 Stars
Pub Date: Aug 8, 2023
Aug 2023 Must-Read Books

North of Nowhere is a solid thriller set mostly in the middle of a doozy of a Montana mountain blizzard. Kristen and Ryan and the father figure in their lives have been found by the people they ran from 5 years ago. As they are trying to escape to safety, the small plane they are using to get away goes down in a mountain lake. There are many characters involved: good, evil and somewhere in between. Plus the storm. .it was a pretty straightforward plot, but the number of characters and their varying motivations made it a more complicated story. Lots of messages about loyalty and betrayal, family and friends, strength and weakness. A very readable book.

North of Nowhere by Allison Brennon

Starting out with a bang and ending with a satisfying conclusion, it’s the middle of this story and here I lost interest. The many questions which came to mind were answered in bits and pieces and sometimes too soon to keep up the suspense.

Kristen and little brother Ryan were kidnapped from their father who endlessly searches for them for five years. Family friend Tony has them and refuses to give them up, though bio dad is hot on their trail in the Montana wilderness.

The chase is the story with lots of players trying to outrun a bad snowstorm. The addition of new characters adds new problems for escape or rescue. It’s a great premise for a story, but the writing just didn’t capture me.

My thanks to #StMartinsPress and #NetGalley for the ARC to read and review. I rate this three stars and suggest it for mystery aficionados.

North of Nowhere is my first Allison Brennan book and the premise sounded good, with two kids who may or may not have actually been kidnapped running from their father and some bad guys into a snow storm. The book started out strong with an exciting escape in a "borrowed" plane that crashes after being shot at on takeoff, unfortunately then I felt that it lost its way a bit with too many characters with unknown motivations. I think my biggest problem was that if you're going to bring in a bad-ass aunt who escaped the crime family and literally parachutes into the action, she should have far more to do in the story. Thank you to St Martin's Press, Minotaur Books and NetGalley for the early listen in exchange for my honest opinion.

Thank you for allowing me to read this book as an ARC.
What a spellbinding fast paced thriller!!! Each page is packed with action, there is never a dull moment i could not put this book down. I kept reading and reading because I had to find out what is happening next.
I had not read anything by this author prior but will most definitely be looking for her other books!
All the characters in the story also fall perfectly into place and I could easily picture each one of them and how they fit into the storyline. The way Ithe reader can visualize everyone and also the landscape and scenery takes a special talent. This author surely nailed it.
Great book and a solid 5 🌟 imo.

Allison Brennan was a new-to-me author with The Wrong Victim, but she quickly became someone whose books I knew I had to keep reading. With North of Nowhere, she brings a fast-paced wilderness thriller to life. I enjoyed the plot (enough that I stayed up entirely too late to finish the book), but I did feel as if the large cast of secondary (sometimes extraneous) characters could have been pared down to make it less confusing to the reader. I also would have loved a deeper dive into Ruby’s backstory with her brother and Tony, perhaps as a duet rather than one longer novel. After reading the author’s acknowledgments, I realized she intended to focus on Kristen primarily, so maybe that could have been the idea for a duet: the McIntyre women who made it out and how they did it despite Kristen never really knowing Ruby’s story.

All in all, it’s a very good read that will have you hooked and transfixed from the outset. However, if you’re looking for any romantic elements, you may be disappointed as there is only the hint of a possible romance between the younger characters. North of Nowhere helped cement my desire to continue reading more of this author’s work—definitely a strong four-star read.

NICUnurse’s Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Lots of intrigue propels this story forward at breakneck pace! Kristen and Ryan, ages 16 and 11, live in Montana with Tony, the man they call dad. Their real father Boyd is a mob boss in Los Angeles who Kristen saw kill a man when she was only 10. Tony managed to get them away after their mom was killed, and taught them kids survival skills. But then Boyd finds them, and it's time to flee.
Now they're on the run in the Montana wilderness, with a posse of killers after them, and a winter storm causing whiteout conditions. And…Action!

This book was a little bit of a struggle for me. I really enjoyed that this book was nonstop action packed. Winter storm, lost in the woods, with gang involvement. The snowy atmosphere and the brutality of the family really makes it feel hopeless for escape. The problem for me was the story got a little repetive and long.
2..75 stars

Thank you to Minotaur Books and Netgalley for my gifted copy

North of Nowhere by Allison Brennan is a book that takes you into rugged, remote Montana in the middle of a blizzard.

"Tony has been protecting Kristin and Ryan from their father, Boyd, for five years. Boyd is part of a crime family with a large criminal enterprise. Not the best environment for the kids. It looks like they've been discovered living in Montana. Tony borrows a plane to escape but is shot down and crashes miles from the airstrip. Kristin and Ryan manage to free themselves from the wreckage and try to run to a cabin Tony set-up as a safehouse. To get there they must fight the weather and avoid Boyd and his goons as well as an unknown someone who also shot at the plane. Tony's boss, Nick, and Nick's son, head out hoping to find them. Their Aunt Ruby also drops in to help.
Who will find them first?"

Feels like the first two-thirds of this are setup for the ending. There are a lot of moving pieces. It's almost overwhelming at times. But the ending makes up for it when all of the characters come together. Some will make it - many will not. I like the big curveball that Brennan throws in the plot - one I should have expected. The story doesn't move the way you might think.

Great bad guy in Frankie - a truly terrifying character.

A good story overall from Brennan.

As a fan of a few of Ms. Brennan's series, I looked forward to this stand alone. And I liked it, a lot!! There is sure a lot packed into this singular story of 2 children on the run from their crime family. The hunt takes place in the middle of a snowstorm on the mountains of Montana. While I understand how a storm can help and hinder a game of hide and seek like this, I did struggle a little trying to place everyone running around on the mountain and how they did or did not run into each other. But, I loved how the reader was able to read the characters internal thoughts and how each tried to decipher whom to trust or not trust. I think there was one small plot that never got resolved, or I missed it as I was reading as fast as possible to find out how the story was going to conclude. I would suggest starting this book when you know you have a lot of time to keep reading because it is one of those "oh just one more chapter" kind of reads.

North of Nowhere by Allison Brennan is a tense, race against time to find two siblings who are being hunted by their criminal father in the Montana wilderness. Kristen and Ryan have been living in Montana with their “father,” Tony, who is hiding them from their criminal family. The McIntyre’s have been hunting high and low for the kids for five years and Tony and Kristen have been preparing exit plans the whole time. One morning, Tony notices strangers in their small town and knows that their time is up. Tony and the kids take off, but plans go out the window when their small plane goes down and a storm is on the way. Now, the kids are being hunted by their father and his goons, local law enforcement, the man and his son who they have befriended in their new life, their estranged aunt, and a stranger who wants to kill them. Who will get to them first? Not only is it a race against dangerous people, but it’s also a race against the weather.

This book has a lot of twists and turns and tense action! I enjoyed all the different plot lines and different characters with different motives. It definitely kept me on the edge of my seat until the end!