THE CHAMPIONS by Kara Thomas is another dark, YA thriller.

When Hadley Daugherty moves to the town of Sunnybrook in New York, she joins the school newspaper and is tasked with interviewing coaches and players while they defend their football championship. High school football rules and Sunnybrook wants to be the town known for THAT rather than be infamous for the deaths of five cheerleaders 11 years ago. The killer was convicted and will spend the rest of his life in jail but there are so many lingering questions from the past.

When one of the current players is poisoned at a party and another is killed, Hadley decides to dig deeper into not only what is happening now but also what happened all those years ago. There are a lot of secrets swirling through the huddles and the snap may not only be with the football. As she continues to dig, she finds graduates from back then and convinces them she tell their stories. She also creates a Snapchat survey that gets teachers, administrators and parents up in arms. Can Hadley find out what happened to the two recent players and in so doing, what really happened all those years ago?

I always enjoy a novel based on the high school years and this was no exception. The fact that the coaches, players and other towns folk we’re hiding secrets was just icing on the cake. I could feel the tension ratcheting up as Hadley uncovered more of those secrets. I will be following Kara Thomas to see where we go next.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for this ARC opportunity. All opinions are my own and given voluntarily.

I loved the Cheerleaders and was so excited to be able to read its sequel. I really enjoy Kara Thomas’ writing style, especially for young adult mysteries. I liked the character of Hadley and was cheering for her. She made some frustrating decisions, but these were decisions consistent with her age, and overall she was a really likable protagonist. I found the ending surprising and unexpected.

Eleven years after the deaths of five cheerleaders, Hadley, one of the few people in the town who aren’t obsessed with the champion High School football team, is assigned to write about them as a school paper. As a result, she happens to be there when one gets poisoned, leading her to investigate what happened to them.

Do you want to sit down on a comfy couch and just read a book in one sitting? Well, friend, this will be the book! Or shall I say ✨MASTERPIECE ✨ lol

This is the sequel to Cheerleaders that I read last year that left my jaw on the floor and this one did the same thing! The only reason I gave it a 4 out of 5 is because the ending for me wasn’t the strongest in my opinion I feel like there was a little something something that was missing.

Thank you NetGalley for the advanced readers copy in exchange for my honest review! It was honestly great!

Someone is trying to kill players on the reigning championship football team in Sunnybrook - but is the killer closer to home than they think?

The Champions is a late sequel to The Cheerleaders, following up years after five cheerleaders in Sunnybrook died from varying causes.

I found this one slower throughout than The Cheerleaders. I liked Hadley and Peter as characters, but the plot just took too long to get moving for me. I wish we saw more conflict happen especially in the middle. But, the ending was powerful and things wrapped up really nicely.

I’d give this 3 stars. Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Children’s for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review!

I am such a big fan of Kara Thomas's books!! She is one of my favorite authors, specifically in the ya thriller genre. I literally read this in one sitting!! It reminded me of A Good Girl's Guide to Murder in the best way possible.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc.

Read and enjoyed The Cheerleaders by Kara Thomas, as well as other books by her, so I was looking forward to this! This is a spinoff, not really a sequel, of The Cheerleaders and set in the same town, Sunnybrook. Here we follow Hadley, who is the only person in town not interested in the school's football team but is covering the team for the school's newspaper. When one of the players is poisoned at a party, Hadley starts digging deeper into the football team, even though someone is leaving her notes to stay away..

I enjoyed this book and will contiune to read Kara Thomas books in the future.

If you loved The Cheerleaders you’ll love The Champions.

Being from Texas, Friday Night Lights state, and being an educator, I felt this book.

Working in a department (the library) that is less and less and less funded EVERY YEAR while watching a department (athletics but mainly football because other sports have to clean the stadium after home games to earn their part of the athletic budget ie tennis, cross country, etc.) budget grow EVERY YEAR is disheartening. It makes this story and the characters actions seem so real. I 100% see this actually happening in real life and it’s terrifying actually. I mean I hope not on the level of murder but still. Graduating HS in the early 2000s athletes were held to a higher standard. You acted right and treated people right because if it got back to your coach that didn’t there were consequences. Today we treat them like they can’t do wrong and they should be catered to and put on a pedestal. So I would not be 100% shocked to see them given test scores, allowed to treat girls badly, incidents being covered up, etc.

And to top it off my small town team never wins but yet we keep putting more money into them and treating the players like gods.

Sorry!! Soap box moment. I’m done. I loved the book and kind could go for a follow up once Peter and Hadley finish the real story and possible see some other justice served to those who deserve it?

Thank you NetGalley and the Publisher for a chance to read and review.

Having read Kara Thomas’s “The Cheerleaders,” I was excited when I saw she had another book set in the same town. Entitled “The Champions” it is not necessarily a sequel, but some of the characters from “The Cheerleaders” do make appearances.

Eleven years after the events of “The Cheerleaders” Sunnybrook no longer has cheerleaders, but they do have a championship-winning football team. Hadley is a reporter for the school’s newspaper and is trying to become the editor. She gets assigned the story of the football team’s latest championship bid and soon after begins to get messages warning her about the football team.

After one of the players is poisoned at a party and Hadley begins to investigate why, another player is killed. As the book progresses, Hadley (and the reader) are left wondering if the events happening in present day are somehow related to what happened eleven years ago.

While the ending does explain what happened, it felt a little abrupt and open-ended. Overall, I recommend this book. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for my ARC.

Who doesn't love a good football scandal? It's Sunnybrook High School and Hadley's mom is the superintendent. Hadley has aspirations to attend Columbia as a journalism major as she's always been editor-in-chief of her high school paper. But when tragedy strikes at a high school party and a student ends up in the ER, fingers are pointed at everyone and students clam up, unwilling to implicate anyone. But of course this is bigger than just an "accident" at a party as no one has the same answers! It's a great YA novel that kept me guessing until the bitter end!
Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!

Eleven years after The Cheerleaders, Hadley is investigating her high school's football team after receiving emails to stay away from the team since they aren't her biggest fan. I enjoyed her budding friendship with Peter (Hadley's once school journalist nemesis) as they worked together to figure out what past certain football players were trying to hide. I liked how Hadley's journey impacted her to the point where she lost the most important thing to her, but she didn't let it stop her on her discovery for truth and justice. Thank you NetGalley for an ARC.

I am going to make a Brave Yet Controversial statement(TM): A Good Girl's Guide To Murder is a good book, but I don't know why readers hype up Holly Jackson when Kara Thomas books are RIGHT HERE, not totally jumping the shark as the stories progress!

Hadley didn't live in Sunnybrook when the cheerleaders died, but she knows all about the dark legacy that haunts the town, even after the killer's been caught. Now, the town distances itself from the tragedies by focusing on their next crowning achievement: The dominant Tigers football team. Hadley doesn't pay mind to the team, but when she's assigned to cover them for the school paper, she begins to realize that there's something strange going on. With players that will do anything to win and coaches willing to destroy lives to do the same, it's not long until there are victims in their wake and an anonymous person warning Hadley not to get too close.

Hadley finds herself teaming up with Peter— her nemesis and competition for newspaper editor, who also happens to be the stepbrother of Monica, The Cheerleaders’ protagonist. Can they work their way through the corrupt system to reveal the truth or will they fall victim themselves?

Taking place several years after the events of The Cheerleaders, The Champions reintroduces the town of Sunnybrook with an almost entirely new cast of characters. Thankfully, they're all unique and interesting (regardless of whether or not they're likable!) As a relatively new addition to a small town and the Superintendent's daughter, Hadley provides an outside perspective on the people of Sunnybrook and their issues. She knows about what happened to the cheerleaders, but she wasn't there as it unraveled. She knows— and even likes some of— the guys on the football team, but they haven't been inextricably connected since preschool. It really helps balance out the narrative.

The secondary characters also bring a ton of life to the story. Kara Thomas does a great job of showing the various “shades” of the football players, their coaches, and their supporters, creating some conflicting emotions. Some are awful, sure, but others feel like a charming friend to Hadley. It can't all be bad if they're part of the team, right?

Peter is a subdued but intriguing partner in crime. He's charming, but not in a smarmy, outrageous way. The romantic tension between Hadley and Peter is definitely felt throughout, but I appreciate that it's never the centerpiece of the story and doesn't take away from the tension of the mystery. 

It's also great to see Monica and Ginny from The Cheerleaders and catch up with them! BUT the connection to the original book is not super strong. If you've never read The Cheerleaders, you can read The Champions without missing a beat. The original Sunnybrook novel is more mentioned in passing, tying back to a few minor moments that don't dictate the plot in any way and it perfectly understandable without the full backstory.

This isn't my top Kara Thomas book (that award goes to The Darkest Corners,) but she consistently delivers great mystery thrillers that actually feel like they COULD happen in any small town. And someday, isn't a deliciously tense and plausible mystery thriller all you need?

This is probably Kara Thomas’s best book to date, though I’ll warn that this needs some serious trigger warnings, as it deals with a lot of heavy material that may be too much for the younger end of the YA audience.

I think the subject of rape and privilege as it relates to male athletes was handled pretty well here, and Thomas built a story around that which makes the tougher material justifiable. It doesn’t feel like it’s there just to create something salacious to increase interest.

Still, I wish we got more books about high school sports that deal with the kinds of problems kids are far more likely to encounter. While any rape is one too many, this situation (Especially when you tack on the murders) is, thankfully, very rare.

I wish authors would write about things like coaches who push athletes to take risks that cause injuries, who play favorites, who pit kids against each other in an unhealthy way. Or how about unhealthy rivalries between teammates or between one sport and another. Or how about the way that boys teams often get more precedence, praise, and funding even when the girls teams are more successful?

These are more likely to be the stressful situations kids find themselves in when participating in high school sports, and I think that matters. I’m certainly not opposed to tossing in a murder to spice things up because that’s what sells. Still, I wish we saw more of this, and Thomas seems like someone who “gets” the world of high school sports well enough to be the person who (hopefully) tackles something like that in the future.

That said, I’ll repeat that I think she did a good job dealing with much heavier if far less common stuff here, and the pacing and complexity of the story were notably good.

Another hit from Kara Thomas! A complex, tangled mystery capitalizing on the elements of success from The Cheerleaders. Strong narrative with plenty of dry humor and witty one-liners to balance the heavy subject matter, which is covered thoroughly, meticulously, and with sensitivity. We need more from Kara Thomas!

I found out this book was a sequel after I finished it, so I will have to go back and read the first one. Maybe that is why I found this one a little harder to get into. By the end of the book I had whiplash and was so confused by the ending because of all the flip flopping and information that was thrown at me. I did enjoy the story and yes I would read more by this author, but this one just had so much going on.

Thank you Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This is your typical high school thriller where accidents happen and no one knows who is behind it. Where everyone has secrets and seem determined those secrets remain in the dark. I gotta say that I had a hard time putting this book down. It was sort of the intrigue in of A Good Girl’s Guide but all about football. Definitely makes me want to check out the previous book and more by this author. I liked it although it could have been a bit more twisty but I was still here for it.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc.

Eleven years after the killer was brought to justice of “The Cheerleaders”, Hadley finds the town is ready to move on and is invested in The Tigers- the championship football team. Kara Thomas books transform me to my middle school days and the thriller books I used to read 25 years ago. And I mean this in a good way. From The Cheerleaders to the incredible Little Monsters, I know I’m in for a good story.

This story gives you what you expect- the unfair advantages to the successful sports teams at school. The mystery of the email warning Hadley to stay away from the football team. The twists never really feel very twisty, as this Lifetime movie has been told before but it never bothered me. As someone who doesn’t remember much from the book the Cheerleaders, you will still enjoy this one. It really only does quick references and explanations and is relevant as being in the same town. So you don’t really have to read it first. An easy read, with nothing new but Kara Thomas writes a great young adult story. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself saying I’ve seen this after school special before.

I was so thrilled when Kara Thomas announced this sequel. She has developed a creative yet dark world with Sunnybrook.

Kara Thomas does it again! I just love how she develops her characters over the course of the book it's hard not to get invested in their individual stories. I think this book is perfect for readers of mysteries who also like the teen detective trope!

Sunnybrook’s notoriety stems from the tragic deaths of five cheerleaders, a dark chapter that has haunted the town for eleven years. Now, with the killer finally in prison, the town is eager to move on. Enter Hadley, a new student transferring from another school. With the focus now on the Tigers, the high school’s championship-winning football team, Hadley’s assignment to cover their latest championship bid for the school newspaper thrusts her into an unexpected mystery.

At a party, one of the players is poisoned, and Hadley starts receiving disturbing emails warning her to steer clear of the team. As events spiral, it becomes evident that the Tigers harbor hidden secrets. With a second player’s death adding to the tension, Hadley suspects that someone might be seeking revenge for past wrongs or that the recent incidents are connected to the cheerleaders' deaths years ago. Feeling isolated in Sunnybrook, Hadley is determined to uncover the truth and solve the mystery, diving deep into the town's murky past.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book; it was a gripping, fast-paced read that kept me on edge throughout. Each chapter left me eagerly awaiting the next, making it an excellent sequel. While this book can be read independently, reading The Cheerleaders first would provide helpful context. Kara Thomas’s writing is exceptional, and I eagerly anticipate her next work.

Many thanks to Kara Thomas, Delacorte Press, Random House Children's, and NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Be sure to pick up a copy when it releases on 8/27/2024!

Trigger warnings include murder, domestic violence, and sexual assault.

Kara Thoma's YA mysteries are always on my radar and I was so excited to get an ARC from Netgalley! This one did not disappoint and I read it in one sitting because I just couldn't stop turning pages. Set after the events of The Cheerleaders, and including some of the same characters, The Champions follows a new MC and a new mystery surrounding events at Sunnybrook. I highly recommend reading The Cheerleaders before picking up the The Champions (and I want to go back and do a Cheerleaders re-read now) to help you better understand some of the content mentioned. A definite must read for YA audiences and Kara Thomas remains a must-read author for me!