Not By Blood is an enjoyable read and the first book by Chris Narozny written without a partner. His writing and plotting skills kept me turning the pages until I finished the book in two or three sittings. I admit, the dark and gritty opening chapter made me hesitate to go further, but I decided to continue to give the story a fair reading, and I'm glad I did.

The story construction makes this book reader-friendly after the opening chapter. It's told in first person POV in linear fashion. Beginning, middle, end. There are no past/present chapters told in multiple POV to confuse the reader. The protagonist, Tina, is intelligent, realistic, and capable. (Sidebar--I loved that Tina actually ate food when she got hungry. This reviewer has read too many books where the female protagonist doesn't eat, day after day, claiming she's "not hungry." Give me a female protagonist who enjoys a burger now and then, and I'm a fan.)

Not By Blood includes twists and turns I never saw coming, and the author ties the loose ends logically. The ending is satisfying. I'll be on the lookout for Narozny's next release.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for providing an ARC to read and review. This review will appear on Bayside Book Reviews at https://baysidebookreviews.com and its Instagram page on release day. Follow us! *NetGalley Top Reviewer*

Tina Evans is sent on a wild chase to find her addict brother after a phone call one night. The book follows Tina as she's looking for her brother to get him out of trouble meanwhile uncovering a plethora of family secrets.
For some reason the plot just didn't keep my interest as much as I hoped. While full of twists, at times, they were confusing or I felt like I've read similar plots before.
It's a quick read little thriller. But not my favorite.
Thank you Netgalley, publisher, and author for the ARC.

This was a wild ride. A sister trying to help save her heroin addicted brother. Finding him missing with a dead body left behind. Her fight to find him, all while her husband is recovering from being run over by a driver that fled the scene, along with a son she left her adopted brother to protect during this time. Twists and turns that show the strength of a broken family.

I really enjoyed this book. I did figure the ending early on, but I found myself not even caring if I knew. Tina was determined, strong woman. I would really enjoy a sequel.

Thank you to NetGalley, Crooked Lane and Chris Narozny for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley, Crooked Lane Books and the author for this eARC.

Tina is a paramedic with a traumatic childhood but a solid adulthood - a nice husband, a son, and a stable income. Her one weak spot is her addict brother, who calls for her help at the beginning of this n0vel. However, she doesn't find him at the promised location - just his sketchbook and a dead body. This leads her down a wild lane of many revelations and unsaid truths.

The plot is solid and would make for a good book, not the most original, but nevertheless an exciting read to keep you up at night. The story is fast paced and immediately grabs a hold of the reader. However, the compliments I can offer have to end here - I found most of the characters bland and uninteresting, aside from our narrator, who is paranoid at best. And I don't mind unorthodox characters at all, but this one just seems badly written to the point where I was rolling my eyes at all the conspiracy theories I read in span of 3 pages.

Are there ever true coincidences? Are the people in your life always who you assume them to be on the surface? Addicted brother, jailed dad maybe with ties from the inside, husband in a coma and a detective found shot to death…

This was an excellent debut THRILLER novel. Being this is not his first book, but first thriller.

Short which makes it an easy read. It did hold my attention but it wasn’t one of my best reads ever. The middle did kind of lack something but it the story did hold suspense. It definitely had the potential to be little more.

If you like addiction, crime, thrillers, murder, secrets, lies and traumas, give this book a chance. It was a good story overall and I do feel he deserves some praise.

I can see a future in thriller for Chris at this pace.

Thank you, NetGalley, Crooked Lane Books and Chris Narozny for providing this ARC to me in exchange for unbiased and honest review.

Not By Blood is set to release - 7/18/23

It was good a good book. Nothing more, nothing less. I hate saying that because I want to give raving reviews on every book I read, but this one was lacking in the plot somehow and I can’t put my finger on it. Then again, that may just be me, and it’s not my type of mystery/thriller, I’m not sure. I’d tell others to give it a chance though.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Crooked Lane Books for an advance copy of Not by Blood, a stand-alone thriller set in New York.

Tina Evans’s brother Bill asks her to rescue him from a drug den in Brooklyn, but when she gets there he isn’t, instead she finds the dead body of a private investigator. She’s about to call the police when she gets a text saying “shhhh”. This sets her on a hunt for Bill, worried that he has something to do with the murder of the investigator.

I thoroughly enjoyed Not by Blood, which is an event packed novel with plenty of twists and turns. It is not a long novel, so the author uses his space well with little wasted. It is told from Tina’s first person point of view, giving the reader a close up of how the events affect her and her thought processes. I must admit that I wasn’t overly impressed by how she thinks as she is insistent on interpreting the facts to fit her predetermined narrative rather than the other way round. Her lack of clear sightedness is annoying, but part of why the novel is billed as a psychological thriller.

It may also irritate some readers that there is no explanation, not even a hint of one, until much later in the novel of why this is happening. It’s not just Bill’s disappearance and a dead investigator as there is further violence and some strange happenings. I found it all intriguing and encouraged me to keep turning the pages. The answers lie in the past and I’m not quite sure it’s convincing that all the characters have monstrous at worst and indifferent at best parents, who have shaped their children’s psyche. Still, the journey to these answers is tense and fast moving.

Not by Blood is a good read that I can recommend.

Thank you to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for an advanced copy of this ebook.

Chris Narozny made a splash with this debut psychological thriller. This book actually kind of gave me ‘Last Thing He Told Me’ vibes with more danger, more complicated characters and WAY more thrill.

The characters are complicated and thoroughly developed. Many have suffered through some sort of trauma and we can see the different ways trauma can help to shape a person. I think this was done very well.

The beginning of this book really sucked me in - so many exciting things happened so fast. Then unfortunately from approx the 10% - 70% mark it was just clues piling up. I think it would have helped if there had been a twist, a more suspenseful element of danger or even maybe some answers given in this period. I definitely lost some steam because it was just mystery with nothing really given until the very end which made it feel a little slow and then like everything was thrown at you at once.

Overall this was a solid (and quick!) read. Great debut and can’t wait to see what else Narozny puts out.

Thank you to Netgalley and Crooked Lane Books for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I think it's important to say that I'm in the minority with this, as currently there's a ton of 4 star reviews for this book, so it definitely seems to have hit more with other people. The writing was definitely good, and kept me going. However, I felt like I was being plopped in the middle of a story from the very beginning. I just kept getting told information, and it made the "twists" ultimately very easy for me to spot. I feel like if the book pulled back to just a little bit earlier, before the call (like maybe if we have the prologue of what's happening with the call, then go earlier) it would have been more enjoyable for me. Getting to know characters like Paul, or Tom, or Bill would have helped a lot. I just didn't really care about the Tom subplot because the guy is unconscious for most of the book, and we don't even really have any flashbacks about him, so I didn't care about whatever it was he was doing. Some of these characters could have easily been replaced with inanimate objects for their purposes in the book and my level of emotional attachment to them, when I think there could have been easy emotional tugs with our main's brother and husband.

I think there's a book that I could have really loved somewhere in here, but the book just doesn't go into enough depth for me to get into it.

Thanks NetGalley for the ARC of Not by Blood by Chris Narozny

I really enjoyed this novel, I think he wrote a great story and was surprised this was his first novel. It had a great story line, a good number of characters and they were well developed. The story moved at a good pace, at no point was I bored, I didn't want to put the book down.
The main character is Tina, married with one son. She heads out one evening to look for her brother who had a drug dependency, not successful in locating him, she comes home to find that her husband is missing and has left their young son alone in the middle of the night. We follow Tina through the novel as she tries to piece together who is out to get them.
I'm looking forward to Chris' next novel, i hope he writes another. I would highly recommend this novel if you like mystery, and suspense.

I have to start by saying, the cover of this book is misleading, in my opinion. It has a gothic horror feel to it, not a sister turned amateur detective feel. I know, I know. "Don't judge a book by its cover." Well, I am. And I do. Now that that's out of the way...

This book had so many characters in it and moving pieces, it was often hard to follow. I found myself having to flip back pages to reread a section just to figure out exactly who someone was. This made the final scene lackluster and villain hard to empathize with. No one had any real depth. The story line- basically a sister trying to help her strung out brother- should pull on all the heart strings. This did not. I was left yelling at the main character numerous times for making really dumb decisions. Like continuously leaving her 6 year old son with others.

All in all, the twist was ok. The writing style was alright and I loved the short chapters. It was middle of the road for me. Not horrible but definitely not one I'll be thinking about later.

This book grabbed me from the start and didn't let go. Lots of interesting twists and tie ins to people' s past traumas. It was not predictable .Characters with traumatic childhoods ,struggling siblings and hard decisions to make ..talk about a good no the best thriller ever .Much appreciation to Net galley and the author

Not By Blood by Chris Narozny is a twisty debut thriiler.

An entertaining story that kept me reading late in to the night.
I thought this was an intriguing and suspenseful story.
Narozny's characters are well developed. The plot was well-constructed.
I enjoyed his characters in this book. They are strong yet flawed and endearing.
This new novel is a whirlwind of suspense from the get-go!

"I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own."

Thank you to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for my ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Book Title: Not By Blood
Author: Chris Narozny
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Pub Date: July 18, 2023
My Rating: 3 Stars!

Tina Evans receives a call in the middle of the night from her brother, Bill Morgan saying he needs help. This call is no shock to her – Bill is an addict and he has made many similar calls in the past twenty years.
He gives her his address and says he’ll be waiting on the curb. When she gets there, he is not there. She goes to his apartment and waits. While waiting a guy Samuel stops in and says Billy asked him to take care of ‘Dumb Jake’. Since he isn’t there Samuel takes her to where he might be. As he is probably sleeping it off. Sure enough he is there! Samuel doesn’t seem to notice that ‘Dumb Jake’ has been shot. He offers to make Tina a sandwich. While he is gone, Tina does a quick search of Jake’s pockets for ID. She discovers he is Jake Bickert a private Detective with Empire Investigations. She also finds the detective’s phone which has her husband's number listed with several missed calls.
How her husband is involved with this detective and where is Bill?

I love psychological thrillers and yes I was surprised with the bad guy.
I was hooked from the beginning, I always say I perfect ‘plot’ driven stories but unlikeable characters sure can mess up a plot for me. Tina and her ‘f-bombs’ sure made it hard for me to like her. I found her unlikeable and SHE is the protagonist in this story!!
On the positive side I will read another Chris Narozny novel!

Want to thank NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for granted me this early eGalley.
Publishing Release Date scheduled for July 18, 2023

Well, first book of 2023 and I'm pretty satisfied with it. Nothing too cliched, plenty of unexpected forks in the road and despite clocking a major reveal early on, there were plenty of other complications to whet my appetite. Quality writing and some clever commentary from the main character, adding humour and insight.

Not sure about the cover image, now that I've finished the book. It doesn't evoke the heart of the story for me.

I received this arc from netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

This was an average read for me. I definitely didn't really see the comparison to Karin Slaughter, because of that I expected this to be much darker than it was, and I also didn't see a similarity in writing style. The story itself was pretty solid, slightly predictable, and not the most original. It could have benefitted from multiple POVs to help with the pacing because the middle was quite boring. It's a quick read though and definitely entertaining if you're into thrillers.

A fast paced chilling story with twists and turns galore. Keeps you guessing till the very end. Well done characters that take you deep into the seedy underbelly of humanity. Dark and gritty and twisted. A great read

Not By Blood, an upcoming novel by Chris Narozny and published by Crooked Lane Books is all about the mystery disappearances and accidents of the near and dear ones of the protagonist Tina. Bill Morgan, protagonist's brother disappears in the dead of night leaving just a SOS call to guide his younger sister Tina. The way characters appeared made a typical baseline of a mystery thriller. The involvement of cops and prisoners enriched the essence. Tina Evans [protagonist], wife of a "very" rich developer tracks down her brother while caring and attending to her husband who had been hit by a car. The accident, which is very much related to the disappearance of Bill or to the person responsible for the disappearance. Bill's and Tina's childhood was spent in misery after their father was arrested for the killing of his very own wife.

The protagonist finds a corpse of a detective at the location indicating her brother’s SOS call. The detective who had been spying for her husband [which she did not know until then] on her brother was found dead. Her brother missing and a corpse of a detective at his apartment were sure red signs. The protagonist faces grievous turbulence in a matter of hours. She finds herself being interrogated by an investigation officer regarding her husband’s accident. Although despite her desperate efforts to prevent her brother being dragged in the mess, suspicions rose high. She tried reaching for her brother with all means possible, even reaching out to her “guilty” father whom she had sent a miserable letter while still in her teenage years. The letter quoted, “I hope prison is worse than hell. I hope you never get out and never die.”

No one possessed a clue about her brother. The sole thing she was able to collect from his belongings was a black sketchpad. Aiden, Tina’s son, was still unaware of the recent happenings. For him, his father had gone to a distant location unavailable for any sorts of communications, and his mother was going through heavy workloads which consumed all of her late evenings and early mornings. Tom lacked confidence in Bill. He considered him a drug addict who could trade her sister and her family for money. Tom had already increased their apartment’s security after a recent burglary. However, the mystery regarding burglary was left unsolved. This could be intentional or maybe a forgotten aspect from the author, anyway it was something to discuss.

She ultimately develops a lead from her father that Bill might be with an individual who might be providing him with a remedy regarding his drug addiction. However, the ending picks up a great pace in terms of suspense. The individual who was supposed to provide remedy was murdered by arson, with suspicions rapidly narrowing on her.

In my opinion, Not By Blood is a novel clear in its intent. It has been labeled as a mystery thriller and it aptly justified the label. Dialogue presentation was clear. Moreover, the book is not pumped on characters. Nowhere I had to trouble myself recalling names of characters. The book is concise and precise. It became apparently riveting in the concluding chapters. All the facts and clues I collected for an expected conclusion came as anything but true. The author was prudential with the details regarding the culprit. It was not until the end that the layers started to unfold. Also, I would like appreciating the commendable job the author accomplished in narrating from a female perspective. On various instances I got so dissolved in the contents often missing on the fact that this is a female narrative from a male author.

On the whole, Not By Blood ticks almost every checkbox one might desire from a mystery thriller. The suspense felt legitimate without any loopholes regarding the culprit. This book is perfectly apt for those looking for a decent yet nervy thriller without a lot of mess, blood shattering and most importantly insincere attempts to develop dramatic scenarios.

I received an ARC via NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books. The following is my honest review of the book.

Not By Blood is a thriller that follows Tina as she searches for her brother after receiving a call in the middle of the night. In addition to this, her husband meets with an accident and is in the hospital in a coma. Finally, she is forced to question everything she knows when she discovers the body of a private detective with whom her husband and even her brother might have been in contact.

Tina investigates the mystery surrounding her brother and husband while relying on her foster brother to help her out. She is also being threatened and as she tries to figure out what is going on, she is in a race against detectives of the police department whom she doesn't trust. The author brings out the brother-sister dynamics and the dynamics of dysfunctional families quite well. Having grown up in a foster family, we also get a glimpse into Tina's state of mind and her affection for her brother Bill. Secrets are kept for a long time and when they are revealed, the characters are forced to face the consequences of what has happened in the past.

As the story progresses, we are given glimpses into the past as we follow Tina, her brother Bill and her foster brother Paul. We also meet Tina's father who is in prison and a few other characters who help move the story along. The character interactions are interesting in the story though some seem completely unrelated to the main plot. The story is easy to read and a little predictable by the middle. It was not as fantastic or gripping as I had hoped it would be, but I did enjoy the mystery in the plot and the twists at the end.

Overall this is a good debut psychological thriller by the author and I did enjoy reading it. This is a one-time read and will be enjoyed by fans of the genre!

I would give this book 3 out if 5 stars. This feels like a run of the mill thriller crime novel. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t the best one I have read, it rode in the middle. The story line made me feel like I was in an episode of Law and Order, which I loved. The twists and tension took me a rollercoaster throughout the book. It took me about 2 hours so it’s perfect if you want a quick mystery read.