Review: Run on Red by Noelle W. Ihli

Run on Red by Noelle W. Ihli

Series: Run on Red #1

Publication date: November 18th, 2022

Pages: 292

Spice: N/A

Synopsis:

A rural country road. No cell signal for miles. A terrifying game of cat-and-mouse.

By the time Laura and Olivia notice the headlights tailing them through the hills, it's too late. What seems, at first, like a case of road rage quickly unfolds into a heart-pounding chase--and a battle for survival.

Who are the men in the truck? What do they want? And can Laura and Olivia outrun--and outsmart-- them long enough to call for help, even if it means taking their chances in the hills on foot?

As their situation grows more perilous, the girls realize that the real terror has only just begun. But flight won't save them from their pursuers. If they're going to make it home alive, they'll have to fight.

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Plot: There has only been a handful of thriller books that kept me on the edge of my seat as much as this one did. From the moment the book started the suspense kicked in. The author took their reader on a rollercoaster of suspenseful events that would make anyone's heartrate pick up. There were times when the pace of the text was too slow for my thirst to know what was happening and who was behind it all. I found myself struggling to not flip ahead just to find some peace within my own mind as far as whether the girls were going to make it out of their situation or not. The story kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time. I had to take frequent breaks from the book to try to calm down worrying about the two girls locked in a fight for their lives. The breaks never lasted more than five minutes as my desperation to keep reading got the better of me. The author did an excellent job of making the writing thrilling enough that the reader will have a hard time stepping away for long before needing to check on the characters they were growing fond of.

Characters: I found Olivia to be so relatable it was insane. What girl who reads doesn't also have a fascination with true crime just like Olivia did. She read all the stories, listened to all the podcasts, prepared herself for the worst but never expected it to ever actually happen to her. When she finally confronted with something that was synonymous with a lot of her research all the level-headedness went straight out the window. She followed none of the guidelines and acted purely on instinct. It was a good representation of the fact that even if a person is completely prepared for the evils of the world, we are still baser creatures who will go with our gut and instincts over any amount of levelheadedness. Laura was a great character too but Olivia stole the show by far. I also liked how the author played the two antagonists having one be the alpha to the other's beta and then having that dynamic threatened and twisted throughout the story. All the characters were important in one way or another and were depicted really well for their roles in the story.

Writing: I had zero issue with any of the writing of the story. The layout of the story was really well done with a clear and concise progression. There were no grammatical or spelling errors that I could find. The writing was not hard to follow or overly descriptive as some stories can seem to be. The only reason I almost skipped/skimmed some of the book was because of the level of suspense not any sort of long-winded explanations or depictions. All in all, there was nothing to really critique.

Overall: I think this book was my favorite read of 2026 so far. It was suspenseful, riveting, and dramatic without overdoing it. The characters, even the antagonists, had some likeable qualities to them (except Kyle; Kyle was a butthead). If I could read the book all over again from start to finish I think I would have taken more time to read through every single line of text to get a better mental image of what happened. I was carried away by the eagerness to know who was behind it all and why they were doing what they were doing that I may have missed some details that I would have loved to otherwise know. I think this is a great book for those who are interested in thriller books that touch on some hard subject matter without having any of it on page as must thrillers of this type may do.