I really enjoyed this foray into a more adult novel by Kara Thomas. Sam's journey to figuring out what happened to her family felt very authentic and I enjoyed that a lot when many of these types of novels diverge into suspension of belief too many times. I really thought the characters were well fleshed out. Overall, a solid 4 star book.

This was an awesome thriller. It’s my first book by this author and I will for sure be trying to read more. The characters were very well developed. The storyline kept moving and frankly I couldn’t put the book down. I was super eager to get to the end but didn’t want it to finish.

A woman’s investigation into her family’s murders uncovers lies, secrets, and dangerous truths in a heart-wrenching novel of suspense.
When she was thirteen years old, Samantha Newsom’s family was murdered and their Catskills farmhouse set ablaze in an unsolved crime that left nothing behind but ashes.
Twenty-two years later, Sam is pulled back to her hometown of Carney, New York, under the shadows of the grim tragedy she’s never forgotten or forgiven. Authorities mishandled the evidence, false rumors were seeded about her family, suspects yielded nothing, and the case went cold. Not anymore. Investigator Travis Meacham has been assigned to the case, and he has news for Sam: a prison inmate has come forward with a shocking admission. Sam’s baby sister, presumed dead in the fire, made it out of the house that night.
It’s not the only reveal that upends everything Sam thinks she knows about the crime and her family. But Carney protects its secrets. And this time, Sam might not be able to escape the town alive.
Wow couldn’t put this down really enjoyable read totally out
Thank you NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer
I just reviewed Out of the Ashes by Kara Thomas. #OutoftheAshes #NetGalley

Wow. I might need a minute to recover from this. Kara Thomas is an auto-buy author for me. She is one of the rare authors me and my teenager can both read. This book was no different. I read it in 1 day. Couldn’t put it down, will probably be thinking about it all week. Every time I thought I had it figured out another twist and turn came my way. This was tragic, engrossing, beautiful, heart wrenching, and a book of the year contender. Watch out 2023!

Samantha Newsom was 13 years old when her family was murdered, the mystery left largely unsolved. Now 22 years later and a witness has come forward. Not only do they have the details of a suspicious car seen in the area, but they also allege that they saw a baby removed from the home before it was set alight - Could Sam's younger sister be alive after all these years?

This one sucked me in immediately and I couldn't stop reading! It was so well written, the mystery was fantastic and there were so many twists that I really didn't know what was coming next. If you're a fan of Kara Thomas, I think this one could be her best yet!

Thank you Netgalley and Thomas and Mercer for this eARC, these opinions are my own! This book was so good! I’m a big fan of Kara Thomas’s other book so I was excited to read her debut adult mystery! Samantha’s life was turned upside down when she was a kid and her family was murdered. She left her hometown and never really planned on returning but when he uncle dies she has to go back to settle his things. Her parents murderer was never found and when a state investigator says he has a lead, she begins an investigation of her own. Will she be able to figure out who murder her parents? Will she be able to handle what she finds? Of course I was hooked from the very beginning of this book! Kara Thomas always sets a pace that keeps you intrigued and enthralled! I only put it down to sleep! I loved that I had absolutely no clue with this one as to what had happened to her parents and every piece of information just seemed to make the situation more complicated! I never saw the ending coming! Samantha was a strong protagonist and I loved her determination to figure things out and how she didn’t back down even when scared! If you like mysteries at all you must read this, can’t wait for it to come out!

This was a fast paced thriller and hard to put down. I kept wanting to figure it all out.

Samantha’s family was murdered when she was a kid. She lived with her aunt who despised her until she could leave. She’s drawn back when her uncle dies and leaves her the house. Then she’s contacted by a special investigator who’s looking into her family’s case. As more facts turn up, Samantha learns her baby sister may have survived the fire that killed the rest of her family. Samantha sets out to figure out the mystery and maybe connect with her remaining family.

Overall I enjoyed this book, but the ending was a huge disappointment for me and that made it only 3 stars from me, when it had been tracking to a four. I really hate when books disappoint with the ending. Thank you to @netgalley and the publisher Thomas Mercer for my advanced e-ARC in exchange for this honest review.

Kara Thomas's first adult thriller is her best work yet! Will be reviewing this in detail on Instagram with a photo, but here are my favorite quotes!

“It obviously wasn’t hard to get my hands on a syringe.”

“I kept my eyes trained on the taillights ahead of me until I passed the cruiser. No need to behave like a criminal. I hadn’t killed anyone. Not yet.”

“I’d witnessed enough people leave this world to know that regret is the last thing most will feel.”

“I used to try harder with the patients' families. I knew from experience that being the person left behind was worse. But there's no comfort in what we do here for the living. No one who visits this floor is ready to say goodbye.”

“Memories were a riptide. Innocent enough on the surface, but let your guard down and next thing you know, you're drowning in four feet of water.”

“The blanket was too itchy on my bare legs, the room too cool without it. No matter. Sleep wouldn't come anyway. My brain was lit up, turning the idea over in my head, polishing it like a river stone.”

“What about me, I thought sullenly. Doesn’t my tragedy matter, too?”

“The worst is the way time slows down, and everything goes still. So still that I can hear them. Lyndsey's cry, so startling and real I have to stop myself from bolting into the next room. My mother, the slam of that car door, the last words she spoke to me. What the hell is wrong with you, Samantha?”

“I tilted my head back, let the setting sun turn the insides of my eyelids pink. I felt like I'd lived half a dozen lives since this morning.”

“The girl in the cowboy boots' face fell. I felt for her; I remembered being that young, that crushing sense of longing for men too old for me.“

“I always felt ghoulish when I happened on a dead individual's Facebook page. I was guilty of seeking them out every so often when I lost a patient, when I felt myself on the verge of disassociating. It was wrong; it was digital grave robbing. But sometimes I needed to know, especially when there had been no family there at the end, that a person had been cared about. Sometimes it helped fend off the creeping darkness, the worry that there wouldn't be anyone there in my own final moments.”

“We sat in silence as he noticed the mug of coffee, dragged it to himself, and took a sip. He winced. ‘And you can't even make a damn cup of coffee.’
I kept my mouth shut, because he seemed genuinely distressed about this point in particular, and I didn't want to make it worse.”
^This made me lol

“Gil was the one in the army, and Scott was the drug dealer of the family, but neither of them liked guns. It had been my father who had taught me how to handle one. It was necessary for us all to know, he argued, living up on Sunflower Hill Road. It would take the state police nearly an hour to get to us in an emergency, and the Carney Police wouldn't bother showing up at all if the Newsom family called for help.”

“If I'd had, I would have had to contend with the fact that staring down the barrel of my father's shotgun, my finger creeping to the trigger, hitting my target, was the last time I truly felt in control of anything at all.”

“I went straight to Gil's, grabbed the gun. I didn't plan to use it, but I had come to accept that it was necessary to have it on me at all times going forward.”

"You'll never understand what it's like. When it's quiet . . . I see everything bad that's ever happened to me. Some stuff that wasn't my fault, and lots of stuff that was. After a while, there's no difference. I'll just do anything to make it stop."

“I shut myself in the car and locked the doors, that ambulance sailing past me, the siren eclipsing my own screams echoing in my ears.”

“Goodbye, I thought as I left the house for what I promised myself would be the very last time.”

“The dark hour, Nancy called this. That last stretch before the end of the shift where minutes felt like days, where a hard-earned moment of peace could be stolen in an eye blink by a stray bullet or a cabbie blowing a red light.”

I absolutely loved this latest installment by Kara Thomas! She delivered on a fast paced thriller with great character development. I genuinely cared about the outcome for Sam, and was on the edge of my seat!

This one just didn't do it for me. I didn't care about the characters and by the end I didn't even care whodunit.

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for the e-arc.

This is my first book by this author. It was a great mystery with a shocking end. I would highly recommend the read.

Samantha Newsom’s family was murdered when she was 13 years old. Sam is a nurse 22 years later when her uncle calls her back to Carney, NY as he is dying. She inherits his farmhouse and wants nothing more than to leave Carney behind.
Sam doesn’t think the police tried to find out who killed her family. When a special investigator contacts her about the case, and new clues come to the surface, Sam learns that her baby sister may have survived.
Will she find out who killed her family and why? Is her sister alive?

Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

A thrilling adult debut! The Cheerleaders is one of my favorite thrillers, right up there with Karen McManus’s novels, so of course I jumped at the chance to read this e-arc. This novel has all the haunting prose and twists and turns of Thomas’s YA novels. Out of the Ashes will keep you guessing right up until the end and leave you wanting more.

Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Wow! I was hooked from page one! This was one novel I really enjoyed. 4/5 stars for me. I loved this plot and the characters too the only thing that I was disappointed about was the ending but overall the book was really good! I wish it was more about our main character finding her sister, if it was more about that and the sisters getting to know each other more it would be more fleshed out but oh boy it had my attention since first chapter.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an Advanced Reader Copy.

Out of the Ashes by Kara Thomas is a fast paced thriller that draws you in within the first few pages. The protagonist takes you with her to her hometown and the storyline introduces you to characters with a deep history. I finished the book wanting to know more about each character and their future. It was a very quick and satisfying read that kept me in suspense up until close to the end.

Highly recommend if you are looking for something that can captivate your attention immediately and take you along for a ride full of secrets to uncover.

Samantha Newsom lost her entire family in a house fire when she was only 13 years old. Her Dad, Mom, and baby Sister had all been killed before their home was set ablaze.

Samantha escaped her dark past and fled to New York City to follow her dream of being a nurse. When she gets a call that her Uncle Gil has died, she rushes back to her hometown of Carney.

While she’s packing up her uncle’s home, she’s greeted by an investigator that’s looking into her family’s tragic murder. He talked to someone that was near her home the night of the fire and saw her baby sister being carried out of the home.

If her baby sister hadn’t perished in the fire, then where is she now? Who ended her parent’s lives? Samantha believes she can take this case into her own hands instead of letting the investigators do their job. She doesn’t realize that digging up secrets that are twenty two years old isn’t the best idea and could result in deaths of loved ones around her.

Samantha questioned friends, family and enemies to discover the truth and seeing Samantha happy at the end, after twenty two years of sadness, brought tears to my eyes. I wonder, if in the near future, there will be a sequel? I would love to see some characters reunited.

A fast paced thriller that had me on the edge of my seat until the very end! I ended up finishing this in one sitting it had me gripped until the very end!

This was an interesting book. The main character was kind of a mess. It was hard to connect with her, she seemed to have a self constructing attitude that made her kind of annoying at times. I will say I had zero clue who the real killer was so that was a huge surprise!!!

Thank you so much Netgalley and Thomas & Mercer for the ARC!

I had such a good time with this book! It's my first book by Kara and I can see why others love her so much. The premise was very intriguing and every character seemed like a suspect at some points. I loved how she toyed with my mind! I was like did he/she do this? Nope, it must be the other one. There are a lot of characters, it's easy to get lost and confused. I wasn't bothered enough to the point where it can be disturbing. Sam is an interesting protagonist. She's stubborn, a bit reckless too. Always running to confront people without thinking about her safety and the consequences. I like the ending which is important because ending can ruin everything. It ends on kind of a tragic but hopeful note. Even the tragic bits were well-done. Highly recommended.

This one literally gave me chills. The writing is amazing and it does set that picture of the small town and all the people in it so so vividly. There are a lot of characters and you do need to pay attention to keep up with who everyone is. There's some good twists and turns and it's just one of those books that gets so deeply under your skin that you just have to see it through. Much like the main character. I have to say, it's actually more than just a thriller and so much pain and drama and humanity in it aswell that it's just a must read

3.5 to 3.75 stars

I've read a couple of Kara's YA novels and enjoyed them so I was really excited when I found out she was doing an adult novel!!

I loved Sam and all her baggage. I enjoyed her hometown and all the people from her past, there were a lot of them. I do wish, we got a bit more of the side characters and the surrounding environment. I would like to know what else is in Gil's basement and I wanted Sam to read more letters. But over all, it didn't effect the story itself.

The writing leads you exactly where Kara wants you to go and to who she wants you to think did it, until they didn't, or did they?!

Over all, good storyline and good characters. I did not like the ending, not that there's anything wrong with it, I just wanted more. Maybe there will be a second book?!?!?!

Can I just say, ughhh Taylor... Nooooo!

I received this advanced copy in exchange for an honest review and the words are all my own.