Karen Cleveland has utilized her knowledge as a former CIA counterterrorism analyst to write this novel, “The New Neighbor”. The story revolves around Beth, a CIA analyst who has been searching for an Iranian spy known as “The Neighbor” for 15 long years.
Beth Bradford’s life is about to change in more ways than one. Her husband has asked for a divorce, now the children are grown and gone, and they don’t seem to have anything in common any longer. Along with that, they have sold their house on the cul-de-sac, and she must leave all her close neighbors behind. To make matters even worse, she has lost her position at the CIA as she has failed to find “The Neighbor” and now she is working as a trainer to new CIA recruits. Beth cannot let go of her search and continues to try to find the spy on her own time causing everyone to think she might be losing her mind. There are many twists and turns to this story, which made it difficult to guess who “The Neighbor” really is until the very end.
I really enjoyed this book and how it was written, it was quite the page turner and hard to lay down. I would recommend this book if you enjoy spy thrillers, or a great story about a strong persistent woman who is determined to finish what she started, Thank you to Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, Ballantine Books for the ARC.

The New Neighbor

Karen Cleveland has brought her skills as a former counterterrorism analyst and a publisher author to bear to bring forward this thoroughly engaging novel. I am usually very good at figuring out what the plot line will end up being in most books I read and review but this one had me changing my mind constantly. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
The characters take a while to develop and have there relationships firm up but it is well worth the journey. The trip is worth the destination.
As I neared the end about 80% through I had many interruptions. It turned out that these breaks allowed me to ponder the information I had already been given and try to predict the future. It was enjoyable seeing how right and more frequently wrong I was when I resumed my reading.
I am sure you will enjoy this Karen Cleveland novel. I hope she is already working on the next one.
I would like to thank the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for the advance copy for review.

4.5⭐️ This was a GREAT thriller with compelling characters, a wild premise, and a ton of angst and suspense. It’s about a CIA analyst, Beth Bradford, who has spent the past 15 years searching for an Iranian spy known as The Neighbor. After taking two weeks off for vacation, she comes back to work told she is being moved off the case just as a major development has been made. Unable to give up, Beth decides to pursue this case on her own, despite her friends thinking she’s crazy, her former coworkers blocking her out, and losing people she trusts.

I loved the quick pace of this book. I have to say, at times, I was questioning Beth’s sanity and becoming anxious with every risky move she made. Still, I was rooting for her every step of the way and enjoyed seeing he put the pieces of the puzzle together. I didn’t realize until the author’s notes that Cleavland was a former CIA counterterrorism analyst. Her experience clearly lends itself to the great character development and insightful explanations of the inner works of the agency. While she used a lot of CIA/FBI jargon throughout the story, it didn’t distract me from the narrative. I will say that some parts of the storyline are far fetched and not totally believable. It didn’t bother me because the story gripped me until the very and and left me shocked, but if that bothers you, I’d know that going in!

Read if you like:
👀 Spy thrillers
🕵️‍♀️CIA/FBI investigations
👩🏼‍💻Technology
🤐Secrets and drama
🏡Tight-knit communities
🧗‍♀️Cliffhangers

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Ballentine for the ARC. Pub date: 7/26/22

It was a good solid easy read. I enjoyed the family aspect part of the story. I also liked how she formed the relationships among all of the neighbors. That said it seemed pretty convenient everyone she was hunting was all in her neighborhood. Another thing I didn’t love was the CIA intelligence aspect. I found it hard to understand. I wish there could have been another angle besides that. I got lost at times but in the end it didn’t take anything away from the story for me. It just slowed me down. I found myself reading faster to get to the end and the pace of the book didn’t slow down one bit. The ending was suspenseful and everything it should have been.

Special thanks to NetGalley for sharing this digital copy with me to review!

This was awesome. There were several twists and turns and the book kept your interest. I know it is a cliche to say it is hard to put down but it really holds true in this case. Highly recommend.

I have read all of this author’s novels and while I find them kind of uneven, they’re always fun. I enjoyed the fact that the main character was older. I am so tired of reading books where the main character is 26 years old and has not experienced life. This one is a fun ride from start to finish. I recommend.

I am a fan of Karen Cleveland, so was excited to get a chance to read a new book by her. If you like books with a lot of drama and secrets, then this book is for you! I love books with a good twist. Every family always seems like the perfect one, until you know what goes on behind closed doors. Beth works for the CIA as an analyst who seems to have it all until things change.
It reads like a movie, and I wanted to skip to the end a few times, but was able to hold out. You won't be disappointed!

Karen Cleavelans is a master of suspense! “The New Neighbor” was full or twists and turns that kept me hooked until the very end. Highly recommend!

I like Karen Cleveland novels, and suspense / mysteries. Not a huge fan of CIA novels as it turns out. Overall I would recommend for someone who likes all of the above!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy.

This book was so slow that I skimmed through the beginning and almost DNF’ed it. It started picking up about halfway through and I really tried to like it but it was very repetitious.

Beth, a CIA agent, is a narcissistic character that I hated throughout the book. She had spent over fifteen years trying to find “The Neighbor” who is a spy within the CIA. She’s suddenly transferred to a new department and locked out of The Neighbor investigation. Beth can’t let go and decides to investigate on her own terms without the CIA knowing about it but The Neighbor knows she’s snooping around and will do anything to try and stop her.

I found myself confused around the end of the book and really struggled to finish it. I feel like the book had so much potential but there weren’t any “oh my god!” twists or suspense, it was rather dull.

The premise of this was fantastic, unfortunately the delivery was a little off.

I found that whole "woman goes crazy" thing was a bit overplayed and something that turns me off. The pacing was also super off - it was a slow build, then crazy fast paced, then slow, then haphazzardly finished.

I just feel like thrillers anymore are fantastic or let me down and I found this one to let me down.

I can't remember the last time I read a novel involved the CIA. This book has a good flow to the story with Beth being the center, an agent hanging on to the case she was taken off involuntarily. Lots of good conversations and believable storylines. Friendship, marriage and neighbors, all relationships are put into test. The truth won't be revealed until the last page and not one you expected either.

I was so excited for this book after reading the synopsis - I studied global studies and global terrorism in college, so a CIA story about an Iranian spy operation seemed right up my alley. The suspense of neighborhood drama had so much potential but this story fell *incredibly* flat for me.

First of all, the details of the intelligence operation had me rolling my eyes. It is so unrealistic that an Iranian operative would have been living right under a CIA counterintelligence agent's nose for 17 years that the premise became almost laughable. The story just became more and more ridiculous as the book went on, rather than becoming more suspenseful. There was one small reveal at the very end that I liked, but otherwise I wish I DNFed this.

I also had a problem with the way the narrator was portrayed as unreliable. She is a powerful woman with a lot of career success who just happens to be going through a hard time, and I feel like that was really monopolized against her to try to make the reader distrust her. I am just REALLY over portraying women with mental health/substance abuse issues as unreliable simply because of their mental health struggles. Ugh.

All in all, I really wish I'd passed on this book - I was unimpressed, and would not recommend it to anyone.

Maybe it's the current state of affairs in the world, but this book bummed me out. It started slower and picked up the pace with lots of spy action, but the CIA vs Russian intelligence and Iranian agents just started to feel a little too real and not as cathartic as I expected.

I know others will like the main character as she comes into herself and goes fully rogue from work (how dare the CIA pull her from a case she's been forever just when it started to click for her!) and life in general when her last kid heads off to college and her husband says it's finally time for divorce. Not sure if it was just me and my annoyance at her basicness or what, but Beth made being a spy so dull for me and I just felt removed from her for the majority of the story. I almost quit in the middle because I got bored, but I kept going and the end was bonkers enough to make up for it.

If you want a spy thriller that feels a bit more grounded than 007, but you still want to be a little shook up at the end this is the book for you.

FANTASTIC, FAST PACED, FABULOUS! What a book!
First off it took me about half way through the book to order Karen’s other books. I need to know why I had not heard of her before this book?! More people people need to start talking about her.

We start the book with things going all wrong for our lead character Beth: kids moved away, husband leaving, and she gets reassigned from her case she’s been working on for 15 years. You follow Beth becoming more obsessed with her old case and finally getting the break shes needed but with no help from the CIA. Oh Beth - the woman becomes slighlty un-hinged and made me nervous with her every move. (Ok fine I started acting like Beth because I could NOT put this down — I needed answers!) Beth and I both HAD to know the answer to who is the person she has been looking for - for 15 years.

Great writing that was easy to read and understand. Interesting cast of characters. One main timeline but with helpful flashbacks to before where the story starts. Stunning ending that you won’t see coming.

5 stars - Get this book pre-ordered today! Book out July 26, 2021

Thank you Random House Publishing Group & Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Book currently reviewed on goodreads. Will be added to my social accounts in my March recap and will promote the book with review in July.

Beth is not having a good day. Her youngest son started college and she and her husband Mike have sold their now too big family home. A lifetime's worth of memories was packed into boxes but those were expected. The ones at Beth’s office however definitely are not. She has lost her analyst job at the CIA because she hasn't identified her target in the 15 years she has been looking. Not fired just moved to a much less classified area but to Beth, losing her focus on the target known as The Neighbor is just too much.

When Mike tells her their marriage is over, a crappy day just went farther off the rails. Sigh. I'm going to say now that I don't know what it was about Beth, but I just never warmed up to her. She's kind of glad Mike is gone because now she can focus exclusively on finding The Neighbor. Yep, even though she's off the team, has lost her security clearance, and made some rash assumptions, nothing will get her to give up. I don't know but if I got kicked to the curb and demoted, I think I'd probably give up. But maybe a real CIA agent would not? I've read some truly convenient and bizarre plots because after all, I'm reading fiction, right. But the identity of The Neighbor, how Beth tracks them down, and the ending just had me rolling my eyes.

I don't want this to sound negative because there were things I enjoyed. Wanting to figure out who was a good guy and who was bad meant I was never bored. But I just also never wound up caring about Beth, her career, or The Neighbor. Sorry Beth, lots of other reviewers seemed to like your story. So maybe it is just me.

3.5 stars. This book was an absolute trip and I felt like I was going through lunacy with the main character. It was a quick read and kept me interested but I think the twists should be spaced out more. Once you get one twist you don’t have time to process before the next one comes and you can easily get confused… but maybe that was the point?
This looks like it might be a series and I see the setup for the next book, which I’ll read, because the characters drove me insane and I need answers.

3/5 - When CIA analyst Beth's last child goes off to college, she and her husband separate and sell their longtime home in Langly suburbs. Beth is soon taken off her primary case, "The Neighbor", with little explanation, and quickly becomes fixated on the buyers of her former home as her new primary suspect.

This was a fun read, but I must say I am so tired of the trope of smart, accomplished female characters making bad decisions time and time again. I found it unbelievable that a CIA analyst with decades of experience would be so reckless & irresponsible - it became grating throughout the book. And the element of "sad woman who has lost everything and is now drinking too much and everyone thinks she is crazy" felt tired, as well. Overall it was an enjoyable (if not believable) read. The twists were fun, the setting was great, and the small community of interconnected characters was compelling.

How well do any of us truly know our neighbors? I was hooked from prologue. This book has everything you want in a thriller. Just when you think you’ve figured it out, there’s another twist and turn. This is definitely a must read!

A fast paced story of intrigue in this gripping thriller.
It seems like Beth has everything - lives in an idyllic neighborhood, starting her life as an empty nester and then her world collapses. It’s hard to tell if Beth is being paranoid because she is so entrenched in the world of espionage that she can’t look at reality.
I loved all the twists and turns and found the book hard to put down. I would definitely recommend it.