A gripping short psychological thriller from USA Today bestselling author Lucinda Berry about how our safest routines can become our deadliest traps.
Riley Fletcher’s morning run should have been ordinary—muscle memory, fresh air, home by breakfast. Instead, she wakes bound and bleeding in a lakeside cabin, her captor a ghost from her past: Dawson Miller, a former coworker with nothing left to lose.
Escape seems simple until her injuries leave her dependent on the very man who took her. As he tends her wounds with unsettling care, Riley realizes this isn’t random violence. Dawson has a plan—one that’s been carefully constructed, methodically prepared. And somehow, she’s essential to it.
Trapped and injured, Riley must find the strength to outwit her captor and unravel his twisted scheme before it’s too late. Because if she doesn’t stop him, no one will.
USA Today bestselling author Lucinda Berry is a former psychologist and leading researcher in childhood trauma. She’s written multiple bestsellers reaching millions of readers worldwide. Some of her bestselling works include The Perfect Child, Saving Noah, When She Returned, The Best of Friends, and Keep Your Friends Close. Her books have been optioned for film and translated into several languages.
If Berry isn’t chasing after her son, you can find her running through Los Angeles, prepping for her next marathon. To hear about her upcoming releases and other author news, visit her on social media (@lucindaberryauthor) or sign up for her newsletter at https://lucindaberry.com.
In Run For Your Life, a typical day for Riley is going for her morning run, but today things take a turn for the worse when she wakes up after being hit and is bound and bleeding in a lakeside cabin. She knows her captor and she needs to find out why he is doing what his doing and will she be able to escape.
For such a short story this read really packed a punch! The action starts from go and doesn’t let up till the last pages. I love a thrilling survival story and this book delivered.
The audiobook was fantastic and the narrator Elena Rey really made me feel claustrophobic and reeling hoping that Riley would be able to find a way to get away from her captor.
For 72 pages it was detailed and impactful and I loved how the story just flowed effortlessly well.
I was expecting to feel sad and have compassion for the situation, but I did and I really hope that the healthcare system in America improves because innocent people are suffering unwillingly due to circumstances that is no fault of their own.
4.25 ⭐
Thank you so much to Brilliance Publishing, Lucinda Berry and Netgalley for giving me an ALC
Being a short story at just 72 pages, I went in not expecting a whole lot, but was pleasantly surprised by how much of an impression it left.
Riley heads out for her usual morning run before waking injured and held captive. I initially thought this was going to be a straightforward kidnapping story where we simply watch the protagonist try to escape, but it quickly becomes something much heavier, exploring grief, trauma and the devastating consequences of a broken healthcare system.
If you're looking for a quick survival thriller with a little more substance than you'd expect, this is well worth the hour or so it takes to read.
Thoughts | 3.5 ⭐️ For 72 pages this was a decent somewhat emotional story highlighting corrupt health care, I did feel that it ended rather abruptly; would've loved a full length read but nevertheless still enjoyable solid 4 stars vibes wise storyline 3 stars
Plot Summary Riley Fletcher’s routine morning run takes a terrifying turn when she wakes up injured and held captive by Dawson Miller, a former colleague with a dangerous plan. As she struggles to escape, Riley realises her abduction is far from random. With time running out, she must uncover Dawson’s motives and outsmart him before his carefully planned scheme is carried out.
For such a short story, it did not waste time. It was fast-paced, tense, and easy to fly through in one sitting, but the ending still managed to hit me harder than I expected.
What got me was that by the end, I understood everyone’s perspective. That does not excuse anyone’s choices, but it made the whole thing feel more human, which is probably why I got a little emotional. Rude, honestly.
Elena Rey was phenomenal. Her narration made the story feel even more convincing, and she brought so much emotion to the performance.
I’d recommend it to listeners who enjoy short psychological thrillers, survival stories, fast pacing, emotional endings, and strong audiobook narration.
Run for Your Life materialized in front of me like a shadow in a locked room, whispered “run,” and then politely handed me a cup of tea. Because Run for Your Life by Lucinda Berry is exactly that kind of unhinged novella: short, sharp, and designed to make you question every routine you’ve ever had.
I finished this book feeling like someone had replaced my brain with a live wire and then dared me to touch it.
This is Lucinda Berry in her purest form: no filler, no fluff, no emotional safety net. Just a woman going for her normal morning run and suddenly waking up bound, bleeding, and trapped in a lakeside cabin with a man who should have stayed a footnote in her past.
Riley Fletcher is the kind of heroine who thinks she’s having a normal day—muscle memory, fresh air, home by breakfast—until the universe says, “Actually, sweetheart, let’s traumatize you.” She wakes up injured, disoriented, and staring into the eyes of Dawson Miller, a former coworker who has absolutely snapped, shattered, and rearranged himself into something dangerous.
And here’s where Berry does her signature psychological chokehold.
Dawson isn’t a random attacker. He isn’t chaotic for chaos’s sake. He’s a man with a plan—methodical, prepared, and terrifyingly calm.
He tends Riley’s wounds with unsettling care, the kind that makes your skin crawl because it’s not kindness—it’s control. He needs her alive. He needs her functional. He needs her for something she doesn’t understand yet.
The tension is suffocating. The cabin feels like a trap disguised as a sanctuary. Every interaction is a psychological chess match where Riley is injured, terrified, and forced to rely on the very man who abducted her.
Berry thrives in this space—the claustrophobic, intimate horror of being trapped with someone who believes they’re justified. Dawson’s twisted scheme unfolds piece by piece, and Riley has to outthink him while bleeding, terrified, and painfully aware that no one is coming to save her.
It’s fast. It’s brutal without being graphic. It’s psychological warfare in 72 pages.
By the end, I wasn’t reading—I was sprinting emotionally, clutching the novella like it might bite me. Berry knows exactly how to weaponize tension, and she does it with surgical precision.
For a short story this one was packed with content, and was quite unique. It was essentially a kidnap story but with a little twist on it.
One morning whilst out on a run Riley is grabbed and taken to a remote cabin, she was essentially experiencing every woman’s worst nightmare and was sure she was about to experience the worst thing you could as a woman, because isn’t that the reason a man would take a woman in this way.
But her kidnapper has selected her for a reason and he tells her of a job she has so to and it turns out to be more terrifying than she ever could have realised. Lucinda Berry sure knows how to write, whether that be long or short stories.
BLURB: Riley Fletcher is abducted while out for a morning run and wakes up bound in a remote cabin, kidnapped by Dawson Miller. As she tries to escape, she uncovers the revenge-fueled reason behind her abduction.
REVIEW: If you’ve read Lucinda Berry before, you’ll know her stories explore important themes like trauma, obsession, and grief and always include mental health representation—and this short story has all of these in a very short format. The story essentially focuses on two characters, Riley Fletcher (the woman abducted) and Dawson Miller (the captor), and is mostly about their constantly shifting dynamic. Trope lovers will find a lot to enjoy—calculated kidnapping, a cat-and-mouse dynamic, survival against the odds, psychological manipulation, hidden motives, a morally gray villain, and a slow reveal of the truth!
The entire story is told through Riley’s POV. She’s emotionally reactive and does a lot of mental gymnastics trying to figure out why she was taken and what her best chance of escape is, and she sometimes sounds repetitive. Even though the kidnapping starts as a violent abduction, once they’re isolated in the cabin, Dawson’s behavior gradually changes. He shows unexpected moments of compassion, and Riley becomes increasingly invested in understanding why he abducted her. Soon, you have to really suspend your disbelief with what unfolds between them, but their dialogue, especially from Dawson’s side, is gripping. As the reason behind him kidnapping Riley is slowly revealed, it becomes clear how his obsession with revenge has clouded his judgment and made him lose touch with reality. Definitely a borderline morally black character, but not entirely unlikable!
At just 72 pages—or around two hours on audio—this is an easy one-sitting read. If you enjoy stories with psychological manipulation and mind games, you’ll likely enjoy this story, but don’t expect anything groundbreaking or intricate. There is a final twist that adds some more thrill, but the story is wrapped up very quickly afterwards. And by the end, Riley’s dog may just be your favorite character and will make you smile!
Is your worst nightmare getting grabbed while out on a run? That’s the premise of Lucinda Berry’s new short story, Run for Your Life. This fast-paced thriller is easy to finish in a single sitting. While it’s definitely a thriller, there’s quite a bit of emotion woven into the story as well. I listened to the audiobook, and the narrator did a great job bringing the emotion to life.
Definitely reminds me of an episode of Law and Order. Dad loses daughter to illness because of what he thinks is the systems fault and vows revenge. Kept me interested but have heard this story a few time.
Lucinda Berry is an auto-read author for me, so I'm sorry to say that this one was not it. The fact that this was a short story made it impossible to build any kind of tension and suspense. And I am also sorry to say that the writing was not at its best. Some sentences I had to re-read quite a few times to understand them. Also, are we just going to ignore that the first few sentences are in the present tense, and then we move into the past tense? I feel like maybe this was supposed to be told in the present tense, but somewhere down the road, they decided to go with the past tense but forgot the first few verbs? Anyway, I feel like there was not enough room for an appropriate set up, so most of the story feels very far-fetched, although it does touch on a very, very important subject matter.
I flew through Run For Your Life in a single afternoon. If you're looking for a fast addictive thriller you can finish in one setting, this one definitely delivers.
Riley is abducted while out on a run, but the deeper the story goes, the more everything gets turned upside down. This is a fast paced, tense, locked door style thriller. The narrator did a fantastic job bringing Riley's fear and determination to life.
If you are looking for a quick thriller you can finish in a flash, lace up your sneakers... Or maybe don't?😂
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
This was a quick novella, and man oh man!!! Lucinda knows how to do it!!! I felt every moment, every breath (smell included), every heartbeat.
I felt the rhythm of the run at the beginning…all the way to the calm of the moment, the quiet before the storm…so to speak…when Riley made the decision to do what she did.
The fear, the unknown, the heartbreak, the sadness…the choices.
Definitely an easy 5⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️! No one can write a novella quite like Lucinda!
I have not been a huge fan of Lucinda Berry's work in quite some time but this read was actually pretty good for a story so short. Things kick off right away when Riley who is going for a run early one morning gets kidnapped and held captive by a man who has some pretty deadly intentions on tap. However you immediately get a strong sense that she is not his ultimate targe, that they have an unknown history of some kind and that we have to figure out what the captor's true plan really is.
Throughout this terrifying ordeal Riley goes back and forth between trying to find a viable way to escape and getting to the bottom of exactly why she was taken in the first place. Once that dark secret is finally revealed the book really takes a sharp turn I was not quite expecting and it actually managed to throw a bit of sympathy and unexpected understanding into the proceedings. That emotional shift really caught me off guard but in a genuinely good way I think.
I enjoyed this one for what it was and I appreciate the somewhat outside of the box thinking Berry utilized. That approach was refreshing given how much the abducted woman trope gets used and how incredibly basic the execution of it typically tends to be. It's always great when an author manages to elevate a familiar premise like that.
This was exactly the high-stakes, ‘don't-blink’ thriller I was in the mood for. With it being a short story you jump straight in at the deep end, not wasting any time. The tension is solid from beginning to end yet the pacing is super fast. The writing style allows you to get deep into the minds of the characters, especially Riley and her dynamic with her captor which was really well executed. I found this read nailed that unsettling feeling of not knowing who to trust or what to think, making it a perfect one sitting read.
While I really enjoyed the psychological edge of the story, I did find that the ending felt a little bit abrupt for my taste. Yes it’s a novella, but I’d have loved another chapter or two towards the end. There were moments where I wanted just a little more closure or depth to the final reveals 🏃🏼♀️
3.5/5 stars - I went into this book completely blind so I had no idea what to expect other than knowing I’ll read anything Lucinda Berry writes. This started off in one direction, a woman getting kidnapped while out on a run, and took a different direction I definitely did not expect. All I’ll say is the insurance system is a damn scam. To be honest, this is a story you’ve heard before in different formats both in tv shows, movies, or in real life. I enjoyed it nonetheless and would recommend the read.
The author posted a tiktok saying this book was in memory and in honor of two women who were abducted and killed on runs. I don’t know how you say that and then write an abductor with a “sympathetic” motive.
Also I can’t get past that the main character has so much time alone with a gun and actively chooses to put it back instead of shoot the guy when he walks through the door. “Could I really shoot him after he’s been nice to me?” YES, yes you can?!
This is every woman’s fear come to life. Thrilling, gritty and all about survival. This one made me stop and think. It’s an interesting short story and makes a great palate cleanser.
Realising 7 July 2026 Thanks to Amazon Original Stories, Brilliance Publishing & NetGalley for the ALC. All thoughts are my own.
This was a short story that reminded me of a Law & Order episode. A father loses his daughter to an illness that he believes was caused by failures within the system, and he sets out on a path of revenge.
It's a storyline I've come across a few times, so it didn't feel particularly original. Overall, I didn't find the story all that intriguing and I wouldn't recommend it.
If Lucinda writes it, I’m gonna read it!🙂↕️ Available on KU + Free Audio
Quick short story that follows a woman that had been hit on her run and kidnapped by someone she knows. This story was detailed and had me gripped from the start.
The FMC is named after two woman who were murdered while running; Laken Riley and Eliza Fletcher.
Not my favorite work from Lucinda Berry but I love her so I still enjoyed it! It had a lot of twists on modern issues in the world and I thought the ending was really fast. It also didn’t WOW me like a lot of her other work has.
A quick novella that I finished in one day. Was a fine read for free on Prime. I typically enjoy Lucinda Berry’s books but I haven’t found a novella that really hits for me. I think they’re just too short to really get a lot of character development.
I love Lucinda’s writing. Period. I love how captivating and thought provoking every story is. I’m always left wondering “what would I do in this situation”. For a short story this was action packed and hard to put down.