Shout from the rooftop...Love, love, love this book...It is a MUST READ. Future bestseller, Can't wait to read another book by author,Karen Cleveland.

Vivian is a CIA counter intelligence Russian analyst. While looking over a Russian encrypted file she discovers a folder with 5 pictures of Russian sleeper spies. To her surprise her husband is one of the five pictures. Her first thought....this must be an error. That night when she gets home she turns to her husband, Matt and asked, How long have you been a Russian spy? He says, 22 years

Vivian has been happily married to Matt for 10 years. They have 4 beautiful children together. Has her life been a lie? Vivian now has information that could destroy her life, her marriage, her family. What steps and how far will she go to protect what she holds dear?

Thank you Random House for the opportunity to read Need to Know before the pub date of 01/23/18.

Very well written, and a quick read. I was excited to read this, had heard a lot of mumblings about how good it was, and I wasn't totally let down. The characters are all distinct, with their own voices, their own lives fleshed out, and I loved the details about the CIA and the day to day work. But it wasn't a book I would push at others and say, "Oh god, you MUST read this!" Thus the four stars. That said, if you are in an airport, or headed to the beach, or just taking a cruise somewhere, and you want a fun, well written thriller, this is the book you should buy. I'll definitely look for more books by Karen Cleveland after this.

4.5 stars, rounded up
I’m not a big fan of thrillers. But I saw a lot of positive reviews on GR about this book and decided to take a chance. And I’m so glad I did!

Vivian Miller is a CIA counterintelligence agent searching for Russian sleeper spies in the US. She finally manages to infiltrate the computer of a suspected handler and whose picture pops up in his files? Her husband’s. Boom.

In truth, this book isn’t so much a spy thriller. It’s much more about how much you know about the one you love. How your world can just change in a second. And if your whole life has been based on a lie, can you ever learn to trust again?


This book really grabbed me. I felt all the tension and angst that Vivian felt. I agonized over every choice she was faced with. What takes priority, family or country? This is a book that you just want to keep reading. I had to know how it was going to play out. The whole time I was reading this, this old adage kept going through my brain... Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.

My thanks to netgalley and Random House for an advance copy of this book.

Warning: do not pick this book up unless you have the time to finish it!
This book is intense, to say the least. Honestly I have come to expect flashier covers from books like this and so I put this one off until the last minute because it didn't sound that exciting. I willingly admit I was wrong, very wrong. The author did a great job of being realistic (not surprising since she's worried in the CIA and FBI) while still keeping the pace and suspense non-stop. Being a first time author, she can be a tiny bit heavy handed in clues and red herrings but I'm still very impressed and look forward to more. The book was also relatively clean - no sex scenes, brief language, and even the violence was not graphic at all. Overall, I would strongly recommend this book.

I would like to thank the publisher, author, and Netgalley for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

I received a free electronic copy of Need To Know by Karen Cleveland from NetGalley for my honest review.

This is an edge of your seat spy thriller. I loved the details and intensity that Karen Cleveland writes with. The characters in the book are wonderfully written. Vivian Miller, CIA analyst who tracks Russian sleeper cells loves her job, has four beautiful children and a wonderful husband, Matt. One day Vivian's whole live changes when she comes across a picture of someone she knows. Vivian's life is turned upside down suddenly and she struggles with the decision of protecting her family or betray her country. The more she digs, the deeper she gets and the more she doesn't know who to trust. Great read

Russia, Russia, Russia.

No, this isn’t a current events article on the state of things in the world. It could be (and that’s kind of frightening) but it’s not.

This is a review of Karen Cleveland’s spy thriller NEED TO KNOW.

The synopsis as posted on NetGalley, who were kind enough to grant me an ARC of the book, kind of, sort of seems to give away the game in that I knew when I thought ‘yes! I want to read that!’ that a CIA analyst’s husband works as a Russian sleeper agent. That’s why I hit ‘request’ on the page, because it sounded good. And yet the reveal scene, where Vivian finds out that Matt is not actually Matt at all, is really intense. When it shouldn’t be… because I knew he was going to be a Russian agent. So kudos for that reveal!

The theme of the book, even more than Russian sleeper agents everywhere!, seems to be the question of just what would you do if, say, you were a CIA analyst (specializing in Russia, of course) and you found out your husband (and the father of your four children) had been a Russian agent for two decades, give or take. What would you do if, say, he said “no, I never told them anything about you or your work” and “you have to turn me in” in the same breath? Do you believe him? Do you still believe him as more and more lies drip out? Do you find that you still love him despite the lies and despite the fact that you’re now stuck in a giant hole whose walls are about to collapse?

Vivian errs on the side of what seems to be self-preservation. That’s understandable. It’s also questionable. It makes her look pretty terrible at her job, when she’s supposed to be this expert at uncovering handlers and ringleaders, so that the CIA can find the agents. Vivian tells the story of dealing with the revelation about Matt (Alexander) in the present tense, which does make for very intense, dramatic storytelling. She flashes back to earlier moments in their relationship in the past tense, which makes for not the most compelling portrait of her intelligence gathering skills.

Can love really make a person so blind that, as a new mother in a new marriage, you’re not like “I don’t know, honey, I like working the Africa desk… why do you think it’s so important I move to the Russia section? And, you know, not stay home with the kids?”

I don’t know. I’m not a CIA agent (thanks to those who are, I could never be one), but Karen Cleveland was in the CIA so I’ll take her word for it, despite my questions. And maybe those questions, maybe Vivian not being super great at her job, at least as it relates to her personal life, are what makes it such a compelling story, one that I could not put down.

There is an ‘80s Cold War vibe to NEED TO KNOW, which is fun and intense. It doesn’t seem out of place either, since there’s a ‘80s Cold War vibe to the present day, which is less fun and more intense.

It’s a quick read. It’s an intense read. It’d make a great tv show. It’s fun! If you like thrillers and espionage, with a touch of romance, please be getting this book!

P.S. I feel like there could be a sequel, given the reveals that end the book. I would definitely read a sequel!

3.75/5 stars

(I received a copy of NEED TO KNOW through NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest and original review. All thoughts are my own. My review is posted on Goodreads, NetGalley, and my blog.)

Vivian is one of the CIA’s strongest analysts. For years she’s been working on Russian sleepers and now she is close to digging out a complete cell. When she finally enters the document with the information she has been searching for for such a long time, her heart skips a beat: she knows one of the five sleepers. She knows him very well. He shares her life with him. He is her husband and father of their four kids. Looking back at the years they have spent together, a lot of things now appear in a completely new light. What is to be done? Can she really turn her husband in or is there a way out?

Karen Cleveland has written a masterful debut with a very classic setting that combines the typical spy and double agent/sleeper plot with a very personal dilemma which cannot really be solved. You can hardly put down the novel since it moves at such a high pace adding one crisis to the next that, quite often, you just wish for the protagonist that everything is just over.

At the centre of the novel is a very cleverly created catch-22 dilemma. Vivian can be either loyal to her employer and her country or to her husband – whom she cannot actually trust anymore, but he is the father of her kids. Once fallen into the trap of the Russians herself, she cannot get out without risking not only to lose her husband but also her kids and go to jail. It is a vicious circle, the more she tries to get out of it all, the deeper she entangles herself in it all. Apart from this great impasse, Cleveland has some interesting turns to offer which come unexpected and hit you hard.

Fabulous book. Thoroughly loved. Highly recommend!

2.5 stars
I know I'm in the minority again with another must read debut of 2018 and while I did like a couple things about this story, there were many I had issues with that prevented me from giving this a higher rating. A case of it's not you it's me...possibly. This CIA thriller is narrated by our main character Viv, an overwhelmed mom of 4 kids who's an analyst for the CIA. When Viv comes across a picture of someone close to her in the computer of a Russian being investigated, her world pretty much implodes. This premise was great! What nagged me right from the get go, however, was that when she confronts the person, they immediately spill their secrets...just like that, no arguing, no lying, just matter of fact. Considering they've been lying to her for years already I found this odd. The scene felt very inauthentic to me and set the tone for the rest of the story unfortunately.

What I did find that worked fairly well was the overall pace and the CIA details and background. I enjoy anything that gives me a peek into the world of the CIA. In the end, what basically led to my low rating were several things that didn't work for me: the first person narrative...there's a TON of introspection going on by VIV and I'm not sure most of it was relevant; the abundance of domestic details which took away from the thriller aspect of the story; the fact that Viv seemed to miss a lot of basic details about people and situations which seemed odd for someone in the CIA, and the use of flashbacks mid- scene which brought the action to a halt. As the movie rights have been sold, I do think this might work better for me on the big screen so I'm not opposed to giving it a try when it comes out.

Vivian Miller works for the CIA. She searches for spies, and creates computer systems that helps capture anything or anyone involved with espionage. The more analytical the method, the better. It’s difficult to spot spies anymore. They blend in with everyone, and they appear as commonplace as a suburban family with a white picket fence. And that’s the main problem for Vivian: her government job and her personal life blur, and soon she doesn’t know who to trust, and where to go from here.

I am not a fan of spy and government thrillers. John Grisham and Tom Clancy have never appealed to me. And I didn’t know I was in for this kind of book when I requested it at NetGalley. But I read it anyway. The publisher was gracious enough to grant me an ARC, and I would give it a fair and honest review. Need to Know is a pleasant surprise. More than pleasant — it’s edge-of-your-seat suspense from beginning to end. The family dynamics intrigued me the most. Miller balances the spy elements with the personal subplots quite well. The character development is outstanding. I love it when a book I thought would be a dud turns out to be an absolute winner. I give Need to Know four out of five Blonde Americanos, with an extra shot. Does this mean I’m a converted spy thriller fan? No. But I enjoyed this one and I recommend it to everyone.

This is a well-written thriller that is hard to put down. The ending is tantalizing, and yes, it does read like a movie script. The plot seems absurd, but the reality, unfortunately, is stranger than fiction.

3.5 Stars. I’m generally left unsatisfied by thrillers, particularly ones that incorporate espionage, but this was fast-paced and “unputdownable”, full of twists. Knowing the author was herself a CIA analyst leant authenticity to this story. It immediately reminded me of a book version of The Americans meets The Blacklist. The main characters were well developed and though I did have to suspend disbelief a few times I thought the decisions the characters made and their reasoning for those choices were (mostly) believable. This is a fast read, perfect for a weekend or plane ride.

When I need to break out of a reading slump, I usually choose thrillers: their fast pace and clever plots keep me turning the pages (or pressing the arrow on my Kindle), which I what I need to get back in the groove. I had been on a run of domestic thrillers (anything with Wife/Girl/Woman in the title), and as a spy thriller, Need to Know made me veer a little outside my routine, with happy results! Need to Know is definitely worth the hype: a gripping suspense novel featuring Russian spies that manages to be both apolitical and topical.

Side note on the Russia angle: no matter your political persuasion, you can find something to enjoy in this novel. Karen Cleveland, a former CIA analyst herself, has written a completely believable "what if" scenario: what if the Russian spy is a member of your own family? Cleveland shows how the Russians (or any spy network, really) could use tiny inroads to prey on weaknesses and worm their way deep into the U.S. government. Our heroine Vivian Miller, is a CIA analyst working on Russia who uncovers some disturbing information about a sleeper cell she's been tracking: she is intimately involved with one of the sleepers.

The plot revolves around Vivian's reactions to this development: how did this happen? what classified information has she revealed? and what can she do to redress this situation and get out with her family intact? Amid our culture's current literary love affair with unreliable narrators, Vivian is refreshingly reliable: she is a strong, successful mother of 4, accomplished at her job, yet with all the self-doubts that working mothers face: am I doing a good enough job as a mom? am I shortchanging my employer or my children? do my kids love the nanny more than me? If this could happen to her, it could happen to anyone.

The only part of the book that caused me any grief was Cleveland's portrayal of Viv in the immediate aftermath of her sleeper cell discovery. In her panic, Vivian makes some truly boneheaded decisions that it's hard to imagine a woman of her accomplishments and temperament actually making. It's hard to reconcile the savvy CIA analyst who has worked her way up to the most prestigious posting with the panic-stricken, sloppy behavior that further enmeshes her in the espionage scheme.

However the rest of the plot moves along with realistic detail, and there are plenty of surprises that will keep you from feeling you have it all figured out. The ending provides some clever shocks and makes me believe there will be sequels, in addition to the inevitable movie adaptation, said to be starring Charlize Theron as Vivian.

Given the questions simmering about Russian involvement in the U.S. elections, possibly Cleveland's greatest achievement is that her book does not come off as partisan in any way. She lifts the cloak on a world that most Americans do not know intimately and shows us the potential dagger that awaits. Highly recommend.

Thank you to Ballantine Books and NetGalley for providing an advance e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

“..I blink at it, once, twice, my mind struggling to bridge what I’m seeing … what it means. I swear that time stops. Icy fingers close around my heart and squeeze, and all I can hear is the whoosh of blood in my ears. I’m staring into the face of my husband.” Vivian Miller’s life is about to change after seeing the face of her husband in an unexpected place.

What a great twisty spy thriller that had me on the edge of my seat from beginning to end. Nagging questions about betrayal and loyalty keeping me guessing. Numerous spy thrillers I’ve read have had confusing complexity but not so here. Cleveland does a great job providing insight into the secret world of counterterrorism in an easily digestible way. A little far-fetched in the last quarter of the book having to do with wrapping up a hostage situation but this did not diminish my enjoyment; I’m not sure how I would have changed the scene.

Cleveland is a master at ending her chapters. Unexpected last sentences that propelled me forward. It was hard to put down this book and I finished it in two days.

*Will post in additional online venues (Amazon, B&N, Powells) upon book's publication.

If Tom Clancy were writing more family-based psychological dramas in the vein of Gone Girl, this is the book he might have written.

What do you do when you work for the CIA's counterintelligence and discover that your engaging husband of many years, the devoted father of your four children, is a Russian sleeper agent? Your marriage is a lie, your children are at risk, and to top it off, there's a mole at work. Is that too many things to focus on at one time?

A very fun read, I doubtless would have given it four stars had I not been paying attention to the clues (thanks to all my Tom Clancy reading) and seen the ending coming a mile away. (I can't judge how many people will be surprised by the 'twist'). Despite that, I kept mentally yelling at the main character much as if it were a live show, so you can see I did thoroughly enjoy myself. A nice change from the regular abusive spouse trope we've been seeing in stories in recent years.

This is a spy novel written by a real former CIA analyst, and will be adapted to a movie starring Charlize Theron.

Spy novels, movies, and TV shows are becoming a renewed trend in recent years. There are a bunch of spy movies coming out in the next 2 to 3 years, including both commercial ones, independent films, and biopics. Need to Know comes at a great time for spy novels, with the former CIA author, it stands out from a bunch popular fictions as "the authentic one".

This is a delightful read overall, with not very complicated plots and not very surprising plot twists. It's actually not as exciting as some of the bestselling spy novels, the pure fiction ones. What I think it has over other spy novels, is the readability of it, especially for readers who are not actually into spy novel, and are not familiar with the genre. This could be the entry-level spy novel for them.

As for the movie adaptation, I think it would be something like Angelina Jolie 's Salt, a satisfying and entertaining spy movie.

I think this has the potential to do really well in the rising market of commercial spy novels. Hopefully the sequel will be more exciting than the first one.

A CIA espionage novel that will hook you from page one. I couldn't put it down. It kept surprising me till the end.

I was actually blown away with this book. Fast paced edge of your seat action.

Netgalley has provided me this book in exchange for an honest review.

Need to know is a compelling story with a title that describes exactly how I felt reading it. I needed to know EVERYTHING! Who can you trust? In the beginning, I felt tense with anxiety due to the fear that the one person you trust for life, your husband, has been deceiving you for more than ten years. As the story develops I felt like I was on a roller coaster where my emotions twisted and turned with multitudes of doubt. Who can you trust? I kept saying this over and over again.

Karen Cleveland's novel Need to Know is a must read thriller where you are kept guessing throughout the entire story. I must admit the story did read like a screenplay for a movie and the scenes played out in my mind. I am sure this will be a blockbuster.

A thrilling breath of fresh air! Just like many of you I am a thriller junkie.... and with the market so saturated with so many thrillers, this book stands apart and strong!

Vivian is a CIA operative focusing on Russia and in particular finding sleeper cells..... but even more importantly she is a mother of four young children..... so when a few clicks of the computer leads to putting her family in jeopardy... you definitely see Vivian’s mama bear come out..... Vivian and I probably have very little in common however we are both mothers and I could just relate so well to her need to protect her children at all costs.....

Truthfully when I first read the blurb to this book I wasn’t all that interested, just The idea of the CIA was a turn off..... fortunately I read some very favorable reviews from people that I trust the opinions of and decided I’d take a chance on this book..... I am so grateful that I did! This is a thriller with all those twists and turns that we all love, but with a brand new fresh approach.... I even found the spy stuff super intriguing and very authentic.....

I believe the plan is to turn this book into a movie? And if so I think it will make a fantastic movie..... very fast-paced, action-packed, definitely kept me on pins and needles......

Strongly recommend this! I realize I didn’t say much about the plot, but I want you to enjoy the journey as much as I did!

PS: DasVindaniya.... pardon me if my Russian is incorrect, but this is my way of giving major props to the stellar epilog of this book! And doesn’t that sound prettier than goodbye? Seriously say it out loud!

*** i’d like to thank Net Galley and the publishers for a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review ***