Hi friends, happy Monday! I hope you’re all doing well. Today I’m posting my review of Karen Cleveland’s novel, Need to Know.

Need to Know by: Karen Cleveland: Vivian works for the CIA on the Russian project looking for Russian Sleepers in the United States. She and her coworkers are closing in on five Sleepers, and when she goes to open one of the folders, there’s a face she least expected to see, her husband’s. Now Vivian’s life begins to spiral out of control as the truth about her husband’s secret life starts to be revealed. This novel was good and it was fast-paced, definitely kept the reader on their toes, but what this reader couldn’t stand was the main character, Vivian. The reader understands that if she hadn’t been as naïve and oblivious, this plot wouldn’t have worked, but she just wasn’t a great character. We learn about their relationship through flashbacks as she starts to put together the things she should have been questioning in the beginning. It’s revealed that she had strange feelings about the way her husband reacted to certain things or tried to push certain agendas on her, which were complete red flags that it’s really unfortunate that she didn’t have any friends to tell her to go with her gut on the guy, but alas. The reader believes that her husband probably did really love her but he knew the situation he was in, so his motives didn’t feel like they were always in the right place and it came off as manipulative. These characters felt developed and we’re given a lot of background on them, but they felt so plain at the same time. There wasn’t anything that made them stand out, or be memorable; they just kinda fade into the background. Aside from these characters, the plot was interesting because it wasn’t predictable as to how this was going to end. Will they or won’t they get away with the information that’s found out and that’s what truly kept this reader reading. Even the ending felt a little open-ended in the sense that we’re led to believe one thing, but it really could go the other way. For some reason, the author decided to end it on a different point of view, to give it a thriller feel possibly, but this reader didn’t care for it. It just made us question what we read and turned the story on its head a bit, like who really were the bad guys? Overall, this felt like a basic mystery, thriller novel that had a good plot with decent characters. This wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t the greatest either; it was a really fast read if you’re looking for a quick book to pass the time.