Run, a review by Joanna

Kendra Thompson is a hardworking nurse who’s getting by raising her 16 year old son Kyle after his father abandoned them. One evening Kyle takes a shortcut home and stumbles across a gang initiation in a back alley – but instead of slipping away quietly, he decides to video it, then is forced to run for his life when they see him. Unfortunately, the murder turns out to be politically motivated and the gang has contacts everywhere, including within the LAPD, so Kendra & Kyle’s only option is to go on the run from a range of killers determined to silence the only witness.

I’m a sucker for a good chase thriller, especially where the protagonist stays one step ahead through making their own luck. This was a fast-paced compulsive read that managed to avoid the predictable route I thought it would take into romantic suspense territory. It’s well written in conventional third person past style, which meant seeing things from various characters’ POVs and understanding their often twisted motivations. I liked Kendra the heroine but admit I would’ve been offering her bratty selfish son up to the bad guys after the second or third whinge about leaving his friends and his video games behind… The baddies are suitably evil and there are some upsetting deaths, but don’t worry – Buddy the dog emerges unscathed.

Thanks to Christy Cooper-Burnett for the ARC. Run is available to pre-order now.