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Author (Platform): Kara Thomas (Kindle)
Publisher (Release): Thomas & Mercer (2023)
Length: 286 pages
Genres: Adult; Mystery; Drama; Romance
❗️Disclaimers❗️:
explorations of drug and sexual abuse
this review contains low-level spoilers
recommendation: must read
👍 Pros 👍
Engaging mystery with organic delivery of juicy twists
Sam Newsom is a human protagonist (which sounds silly, but her complexity and grounded nature is a surprising rarity in fiction)
Rich supporting cast
👎 Cons 👎
Despite the tenuous elements of events, the novel’s bubbling atmosphere never really erupts
The finale will polarise readers
👀 Synopsis 👀
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 rumours 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.
🧩 Plots 🧩
Riveting
Engaging
Enjoyable
Uneven
Boring
🎭 Characters 🎭
Alive
Developed
Okay
Inconsistent
Soulless
🚨 Crime/Thriller/Mystery 🚨
Mind-blowing
Intense
Tense
Meh
Yawn
🧠 Final Thoughts 🧠
Out of the Ashes is a deeply emotional journey through truth, lies, and the nightmares of having both fractured beyond recognition. Sam Newsom is a complex character, our first-person viewpoint recounting her laywoman investigation into the death of her family twenty-two years after the fact. She’s real, engaging, and completely alive. It’s through her human and therefore imperfect recollection that the reader is absorbed in Kara Thomas’s gritty mystery.
The blurb does give the distinct impression that Out of the Ashes will have a buddy-cop type feel with its focus on Travis Meacham, but, sadly, aside from being a catalyst, his role quickly diminishes. A well-fleshed cast with well-fleshed histories, however, make up the difference, becoming either roadblocks or walls for Sam to find her way over…or through.
A lack of action and an anti-climactic finale might polarise some, but Out of the Ashes very definitively lets us know that this is Sam’s path, and, that, thankfully, at least emotionally, gets the attention and resolution it deserves.
The Phoenix Project 