The New Neighbor

This thriller read like a movie or a Blacklist episode 📺

Beth has had the picture perfect life in her neighborhood until all of sudden she doesn’t. She becomes obsessed with watching the women who has moved into her old home. Meanwhile most families have ties to the CIA and they are on the hunt for ties to Iran Intelligence

I didn’t expect the CIA themes in the book but I liked this one way more than other spy books I have tried. It felt relatable and easier to follow. There were some big twists - I definitely guessed wrong! 🤯

Thank you @netgalley and @ballantine books for this ARC! Out 8/30!

Beth has reached the point in her life that she is done raising the three children she adored watching grow. With her last child just starting college, she can now focus 100% on her job at the CIA. She's always been dedicated to her work, but now she can give it everything she has.

Just as she believes this is her new direction, her marriage falls apart and she loses the position she has been in for so many years. The position she just now thought would have all of her focus. But things are changing very fast. A new family has moved into her old house, becoming friends with her old neighbors. This family has the life she now misses. Then Beth finds a connection between this family and the bad person she has spent the bulk of her career in search of. She also realizes may not have know those closest to her as well as she thought she did.

Has Beth become paranoid, or is this really the break she has been looking for? As people around her begin to question her sanity, she sees that things are becoming so much clearer.

This book was fantastic. I loved the twists and turns. You definitely start to question what is real and Beth may be imagining.

A terrifying, suspense, psychological, spy novel that is amazing.
One never knows who their neighbors are, do they?
Beth Bradford lives in a beautiful home on a cul-de-sac with her family and neighbors that she loves.
The neighbors have things in common, as most work in the CIA in some capacity. They have children and all would do whatever is needed to protect their families.
They all have secrets, but what type of secrets? That is what we need to learn.
Beth Bradford also works with the CIA and has been on a case tracking an Iranian intelligence agent known as "The Neighbor” for so many years. She knows she is getting close to solving the mystery.
But then.... The bottom drops out and creates craziness in Beth's life.
She is removed from the job she has "claimed" as hers, she becomes an empty-nester selling their family home to downsize and her husband is leaving her.
It is so mush upheaval. Could this be creating havoc in Beth's mind? Is she now paranoid?
What is she doing?
She can't she stop driving through her neighborhood and checking on her old home and the people who now reside in it.
People are suspicious and the journey of trying to find The Neighbor is the priority!

This is one wild story and I read it an one whole day! This is not my usual genre, but I needed to see how it ended! It is really excellent!
Thank you to Random House Publishing- Ballantine and Netgalley for this ARC as I read and provided and honest review.

I loved Karen Cleveland's first book, Need To Know. The New Neighbor is a slow simmer with plenty of twists and turns along the way. I enjoyed the main character and her search for the truth. I read this on a flight and it kept my interest until the bitter end.

Psychological thriller about a mother of three who, in addition to becoming an empty nester, moving out of the family home, also has her husband leave her. She decides to throw herself into her work at the CIA only to find out that she has been demoted and moved to another building to teach new recruits. She does not however want to give up on finding the Neighbor, her old CIA target. Good page-turner with many twists set in the FBI/CIA world.

How well do you know your friends and neighbors? What would you do to protect your children?

Beth and her husband Mike are selling their home on a cul-de-sac after their youngest child goes off to college. Beth works for the CIA and has been looking for the Neighbor for years. The Neighbor has been providing intelligence to Iran and she is determine to find him. She is suddenly taken off the case and is also suddenly suspicious of the new owner of her house. Beth can’t let the case, or the new neighbor go so she continues to investigate.

Wow what a ride this one was. There were so many twists and turns and it kept me guessing until the end. I found myself cringing at times at Beth’s actions as they didn’t seem credible but that seems to have been the author’s intent to make her seem unreliable and unstable.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4. I look forward to reading more from Cleveland.

I've long been a fan of Karen Cleveland. Need to Know. Keep You Close. You Can Run. They all have something in common. A protagonist who is a hard-charging agent by day, loving wife and mother by night. An exploration into how this sort of woman can (or can't) strike the balance between a career like this and a safe life at home with her loved one.

In The New Neighbor, CIA Analyst Beth Bradford is the mother who must compartmentalize her life into two boxes: CIA agent and mother. What comes first? Your children or your duty to your country?

I'm going to be honest. I didn't love this one. Beth came across as absolutely unhinged and, while she wasn't totally wrong, I cannot believe someone like her would be cleared for such a sensitive position in the CIA. I kept going because I had to know what happened, but I didn't really enjoy the story.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

This spy thriller reads just like a movie, I ended up reading the second half of the book in one long sitting because I just had to know who the heck “The Neighbor” was! I thought this would be another fun story about creepy noisy neighbors and their secrets but this goes way above and beyond that. Solving this case had a tint of paranoia that made me question everything I was being shown and told, and I really enjoyed that.
Beth Bradford, our main character works counter intelligence at CIA on a case that has taken up fifteen years of her life tracking an Iranian agent that recruits average looking Americans for small but sinister purposed which are building up to something big. Beth is on the hunt until she’s suddenly taken off the case as her entire life flips upside down. After years of semi domestic bliss she’s suddenly all alone with not much to do. The kids are grown up and moved out, her relationship killed off by her dedication to her clandestine type of work and the ever evasive target seems so close yet so far. Beth decides to solve her case no matter what cost because she feels that’s all she has left and she’s pissed off and determined. That’s when story ride gets wild. Beth goes MacGyver in some instances and I can’t even begin to describe how much I enjoyed that.

The story could have been a little shorter but in retrospect I liked the maze of actual clues but also some deceit. I felt very engaged with this book, I also really liked how a few chapters ended on a really good note that made me pause and say some really salty stuff out loud. Also please don’t think that the topic isn’t your jam if you only wanted a juicy bad neighbor book, this might be about tracking an agent but it really puts a magnifying glass on human nature and what we’re really capable of doing.

Big thank you NetGalley and Ballantine Books for early reading access of this awesome story.

- Kas

I wanted to like this a whole lot more than I did. I felt confused through most of the first third of the novel, struggling to keep the plot and characters straight, and disliked how much it felt like pure exposition. I wonder if dropping into the story at another point would have helped? Just not for me.

The last half of this was surprisingly twisty and suspenseful! There were so many plausible culprits and I couldn’t stop second guessing myself up until the end. The ending did a good job of ending the story but also leaving it open enough for a second book. So we will see if we get to hear more from Beth!

Karen Cleveland is a one of a kind espionage writer that excels at presenting her characters’ weaknesses and making those the crux of the story. This tale focuses on the analyst whom nobody trusts and yet manages to become the winner. And wow, that ending!

I loved NEED TO KNOW by Karen Cleveland so I was looking forward to this one as well. However, I am over the unreliable woman who drinks and acts bizarrely. We need better women characters in fiction; it is truly time. The premise is good on this one, but it winds all over the place, and it is just plain hard to root for the main character. Let's get some strong, sane women in books instead of all the crazies.

Something is amiss in an elite neighborhood full of cul-de-sacs right outside of Washington DC.. A tightknit community where the neighbors are very close. Mike and Beth put their house up for sale after their last child goes off to college. Suddenly things get crazy and this book takes you on a ride full of twists and turns.

I really enjoyed this family/procedural thriller. Hooked me from the beginning and never let go. Fast paced and exciting.
Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book

Be right back— looking up more of Karen’s books! What a story. I loved the twists and turns and just when I thought it had figured out, another twist! The surprise ending leaves the imagination spinning as to what could happen next.

When I read the synopsis of this book, I never expected it to be a espionage mystery & I’m not sure why! I was eager to receive my very first ARC and dive in - so I judged the book by the cover. The New Neighbor follows Beth, CIA agent, as she navigates several life changes - becoming an empty nester, a crumbling marriage, moving her beloved neighborhood, losing her job It was a slow start for me but picked up around chapter 4 or 5. This book is action packed, plot driven, and a very quick read. Cleveland truly had me guessing until the epilogue!!
You can read my full review at www.Instagram.com/bookwormbaylee which will be posted on July 12, 2022 - 2 weeks before publishing date.

I enjoyed this suspenseful thriller very much! It had a unique story line that kept me guessing throughout each chapter. I also liked how it ended with an unexpected outcome, leaving things open to the possibility of more. The only critique I have was that there were several characters, and I had a hard time keeping track of who was who, especially in the beginning.

The New Neighbor was a fast paced, very enjoyable escape-from-real life read. I read it in one sitting as I quickly turned the pages. Karen Cleveland spent years working as a CIA analyst so while some of the escapades seemed far fetched, what do I know? I had a few problems with the book, I found the main character, Beth, not very likable and the ending rather underwhelming. I do think if you are in the mood for a fast read that will keep your attention you will like this book.

Fabulously delicious! So many twists and turns. I certainly won't be looking around my neighborhood the same way ever again. This was smart, dark, and fast-paced.

Author Karen Cleveland has a solid background for writing thrillers that revolve around intelligence agencies and personnel: she was a Fulbright Scholar, earned a master’s degree from Trinity College in Dublin and Harvard, and was a CIA analyst for eight years, focused on counterterrorism – and she also worked with the FBI. So, bottom line: she knows her stuff. Back in 2017, I gave four stars to her Need To Know, a thriller featuring a strong female protagonist who happened to be a CIA counterintelligence agent. Then, in 2019, I was given the opportunity to read an advance copy of Ms. Cleveland’s next book, Keep You Close, again featuring a strong female protagonist, this time an FBI agent. Now we have The New Neighbor, the story of a long-time CIA agent named Beth Bradford. Beth has worked for fifteen years trying to figure out the true identity of “The Neighbor.” This US-based Iranian spy has been recruiting others from within the CIA and FBI, in order to…??? Not sure, but it is definitely a plot against the U.S. Thanks to Random House – Ballantine and NetGalley, I received a copy of The New Neighbor in exchange for this honest review.

At the same time that Beth’s youngest child has just left for college, her husband leaves her for another woman, and then the CIA yanks her off The Neighbor project and essentially demotes her when they ship her off to a job teaching new agents the ropes. She is devastated, partly because she is sure she is THIS CLOSE to identifying The Neighbor, and she is desperate to solve the case. Her suspects include a woman named Madeleine, who has bought Beth’s house on a quiet cul-de-sac in a Northern Virginia suburb where many of the neighbors work for various intelligence agencies. Then there are Alice and Mike, and others, and Beth becomes consumed with the puzzle, going to great lengths including stalking her “friends” and former neighbors, several of whom seem to have the perfect reason or background or just might be THE NEIGHBOR. The story kept me guessing, and while admittedly I am someone who pretty much NEVER guesses or figures out the end, I did have a suspicion very near the end as to who was truly The Neighbor. And the unveiling was awesome!

This book was a perfect antidote to a pandemic-induced laziness, and totally took my mind off the looming end of our democracy for a couple of days. I hope there is a sequel. Beth is a solid character – really, all the female protagonists in the Cleveland books I have read have been well done. I could use more character development around both Beth and her daughter Aubrey…and I will definitely grab anything this author writes. Five stars, great for thriller fans, political junkies, mystery lovers, and people who enjoy stories with strong female characters.