So exciting. Full on thriller. I do love cia films. So this book was right up my street. It had me hooked from the beginning. Very well written and put together. HD me on the edge of my seat. Top book

This is an absolute gem!!! I’ve been so excited about this book and it hasn’t disappointed.absolutely will be recommending this book to anyone who will listen to me.

A great fast paced thriller that keeps you on your toes and delivers the drama throughout. My first from this author but not my last!

A full-on thriller from beginning to end.
A CIA agent was forced to compromise and the repercussions of that one act were felt years later when someone blew her secret.
Having read many books by author Karen Cleveland, I was quite ready for the adrenaline flow. This too had the MC doing everything to protect her children.
Emotions of panic and desperation were well described. I would have liked it if Jill had been etched in detail, especially where her work was concerned.
The story went through the normal threats and fear, where things reached a pinnacle when the hunter was forced to go hunting and unmask the rats in the system, teamed with a journalist. I liked the women power who were courageous and innovative. Quite an exposé
The epilogue brought out another twist, which had me shaking my hand. Women sure were cunning. Overall, a solid thriller.

Fabulous story that I could not put down. Would highly recommend to fans of this genre. Great writing, and I will look for more from this author.

devoured this over a few days. It's a really fast-paced thriller with a cracking plot and two brilliant central characters. It was hugely refreshing to read a thriller that featured two female protagonists for a change. I absolutely loved this and will be recommending it to all my friends. Thank you to the publisher for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

CIA analyst Jill Bailey needs to decide in 3 minutes: save her son or do what they ask. It is the right decision, is this ever going to end?
I felt the tension Jill was living in at that moment.
I have a question: in the tense moments, she brought the kids home and waited for her husband, how, in Gods name, the kids were so quiet? No questions, no arguing, just good kids. I mean, my kids are noisy no matter what I go through inside.
Thank you Netgalley for this action story.

This was a really great book, I ended up finishing this in just one sitting! It was a really interesting and engaging story, that I could not put down! I would definitely recommend this book in the coming winter months, it would be a perfect addition to a cosy winters night in, you won't regret it!

I found this hard work overall. The genre is one I am keen on but there are.much better exa.ples out there. The constant peril/danger just made it more exhausting and in the end I felt somewhat underwhelmed by the ending. Not a total failure but enough to make me wonder why I kept going to the end..

This was a refreshingly different governmental thriller which really has you wondering what you would do if you found yourself in a similar situation. Sometimes, there are no good choices, only the best of a number of bad options, and this explores just how far you would go if someone had taken your child and was going to kill them if you didn't commit treason.

This one is a real page turner and kept me gripped until the very end.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC without obligation.

Jill seemingly has it all, sheis married with a child after years of trying and works in a job she loves at the CIA. Suddenly all that changes when she gets a message that her child has been kidnapped. She is asked to approve someone as a source, which she does, but then resigns from her job because she cannot continue to do what she did knowing she should not have done that.
The family's live carries on elsewhere until a reporter comes into Jill life, investgating the earlier incident. The suspense builds up gradually and you feel the terror Jill faces for the lives of her children. There are a couple of twists in the story . It is interesting and well written
Thank you to Net galley for the arc in exchange for an honest review

Thanks Netgalley and the Publisher. Great read, great characters and will have you hooked from the beginning. Would recommend.

You Can Run is Cleveland's third spy novel which is laden with tension and delicious twists. Nothing gets by Jill Bailey. As a CIA analyst, she's in charge of investigating and vetting potential new double agents. Sources like FALCON, who's been on the fast-track to recruitment. He says he's a Syrian defence official attached to a covert biowarfare program and with a global pandemic fresh in their minds, CIA officials are desperate to use him. It's Jill's job to make sure he is who he claims to be and that his case officers in the field haven't been duped or coerced. But before she can get to work, she gets a call in her office at the CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia. One that's every parent's nightmare. The person on the other end of the phone tells her that they have her baby son, Owen, who they are holding hostage. They inform her that to get him back she must approve agency documentation on FALCON. In a blind panic, she does this and receives her son back safe and unharmed, but she comes to the realisation that she has betrayed the oath in which she swore to defend America against enemies both foreign and domestic.

Knowing she has breached National Security from a position of trust, privilege and power, she swiftly resigns and persuades her husband to uproot and move to Fort Lauderdale, Florida where she and her family seek to live in obscurity. Four years later, a doggedly determined investigative journalist named Alex Charles has questions for her about the enigmatic FALCON, and this time Jill confronts the consequences of her decision when she realises that she may have run but she certainly cannot hide. This is a compulsive, enthralling and deeply dangerous piece of espionage by former CIA Analyst and bestselling author Karen Cleveland. She presents her beleaguered main protagonist, Jill, with an impossible choice in which she much choose between family or country and it was really something special. With her skilled appraisal of the moral compromises people are prepared to make in order to protect what they hold dear, she takes readers on a rollercoaster ride that races to an edge-of-your-seat finale. A thriller that is taut, moves at breakneck pace and features a truly satisfying knockout ending. Highly recommended.

"New author alert".......................You Can Run by Karen Cleveland and Best book I have read this year..This book was just BRILLIANT!!!!! I loved it. I didn't know what to expect from this book especially as it was a new gene and author for me.....But so glad I jumped in head first. I was surprised and gripped from the very first few pages. This book is Full of great twists and turns throughout with lots of Tension and the Terror of a Kidnapping, of a small child and then plot gets bigger. Danger is all around but will CIA analyst Jill Bailey and her family come out this nightmare alive? Oh boy!!!

This book has to be a must read of 2021...........It will have you sitting on the edge of your seat and word of warning - Don't start reading before you go to bed as will not put this book down! You will be Hooked!!!!

I highly recommend it and I am going to read more books by Karen in the future.

Big Thank you to Netgalley and Canelo Books for an ARC. I have given an honest unbiased review in exchange

I’ve been waiting for a good espionage thriller to come along for a long time, some recent books have been really disappointing.
BUT NOT THIS ONE. What a cracker of a book.
Fast paced, edge of the seat reading from the first chapter.
Then in the final chapter a teasing hook for what will hopefully be a follow up, or even a series
Brilliant.

You Can Run is a tense American spy thriller by a new author to me, about a mother forced to choose between her country, and the life of her son. I’d seen some very positive reviews from reliable GR friends so requested it from NetGalley. My heart sank on starting it with the realisation that it’s written in present tense, but unfortunately abandonment is not an option with an ARC. I’m glad I did continue because it’s a decent yarn boosted by a clever ending.

Jill Bailey is a CIA reports officer who gave up field work to have a baby. One day she receives a terrifying threat - approve a new Syrian source, code-named Falcon, or she’ll never see her son again. She makes the only choice a mother can, then quits her job, moves her family to a different state and changes her name. Four years later she’s happy with their new life, until journalist Alex Charles tracks her down. Alex has received a tip-off that Falcon, who has been an invaluable source of intel about Syrian bioweapons, is not real, and will stop at nothing to get the story. Jill’s family is threatened once more, but this time, she’s done running.

Karen Cleveland is a former CIA analyst who delivers a credible plot about spy skulduggery with strong if not particularly likeable lead characters. It’s hard to argue with Jill’s choices, given the information available, while Alex reminded me why I hate journalists as MCs - they’ll sacrifice anyone in pursuit of the Pulitzer obsession. I did enjoy both characters’ progression as they realise their only hope is to work together.

It’s mostly well written although the line “I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding” almost had me throwing my kindle across the room, it’s such a ridiculous cliche that seems to be recycled into every thriller just now. All the way through I was going to give this 3 stars but the epilogue made me bump it up to 4.
Thanks to NetGalley and Canelo for the ARC. I am posting this honest review voluntarily.
You Can Run is published on August 31st.

My thanks to NetGalley and publisher Canelo for the electronic copy.

Oh, this is a really good read! It's well-written and fast-paced with believable dialogue which moves the story rapidly along.

Jill Bailey is in a job she loves - a CIA reports officer working Syria. She's married to Drew and has a baby son Owen. Her job is to be part of the vetting process for potential new intelligence sources and one morning she receives a cable about the recruitment of "Falcon" - intelligence from within Syria's defence and bio-warfare section. When she goes to her car to video-check on Owen at his nursery she receives a call telling her that Owen has been kidnapped - all she had to do was approve Falcon without vetting for her son to be returned. But - these people are aware of who she is, what she does, where she lives, and threatens that if she ever breathed a word then They would know and Owen would be killed.
What choice does she have? They are watching, they are listening. Jill's life falls apart. She can run, but she can't hide. She can't even tell Drew.

The reader is taken into the world of counterintelligence and CIA covert operations as Jill tries to escape the threat to her child, only to be found by a journalist who's intent on getting a major story. Alex Charles and Jill team up to protect the family. Alex is receiving tips to her hotline suggesting that the US was over-reliant on one main source of intelligence from Syria - Falcon. But, does he actually exist? They are determined to find out and to uncover who is behind it all. The intelligence could be leading the US into war.

A really good read, gripped me from start to finish.

3.5/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was a good gripping thriller, highly enjoyable. Main character was a likeable strong female who has to save her son but in doing so, endangers her country. This was my first book by Karen Cleveland and I’m looking forward to her future works since I liked this book that much.

would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this high octane book

action from the get go, this is what its all about....a CIA operative just doing her normal job goes out to lunch and finds herself in the worst situation a mother could know..her child has been kidnapped right from the child care nursery, the one place the baby should have been safe..... she is asked to do something that she knows is very wrong and disloyal to her country...but her baby is being used again her

will she wont she....

and so begins the start of a book that keeps you on tenterhooks and one that you cant put down until the very end...
wow
cant wait to see what this author comes up with next

*4.5 stars *

Oh wow! Karen Cleveland certainly knows how to ratchet up the tension, and maintain it, and does so spectacularly in ‘You Can Run’!

CIA analyst Jill Bailey, makes a decision that any mother would make in order to keep her baby son Owen safe, but in doing so, she puts her country in danger from unknown dark sources- sources like FALCON.

Jill has to keep the secret of what she did four years earlier, because otherwise ‘they’ will kill Owen this time, and she now has a daughter to worry about too. After moving away to Florida, Jill and her family are getting on with their lives, though her secret is always at the back of her mind. However, when journalist Alex Charles contacts Jill, for some answers about what she’s discovered, they find themselves working together to uncover a traitor, an extremely dangerous individual who could bring catastrophe in his wake.

With a clever plot, a gripping storyline, and an amazing twist at the end, this is another winner for Karen Cleveland!