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ENTRY TYPE:
WORK TITLE: The Champions
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY: Long Island
STATE:
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
LAST VOLUME: SATA 378
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born March 21, 1990; married; children: one son.
EDUCATION:State University of New York, Stony Brook, B.A., 2011; attended graduate school.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and librarian. Former screenwriter for Warner Bros. Television; works part-time in a library in Long Island, NY.
AVOCATIONS:Playing video games, baking, decorating, gardening.
WRITINGS
Writer (as Kara Taylor) for the pilot for the television series The Revengers, CW, 2013.
SIDELIGHTS
Kara Thomas has earned critical acclaim for thrillers and mystery novels for young adults including Little Monsters and The Cheerleaders. She began her career, writing as Kara Taylor, with the “Prep School Confidential” trilogy[open new], and she has also written mysteries for adults. Raised on Long Island, she enjoyed family excursions to the Hamptons and upstate locales. She was ready to concoct stories by the fourth grade, when a mystery in the style of admired icon Nancy Drew was confiscated by her teacher after she got caught writing during a math lesson. Thomas’s youthful interest in true-crime stories inspired her to take pre-law courses in college, but her true calling became apparent as she greatly preferred time spent writing fiction on nights and weekends. She was already hard at work on what would become her first young-adult novel.[suspend new]
Discussing the inspiration for her works, Thomas remarked in an Underlined blog interview: “I actually get scared pretty easily—growing up, I always used to bug my parents to double-check the locks and the windows before I went to bed at night. I think I wound up writing about dark things, especially crime, as a way to deal with the uglier parts of life that scare me. It’s sort of like unmasking your fears and taking control of them.”
In Prep School Confidential—Thomas’s debut, written as Taylor—Anne Dowling is expelled from her expensive Manhattan private school after she accidentally sets a fire on campus. In response, her frustrated parents send her to the Wheatley School, a boarding school located in the suburbs of Boston. Although the seventeen year old misses her friends and wants to return home, her new roommate Isabella is easy to like. The teen begins to view her new school with suspicion after Isabella goes missing and her body is found in a nearby wood. The Wheatley administration hopes to sweep this suspicious death under the rug, but Anne is determined to discover the truth, aided by Isabella’s twin brother Anthony. Citing Anne’s “no-nonsense personality and adventuring spirit,” a contributor to Kirkus Reviews praised Taylor’s first novel, calling Prep School Confidential “a fast-moving murder mystery with preppy overtones and a determined heroine.”
In Wicked Little Secrets, Anne has returned after winter break, and her sleuthing talents are now focused in the past: the mysterious disappearance of a scholarship student at the Wheatley School thirty years ago, a mystery that may be linked to the ill-fated Isabella. In Deadly Little Sins the teen is still worried about being expelled from school, but circumstances prompt her concerns to turn to others, specifically Ms. Cross, a popular teacher whose current location is unknown. Praising the second “Prep School Confidential” novel as “a solid investigative mystery,” a Kirkus Reviews writer added that Taylor, “includes enough romance to satisfy … while keeping the mystery complex.”
With The Darkest Corners, Thomas presents “an unsettling story of loss, lies, and violence lurking in the shadows of a small town,” according to a contributor in Kirkus Reviews. To say goodbye to her dying father, eighteen-year-old Tessa Lowell reluctantly returns to her hometown of Fayette in rural Pennsylvania. Ten years earlier, Tessa and her best friend, Callie, were the key witnesses against Wyatt Stokes, who was convicted of slaying Callie’s cousin, Lori. Tessa moved away soon after the trial ended; she and Callie have not spoken since. When another girl is found murdered, Tessa wonders if the wrong man is behind bars, and she asks Callie to help her find answers to some lingering questions from the night of Lori’s killing.
“Thomas carefully crafts the suspense,” the Kirkus Reviews critic noted, and Jennifer Barnes, writing in Booklist, described The Darkest Corners as “expertly plotted with plenty of twists and turns.” “As a dark psychological thriller with a compelling story and an unexpected but satisfying ending,” Genevieve Feldman remarked in School Library Journal, “this novel is a sure bet.”
Critiquing Little Monsters, a Publishers Weekly reviewer opined that “Thomas’s twisted and atmospheric dive into the psychology of teenage girls holds a horrifying fascination.” After spending years with her unstable mother, Kacey moves from upstate New York to the small town of Broken Falls, Wisconsin, where she is welcomed with open arms by her father, his second wife, and their two children. She quickly becomes friends with her new classmates Bailey and Jade, and one night they convince Kacey to join them for a seance in a supposedly haunted barn. The ritual goes badly, and Kacey’s younger sister, Lauren, who has tagged along, is traumatized. Soon after, Bailey vanishes, and Kacey becomes one of the prime suspects.
“Thomas explores the complex minds of teenagers, and finds a dark place not often shown in young adult novels,” observed Richard Vigdor in a Voice of Youth Advocates review of Little Monsters. According to Booklist contributor Sarah Hunter, the author “unspools the truth at a tantalizing pace, turning suspicion for Bailey’s ever-lengthening disappearance from character to character,” and School Library Journal critic Amy Reddy maintained that Little Monsters “is descriptive yet concise, deftly folding in layers of mystery, a ghost story, and realistic dialogue to propel the narrative forward.”
In The Cheerleaders, another psychological thriller, Thomas “continues to demonstrate command of both the inner workings of a teenage mind and the anatomy of crime,” a Publishers Weekly reviewer explained. The fifth anniversary of her sister’s death stirs up painful memories for sixteen-year-old Monica. Jen was the last of five Sunnybrook High School cheerleaders to perish in a period of weeks: two died in a car accident, two others were murdered by a neighbor (who in turn was killed by Monica’s stepfather, a police officer), and Jen committed suicide. While looking through her stepdad’s desk, Monica finds Jen’s old cell phone along with a series of letters that suggest the deaths were connected, and she begins her own investigation into the matter. A Kirkus Reviews writer stated that Thomas “cleverly layers a veneer of doubt over each of the players in the story, effectively keeping the audience guessing until the very end.”
Claire’s weekend camping trip goes terribly awry in That Weekend. Discussing her inspiration for the book, Thomas explained to an interviewer on the I’m All Booked Up website: “I got the idea while I was on an overnight backpacking trip. As a crime writer, my brain always goes to that place—when we found our spot, I thought, we are so vulnerable out here. Someone could easily rob us and push us off that ledge! From there, the idea snowballed and became more complicated and turned into That Weekend. ” Shortly before the prom, Claire spies her boyfriend slinking away with another girl. There is no way she is going to the dance with her cheating boyfriend. Instead, she joins her best friend, Kat, and Kat’s boyfriend, Jesse, on a secret camping trip. Claire has long had a crush on Jesse, but she has always been able to shrug things off in the name of her friendship with Kat. Figuring the worst of the trip will be having to witness Kat and Jesse being a little too close, Claire joins the excursion. Trouble brews, however, when Claire awakens thirty-six hours into her trip covered in blood with no memory of how she got there, let alone where Kat and Jesse have disappeared to. She knows that the answer must be buried somewhere in her mind, but she cannot recall what happened to the trio. After the FBI comes up empty with no progress being made on the case, Claire launces an investigation of her own and tries to piece together any clues that might lead to the recovery of her friends.
“Mystery fans will welcome another shocking missing teen case,” wrote a contributor to Kirkus Reviews. Annamarie Carlson, writing in School Library Journal, concluded that That Weekend is “a good addition to the teen thriller set.”
[resume new]Thomas offers a companion novel for The Cheerleaders with The Champions, which was partly inspired by a (nonlethal) scandal at her old high school in the early 2010s. Set six years after the mysterious tragedies of the cheerleading squad, The Champions centers on the seamy side of Sunnybrook high’s football team. Aiming for the elite journalism program at Columbia University, senior Hadley imagines that being named editor in chief of her school’s newspaper will give her a major boost. She faces obnoxious competition from Peter, but they feel ready to combine forces when a house party Hadley attends ends with one member of the football team unconscious in the emergency room. Soon, a set of scandals involving cheating, violence, and sexual assault make their investigative efforts increasingly uncomfortable—and essential.
A Kirkus Reviews writer deemed The Champions a fine companion to The Cheerleaders, offering a “similarly intricate mystery that takes its time unwinding.” Observing that teen readers “will easily empathize” with Hadley as her pursuit of unpleasant truths leads to getting ostracized by her classmates, the reviewer praised The Champions as an “engrossing, thrilling, and at times grim mystery with a likable protagonist.”[close new]
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, March 15, 2016, Jennifer Barnes, review of The Darkest Corners, p. 58; June, 2017, Sarah Hunter, review of Little Monsters, p. 96; May 1, 2018, Sarah Hunter, review of The Cheerleaders, p. 40.
BookPage, May, 2016, Kimberly Giarratano, review of The Darkest Corners.
Kirkus Reviews, June 1, 2013, review of Prep School Confidential; February 1, 2014, review of Wicked Little Secrets; January 1, 2016, review of The Darkest Corners; May 1, 2017, review of Little Monsters; May 1, 2018, review of The Cheerleaders; May 15, 2021, review of That Weekend; September 15, 2024, review of The Champions.
Publishers Weekly, May 22, 2017, review of Little Monsters, p. 95; May 21, 2018, review of The Cheerleaders, p. 74.
School Library Journal, March, 2016, Genevieve Feldman, review of The Darkest Corners, p. 160; July, 2017, Amy Reddy, review of Little Monsters, p. 94; May, 2018, Leighanne Law, review of The Cheerleaders, p. 102; July, 2021, Annamarie Carlson, review of That Weekend, p. 74.
Voice of Youth Advocates, August, 2017, Richard Vigdor, review of Little Monsters, p. 67.
ONLINE
Big Thrill, https://www.thebigthrill.org/ (May 18, 2023), Jaden Terrell, “Spotlight: Kara Thomas.”
Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb, https://deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com/ (May 1, 2023), author Q&A; (April 17, 2024), author Q&A.
Hiding Spot, http://thehidingspot.blogspot.com/ (April 2, 2016), author interview.
I’m All Booked Up, https://imallbookedup.com/ (July 19, 2021), author interview.
Kara Thomas website, https://www.kara-thomas.com (April 11, 2025).
Nerd Daily, https://thenerddaily.com/ (August 26, 2024), Elise Dumpleton, “Q&A: Kara Thomas, Author of ‘The Champions.’”
Stony Book University website, https://www.stonybrook.edu/ (October 20, 2021), “2016 Honoree: Kara Thomas ’11”; (October 20, 2021), “Kara Thomas | Department of English,” author interview.
Underlined, https://www.getunderlined.com/ (June 1, 2018), “Q&A with Author of Little Monsters, Kara Thomas.”
Writer’s Digest, https://www.writersdigest.com/ (September 6, 2024), Robert Lee Brewer, “Kara Thomas: You Only Get One Chance at Your Debut Novel.”
KARA THOMAS is the author of the YA novels The Darkest Corners, Little Monsters, The Cheerleaders, and That Weekend, as well as the adult novels Out of the Ashes and Lost to Dune Road. Kara's books have been sold in multiple languages and have been nominated for the International Thriller Writers Award. In 2013, she wrote and developed the pilot The Revengers with Rashida Jones and Will McCormack for The CW. She lives on Long Island with her husband, son, and rescue cat, where she spends way too much time on Reddit Unresolved Mysteries trying to solve cold cases.
OFFICIAL BIO
Kara Thomas is the author of the YA novels The Darkest Corners, Little Monsters, The Cheerleaders, and That Weekend, as well as the adult novels Out of the Ashes and Lost to Dune Road. Kara's books have been sold in multiple languages and have been nominated for the International Thriller Writers Award. In 2013, she wrote and developed the pilot The Revengers with Rashida Jones and Will McCormack for The CW. She lives on Long Island with her husband, son, and rescue cat, where she spends way too much time on Reddit Unresolved Mysteries trying to solve cold cases.
Kara Thomas
Kara is the author of the young adult mystery novels The Darkest Corners and Little Monsters. Her newest book, The Cheerleaders, is coming July 25th from Random House/Delacorte. She’s written for everything from her high school newspaper to Warner Brothers Television. You can find her on Long Island, bingeing on true crime podcasts and TV shows.
Genres: Young Adult Fiction, Mystery
Series
Cheerleaders
1. The Cheerleaders (2018)
2. The Champions (2024)
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Novels
The Darkest Corners (2016)
Little Monsters (2017)
That Weekend (2021)
Out of the Ashes (2023)
Lost to Dune Road (2024)
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Series contributed to
Cheerleaders
1. The Cheerleaders (2018)
2. The Champions (2024)
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Spotlight: Kara Thomas
Jaden Terrell
FeaturesLatest Books
May 18, 2023
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Kara Thomas Uncovers a Burning Secret
By Jaden Terrell
Kara Thomas wrote her first novel in college, juggling pre-law classes on weekdays and working on her writing at night and on weekends. The book was an escape from her dissatisfaction with her chosen major. Despite being a self-avowed true crime junkie, Thomas was “deeply unhappy” studying law. Her passion lay elsewhere—with spinning stories on the page.
“I’ve been writing fiction for as long as I can remember,” Thomas says. “My first ‘mystery novel’ was a Nancy Drew knock-off that was confiscated by my fourth-grade teacher, who caught me writing during a math lesson.”
Writing was her true calling, and she followed it with unflagging persistence. From the age of nineteen, she spent the school year finishing her degree and her summers sending her work out to agents—again…and again…and again. Four years later, her YA novel Prep School Confidential was published to critical acclaim. Since then, her young adult books have been sold in multiple languages and have been nominated for the International Thriller Writers Award.
Kara Thomas
c. Charles Santangelo
With her latest book, OUT OF THE ASHES, Thomas goes in a different direction. It’s an adult crime novel about a woman, Samantha Newsom, who lost her family and their home in a murder-arson when she was thirteen. Twenty-two years later, still haunted by the event and resentful of police mishandling of the case, she learns that her baby sister, presumed dead in the fire, may have survived. The book has been aptly called “a heart-wrenching novel of suspense” and is the sort of morally complex book Thomas admires in her favorite authors.
Asked about the challenges of switching from a YA audience to an adult audience, Thomas says, “Moving from writing for teens to writing for adults wasn’t challenging for me at all, to be honest. I am a thirty-three-year-old mother, so I have more in common with my adult characters than the teen characters I’ve written about in the past.
I think in many ways, writing young adult fiction, especially mysteries, is a lot more challenging—there are so many logistical issues standing in the way of crafting a realistic mystery when you’re dealing with teenagers. Most have school and curfews, or they can’t drive yet, and there are always pesky parents hovering. In those respects, it felt freeing to write OUT OF THE ASHES, where the main character was an independent, fully autonomous adult.”
Kara making a new friend after dog sledding in Tromso, Norway
The idea for the book grew from her fascination with the 1945 Sodder case. Thomas explains, “I heard about the Sodder family tragedy while I was researching another case—the disappearance of Lauria Bible and Ashley Freeman in Welch, Oklahoma, in 1999. The tragedies occurred decades apart, but the similarities led me down a rabbit hole of cases where people had been reported missing after suspicious house fires or arsons. I was disturbed by the idea that investigators couldn’t say, definitively, in the case of the Sodder family, whether or not the five missing children were in the house when it burned to the ground. Recently, the last surviving Sodder sibling died without any sort of answer as to what really happened the night of the fire—were the five children kidnapped, or did they perish with their parents?”
But Thomas is uncomfortable with the idea that her book was “inspired” by the case. “I never like to say my work is ‘inspired’ by another person’s tragedy,” she says. “I think any crime writer struggles with the ethics of being influenced by real-life cases. I didn’t set out to write a story inspired by what happened to the Sodder family, but the character of Samantha was born out of the question that stuck with me about the case: How do you grieve a loved one who is trapped in the liminal space between missing and dead?
Kara attending a pastry class at the Babylon Mercantile
“For Samantha, she has always believed her baby sister died in the fire along with her parents. But when a new witness comes forward and says he saw a man carrying a child out of the house the night of the murders, Samantha’s memory of the tragedy is upended.”
OUT OF THE ASHES opens with a tender, yet painful scene between Sam and her uncle Gil, who is dying of cancer. Thomas says, “The opening chapter came to me very early on, as soon as I knew that Sam was a nurse. I knew that Gil needed to die to set the events of the story in motion and resurrect long-buried questions for Sam, but it wasn’t until I started thinking about who Sam was as a person that I had the idea to open the story the way I did. It’s a huge moment she can’t come back from. I always like to put my characters in those situations where the reader will ask themselves if they would have made the same choice in her situation.”
The forensic and medical details are believable and well-researched. “I have a cousin who is a nurse at a hospital,” Thomas explains. “She fielded more than her fair share of text messages with my medical questions, ranging from ‘how hard is it to steal narcotics from the pharmacy?’ to ‘what is the nurse who is in charge of an entire unit called?’ (A charge nurse, actually. Thank you, Susan!)”
Kara’s first in-N-Out visit on book tour in SF
When it came to forensics, though, Thomas says she was on her own to research murder-arson cases and fire science. “There isn’t a lot of literature freely available online that could answer my specific questions, so I consulted a friend of mine, who is a firefighter and medic, for the smaller details.
“Believe it or not, a huge plot breakthrough came in the form of an old Forensic Files episode I happened to catch while revising—I was struggling to answer the question of how investigators pinpointed the time the fire in Sam’s house was set. The episode I was watching involved an arson, and investigators determined what time the fire was set from a pair of melted clock hands.”
Asked what she likes to do when she isn’t writing or researching her novels, Thomas says, “I love to play video games, particularly relaxing ones like Stardew Valley. I am also big into having creative outlets outside of writing, like baking and decorating, and I’m intense about my vegetable garden every summer. Most people who have read my books are usually surprised to find out my hobbies are so lighthearted!”
Of course, Thomas also has another writing project in the works. “My sophomore book for adults will be out next year,” she says. “The story follows Natalee, a journalist whose personal and professional life is thrown into chaos when she receives a phone call from a man who claims to have killed the woman at the center of a missing persons case Natalee has been covering. It’s my first book completely set on my home turf of Long Island, and it delves into the world of the Hamptons uber-rich.”
You can learn more about Kara and her novels at www.Kara-Thomas.com.
Kara Thomas: You Only Get One Chance at Your Debut Novel
In this interview, author Kara Thomas discusses choosing an already-built world to set her new YA novel, The Champions.
Robert Lee BrewerSep 6, 2024
Kara Thomas is an unsolved mystery enthusiast who dreams of one day solving a cold case. She lives on Long Island with her husband, son, and rescue cat. She is the author of The Darkest Corners, Little Monsters, The Cheerleaders, That Weekend, and The Champions, as well as the adult thriller Out of the Ashes. Follow her on Facebook and Instagram.
Kara Thomas: You Only Get One Chance at Your Debut Novel
Kara Thomas
Photo by Sylvie Rosokoff
In this interview, Kara discusses choosing an already-built world to set her new YA novel, The Champions, the challenges facing YA writers today, and more.
Name: Kara Thomas
Literary agent: Sara Landis
Book title: The Champions
Publisher: Random House/Delacorte
Release date: August 27, 2024
Genre/category: Young adult mystery
Previous titles: That Weekend, The Cheerleaders, Little Monsters, The Darkest Corners, Out of the Ashes, Lost to Dune Road
Elevator pitch: A buddying reporter unravels a conspiracy involving her high school’s football team in this follow-up to The Cheerleaders.
Kara Thomas: You Only Get One Chance at Your Debut Novel
Bookshop | Amazon
[WD uses affiliate links.]
What prompted you to write this book?
I was inspired by real events that took place at my old high school back in 2012. Luckily, there was no murder involved in the scandal that involved our football team! I decided to set The Champions in the same world as The Cheerleaders, my 2018 novel, because both stories shared the DNA of a small town covering up the crimes of their champion athletes.
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
I originally sold this novel in 2020, but it was actually supposed to be a totally different book. In 2022, I was still struggling with drafting that novel, and I realized I was writing the wrong story at the wrong time. Once I decided to start over with the story that would become The Champions, it was about two years from starting the manuscript to completion and publication.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
The market has changed so much since I published my last YA novel, That Weekend, in 2021. YA sales are down, and there were a lot of behind-the-scenes conversations about how to be creative and make The Champions stand out. The Champions is my first book being published simultaneously in paperback and hardcover as a result, and I’m interested in seeing how the split run helps the book find readers.
Kara Thomas: You Only Get One Chance at Your Debut Novel
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
I was surprised by how little I actually know about high school football, despite going to a school where our team won the state championships! I had to do a lot of research to get the details right, both about the rules of the game and the culture surrounding high school sports.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
I hope fans of The Cheerleaders will be satisfied with the fates of the main characters, and I hope readers will enjoy Hadley’s story as much as they did Monica’s and Ginny’s. I know there are some heavier themes in this book, and I hope readers will realize they’re there because unfortunately, many real-life high schoolers are finding themselves in similar situations in a toxic culture of sports-worship.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
Trying to get a book published is a marathon, not a sprint. So many writers jump the gun with their first manuscript and send it out before it’s ready, and you only get one chance at your debut novel. My advice is to take your time revising your first book and get several pairs of eyes on your work before you share with literary agents—they will be waiting when it’s done!
Wednesday, April 17, 2024
Q&A with Kara Thomas
Kara Thomas is the author of the new novel Lost to Dune Road. Her other books include the novel Out of the Ashes. She lives on Long Island.
Q: You’ve said you were inspired to write Lost to Dune Road by the Gilgo Beach murders on Long Island. Can you say more about that, and about how you created your character Lee Ellerin?
A: Anyone who is familiar with the Gilgo case might recall the horrifying phone call one of the victims' sister got from the killer. That detail always stuck with me about the unsolved murders, and how that call must have traumatized and shaped the next several years for the woman's sister.
Lee, an investigative journalist, also receives a call from a missing woman's cell phone, and is taunted by the presumed killer.
There are other parallels with the Gilgo story, including the Long Island setting, but I knew I didn't want to pull too heavily from an active, ongoing case. I was as shocked as anyone when police announced they had finally arrested a suspect in the murders this summer.
Q: How was the novel’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: We knew we wanted to incorporate Dune Road into the title, since it's a famous landmark and such a huge part of the book-- the victim in Lee's case went missing on Dune Road, in the wealthy enclave of East Hampton.
Making sure Dune Road was in the title gave us a lot of options for the cover to evoke a very specific tone and sense of place.
Q: Why did you decide to focus on the Hamptons in this novel?
A: I knew that I wanted to explore the darker side of the Hamptons-- it's a playground for the rich and famous, and no one really knows what goes on in the multi-million dollar estates owned by the wealthiest people in the country.
I'm also fairly familiar with the Hamptons, as a Long Islander. I spent a bit of time there growing up, and have visited many of the locations mentioned in the book.
Q: What do you hope readers take away from the story?
A: Above anything I always just want to entertain and surprise my readers, but I do hope they walk away from the book wanting to discuss the ending, and the choices the characters made, with someone who has also read the book.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I am finishing up revisions on my next novel for young adults, also a mystery. It is due out in late 2024.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I can write you a book, but I can also recommend you one--I work part-time as a librarian!
Monday, May 1, 2023
Q&A with Kara Thomas
Kara Thomas is the author of the new novel Out of the Ashes. Her other books include the young adult novel That Weekend. She lives on Long Island.
Q: You’ve noted that you were inspired to write Out of the Ashes after learning about a mystery that took place in 1945. What about that story compelled you to write your new novel?
A: I knew that I wanted to write about a crime in my main character, Samantha’s, past. When I learned about the Sodder family fire and how the remains of several of the children were never recovered, I couldn’t stop thinking about the case.
I had written about murders and missing persons before, but the idea of a person—multiple children— being missing after a fire presented this idea of a terrible liminal space for the characters to be trapped in. I wanted my plot to be driven by a character who just needed to know, one way or another, if her sister was dead or alive.
Q: How did you create your character Samantha?
A: Samantha came to me before the plot— I always wanted to write about a nurse who worked the night shift because she was unable to sleep during the night due to childhood trauma.
Q: The novel is set in a small town in New York state. How important is setting to you in your writing?
A: The settings of my books always inform the plot. I am very interested in the politics of crime in small towns, and how that affects how quickly or effectively a case is solved. More attention is being paid to upstate New York in fiction, lately, and I think that’s exciting because these are all places I know and frequented when I was growing up.
Q: Without giving anything away, did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?
A: I always knew what I wanted the final scene to be— I had a very specific image in my head of where Sam ended up. Through the editorial process, much of the lead up changed, but the last scene is the one I always envisioned ending the story with.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I’m working on another mystery for adults, about a girl from the wrong side of the tracks who goes missing in the Hamptons.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: This is my first book for adults, but I’ve also written seven novels for teens!
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
Q&A: Kara Thomas, Author of ‘The Champions’
Elise Dumpleton·Writers Corner·August 26, 2024·3 min read
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We chat with author Kara Thomas about The Champions, which is another dark YA thriller set in the same town of Sunnybrook. 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.
Hi, Kara! Welcome back! How has the past year been since we last spoke?
Very busy! In addition to releasing The Champions, my second book for adults, Lost to Dune Road, came out on April 16th of this year. More importantly, I also got three chickens, named Noodle, Waffles, and Popcorn.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
The first book you ever remember reading: Meet Samantha from the American Girl Series
The one that made you want to become an author: There are so many, but probably the Nancy Drew series!
The one that you can’t stop thinking about: Gone Baby Gone by Dennis Lehane
Your latest novel, The Champions, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
High school football turns deadly.
What can readers expect?
Readers can expect a whole new story set in the same world as The Cheerleaders. Some familiar faces return, but The Champions is set six years after the events of The Cheerleaders.
What led you to return to Sunnybrook? Did anything in particular inspire The Champions?
I never intended to write another book in the same world as The Cheerleaders. To me, Monica’s and Ginny’s stories always felt finished. The idea for The Champions came to me in 2020, when I was struggling writing the YA I was contracted to write. I knew I was working on the wrong story at the wrong time, which lead me to the seed of an idea that became The Champions.
The Champions is loosely inspired by events that happened at my high school. While there was (thankfully) no murder involved in the real scandal that rocked our football team, the story I wanted to tell had so many similarities with The Cheerleaders. I could see this story occurring in Sunnybrook so I thought, what’s stopping me? Luckily, my editor was on board with the idea of turning the idea into a companion novel to The Cheerleaders.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I loved writing the scenes between Hadley, the main character, and Peter, her rival. Readers of The Cheerleaders will remember Peter as Monica’s annoying little brother. Peter is still annoying, but I enjoyed exploring how his own life was impacted by what happened in Sunnybrook six years ago.
Did you face any challenges whilst writing The Champions?
The Champions is my tenth published novel, and I would be lying if I didn’t say that writing becomes more difficult with each book. I’m always trying to level up with each book, and the first, second, and third drafts rarely match up with the vision I have in my head. With The Champions, I had the challenge of satisfying readers who wanted more of Monica and Ginny’s stories while balancing a plot that dealt with completely new characters and conflicts.
What are three songs that would pair well with The Champions?
See also
Q&A: Stephanie Eding, Author of ‘The Unplanned Life of Josie Hale’
Hall of Fame by The Script
No Body No Crime by Taylor Swift
Team by Lorde
What’s next for you?
I don’t know! I worked so hard to release two books this year, and while I’m so proud of both The Champions and Lost to Dune Road, I’m looking forward to a little bit of a break. I love being able to get excited about other peoples’ books through my job as a librarian, and I am very slowly working on a new mystery/thriller for adults.
Lastly, what books have you enjoyed so far this year and are there any that you can’t wait to get your hands on?
The best book I’ve read this year is The God of the Woods by Liz Moore. I recently got an advance copy of Rory Power’s new YA novel Kill Creatures, and even though it’s not out until 2025, it’s at the top of my TBR!
Kara Thomas
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kara Thomas
Born March 21, 1990 (age 34)
Occupation Novelist, Television writer, Television producer
Nationality American
Education Stony Brook University
Genre Young adult fiction
Website
www.kara-thomas.com
Kara Thomas (born Kara Mustafa, March 21, 1990), is an American author of novels for young adults and television writer best known for her 2018 novel The Cheerleaders.[1]
Biography
Kara Thomas is an American author of young adult fiction. Raised on Long Island, New York, Kara attended Stony Brook University and graduated[when?] with a degree in English.[2] She wrote Prep School Confidential during her final year at Stony Brook.[3] In July 2013, she signed a blind-script deal for a television pilot with Warner Bros. TV (Untitled Kara Taylor Project). In August 2013 it was announced that Rashida Jones and Will McCormack are developing Taylor's dramedy The Revengers for the CW, for which Taylor will serve as writer and co-executive producer.[4]
Thomas currently lives on Long Island with her husband and son.[5]
Works
As Kara Taylor
Prep School Confidential (St. Martin's Press/Thomas Dunne Books, July 30, 2013)[6]
Wicked Little Secrets (St. Martin's Press/Thomas Dunne Books, March 4, 2014)[7]
Deadly Little Sins (St. Martin's Press/Thomas Dunne Books, August 5, 2014)[8]
As Kara Thomas
The Darkest Corners, Delacorte Press, 2016, ISBN 978-0553521467
Little Monsters, Delacorte Press, 2017, ISBN 978-0553521498
The Cheerleaders, Delacorte Press, 2018, ISBN 978-1524718329
That Weekend, Delacorte Press, 2021, ISBN 978-1524718367
Out Of The Ashes, Thomas & Mercer, 2023, ISBN 978-1662509537
Lost to Dune Road, Thomas & Mercer, 2024, ISBN 978-1662509551
The Champions, Delacorte Press, 2024, ISBN 978-0593379974
Thomas, Kara THE CHAMPIONS Delacorte (Teen None) $20.99 8, 27 ISBN: 9780593379974
A teen who aspires to be a cutting-edge journalist becomes enmeshed in the cover-ups surrounding her upstate New York town's football team.
Hadley's major focus for her senior year at Sunnybrook High School is being made editor in chief of the school newspaper, a post that she feels will give her an edge in her application to study journalism at Columbia. Her rival for the position is Peter--and she's still sore about their personal history. A cute member of Sunnybrook's celebrated football team convinces Hadley to go to a party, but after he ends the night unconscious and in the emergency room, she and Peter find themselves diving in deeper than either might want to. Together, they explore bleak secrets and scandals involving the team, including academic cheating, dating violence, and sexual assault. Set in the same community asThe Cheerleaders (2018) and featuring some returning characters (here appearing mostly in secondary roles), this stand-alone companion novel constructs a similarly intricate mystery that takes its time unwinding. Readers will easily empathize with Hadley as she doggedly pursues the truth, even when doing so creates difficulties for her and causes her to be bullied by her classmates. Hadley and Peter read white; there's racial diversity among the secondary characters.
An engrossing, thrilling, and at times grim mystery with a likable protagonist.(Mystery. 14-18)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation
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"Thomas, Kara: THE CHAMPIONS." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Sept. 2024. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A808342919/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=4dbac672. Accessed 6 Mar. 2025.