Review: The Champions by Kara Thomas

Author: Kara Thomas
Publisher: Delacourte Press
Publication Date: August 2024

When a mysterious accident befalls a member of the all-star high school football team, the town's deadly history stands to repeat itself—and the price of discovering the truth is higher than anyone could imagine.

It was the deaths of five cheerleaders that made the town of Sunnybrook infamous. Eleven years later, the girls' killer has been brought to justice, and the town just wants to move on. By the time Hadley moves to Sunnybrook, though, the locals are more interested in the Tigers, the high school's championship-winning football team. The Tigers are Sunnybrook’s homegrown heroes--something positive in a town with so much darkness in its past.

Hadley could not care less about football, but shortly after she gets assigned to cover the team's latest championship bid for the school newspaper, one of the Tigers is poisoned at a party, and almost immediately after, Hadley starts getting strange emails warning her to stay far away from the football team.It's becoming clear Sunnybrook's golden boys have secrets, and after a second player is mysteriously killed, Hadley’s beginning to suspect that someone wants the team to pay for their sins. Or does this new target on the football team have something to do with what happened to the cheerleaders all those years ago?As an outsider in Sunnybrook, Hadley feels like she's the only one who can see the present clearly, but it looks like she’s going to have to dig up the darkness of the past to get to the bottom of what’s happening now. Luckily, there are still some Sunnybrook High grads who never left--people who were around eleven years ago—and if she can just convince them to talk, she might be able stop a killer before another Tiger dies.

I really enjoyed The Cheerleaders, so I was excited to see a sequel to the book.  The Champions takes place years later and features Hadley, an aspiring journalist, who gets tangled up in another mystery involving athletes from Sunnybrook High School.  I wish I could say I liked this one just as much, but sadly, it fell short for me.

First, there were way too many characters to keep track of in this book.  None of the teens were likable.  It's hard to like a book when there is no one to root for.  Even Hadley annoyed me.  It was also not realistic.  The lack of attention from the teachers (including Hadley's mother) to a potential cheating scandal among the athletes was astonishing.  The survey she sent out was fine.  I thought the upset over it by everyone was way over the top.  I felt like the book was really unfocused.  I found myself zoning out toward the end and when the reveal happened, I was underwhelmed.  I'm not sure I would recommend this one.  Stick with the first book.

Review: That Weekend by Kara Thomas

Author: Kara Thomas

Publisher: Delacourte Press

Publication Date: June 2021

Three best friends, a lake house, a secret trip - what could go wrong?

It was supposed to be the perfect prom weekend getaway. But it's clear something terrible happened when Claire wakes up alone and bloodied on a hiking trail with no memory of the past forty-eight hours.

Three went up the mountain, but only one came back.

Now everyone wants answers - most of all, Claire. She remembers Friday night, but after that... nothing. And now Kat and Jesse - her best friends - are missing.

That weekend changes everything.

What happened on the mountain? And where are Kat and Jesse? Claire knows the answers are buried somewhere in her memory, but as she's learning, everyone has secrets - even her best friends. And she's pretty sure she's not going to like what she remembers.

In That Weekend, three teens go on a camping rip and only one comes out.  Claire is left with no memory of what occurred on the mountain.  Her friends are missing and presumed dead.   Now Claire needs to pick up and move on.  But can she really do it when there are still unanswered questions?

I thought this was an OK read. I did like Claire.  She was pretty smart. Her attempt to put the pieces of her life back together was fairly believable.  The mystery was fairly interesting.  I did call some of it, but not all of it.  I didn't call the ending.  It was kind of gross and came out of nowhere.  A tidbit like that should have been shared LONG before the events of the book ever happened.  I didn't love it and justice wasn't really served in my opinion.  This is probably the least favorite of the books I have tread by this author.  But I think that fans will probably want to check it out.

Review: The Cheerleaders by Kara Thomas

Author: Kara Thomas
Publisher: Delacourte Press
Date of publication: July 2018

There are no more cheerleaders in the town of Sunnybrook.

First there was the car accident—two girls gone after hitting a tree on a rainy night. Not long after, the murders happened. Those two girls were killed by the man next door. The police shot him, so no one will ever know why he did it. Monica’s sister was the last cheerleader to die. After her suicide, Sunnybrook High disbanded the cheer squad. No one wanted to be reminded of the girls they lost.

That was five years ago. Now the faculty and students at Sunnybrook High want to remember the lost cheerleaders. But for Monica, it’s not that easy. She just wants to forget. Only, Monica’s world is starting to unravel. There are the letters in her stepdad’s desk, an unearthed, years-old cell phone, a strange new friend at school. . . . Whatever happened five years ago isn’t over. Some people in town know more than they’re saying. And somehow Monica is at the center of it all.

There are no more cheerleaders in Sunnybrook, but that doesn’t mean anyone else is safe.

I was excited to read The Cheerleaders because I was hoping for a good YA mystery.  I was pleasantly surprised at how much I ended up enjoying this one.  While it does deal with some sensitive issues (suicide, abortion, murder), I thought it did a decent job at handling the subjects.  Monica's sister, Jennifer, was one of five cheerleaders who died five years before. The high school now does not have cheerleaders, but does have a dance team.  Monica has always had questions about the deaths of the five girls.  Now someone is telling her detective stepfather that he got it wrong.  She is determined to find out what really happened.

The mystery was pretty good.  The story goes between the present through Monica and five years before  from Jennifer's perspective.  As Monica finds out information, we get what really happened through Jennifer.  The story kept me engaged and the characters were interesting.  There was no love triangle of insta-love which was refreshing.   I definitely recommend this one.  It's another good YA mystery that would be great to curl up with during a summer storm.  

Little Monsters by Kara Thomas

Author: Kara Thomas
Publisher: Delacourte
Date of publication: July 2017

Kacey is the new girl in Broken Falls. When she moved in with her father, she stepped into a brand-new life. A life with a stepbrother, a stepmother, and strangest of all, an adoring younger half sister.

Kacey’s new life is eerily charming compared with the wild highs and lows of the old one she lived with her volatile mother. And everyone is so nice in Broken Falls—she’s even been welcomed into a tight new circle of friends. Bailey and Jade invite her to do everything with them.

Which is why it’s so odd when they start acting distant. And when they don’t invite her to the biggest party of the year, it doesn’t exactly feel like an accident.

But Kacey will never be able to ask, because Bailey never makes it home from that party. Suddenly, Broken Falls doesn’t seem so welcoming after all—especially once everyone starts looking to the new girl for answers.

Kacey is about to learn some very important lessons: Sometimes appearances can be deceiving. Sometimes when you’re the new girl, you shouldn’t trust anyone. 

I loved Darkest Corners, so I was excited to read Little Monsters.  While I didn't love it as much, it was still a fairly good mystery.  The story is told through Kacey's point of view.  She has recently come to live with her father and his family.  They are essentially strangers.  Trying to fit in, she makes friends with Bailey and Jade.  All seems to be going well until Bailey leaves a party and is never seen alive again.   As I said, I thought this was a fairly good mystery.  The ending was a bit surprising.  One thing that helped make the book more intriguing was the little snippets from Bailey's diary.  It helped me get a better insight into the missing girl.   

The story, while fairly short, did drag in places. I also thought the main characters made some incredibly stupid mistakes.  Why do people insist on speaking to the police repeatedly without a lawyer?  Has no one watched a cop show?  Also, why don't people tell the truth up front?  There were a few truths that were held back from the police dragging out the investigation.  That just got a little frustrating as it made the book drag out longer than it needed to be.  That said, I would recommend this one.  It's a fairly mild YA murder mystery.  I look forward to Ms. Thomas's next book.

Joint Review: The Darkest Corners by Kara Thomas

Author:Kara Thomas
Publisher: Delacourte
Date of publication: April 2016

There are ghosts around every corner in Fayette, Pennsylvania. Tessa left when she was nine and has been trying ever since not to think about it after what happened there that last summer. Memories of things so dark will burn themselves into your mind if you let them.

Callie never left. She moved to another house, so she doesn’t have to walk those same halls, but then Callie always was the stronger one. She can handle staring into the faces of her demons—and if she parties hard enough, maybe one day they’ll disappear for good.

Tessa and Callie have never talked about what they saw that night. After the trial, Callie drifted and Tessa moved, and childhood friends just have a way of losing touch.

But ever since she left, Tessa has had questions. Things have never quite added up. And now she has to go back to Fayette—to Wyatt Stokes, sitting on death row; to Lori Cawley, Callie’s dead cousin; and to the one other person who may be hiding the truth.

Only the closer Tessa gets to the truth, the closer she gets to a killer—and this time, it won’t be so easy to run away. 

I will admit that I almost made this one a DNF.  But I'm really glad I stuck it out.  It starts off a bit slow, but the wait is really worth it.    Tessa has returned to her old home town after tens years.  She hasn't been back since her mother abandoned her and she went to live with her grandmother.  She and her best friend Callie helped put away the man who police say killed Callie's cousin ten years earlier.  But Tessa has always wondered if they really saw what they testified having seen that night. When a local girl is murdered, it raises even more questions for Tessa.

The Darkest Corners has two mysteries really...Who killed local girl Ariel and was Callie's cousin Lori really killed by a serial killer?  Tessa and Callie end up setting aside their differences to figure out the truth.  I'm not going to say much more about the book. Just know that the plot was well planned out with reveals coming just at the right time.  It really kept me guessing. There are a lot of twists and the ending has a BIG surprise.   I definitely recommend checking this one out. 


Like Kari, I didn't know if I was going to like this book when I first started.  However, I got sucked in to story and it was a good one.  If you've read it and want more, check out the TV show Slasher on Netflix.  They have weird similarities.  I say give both a try!  Especially, if you like a good creepy/scary story.