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The Darkest Corners
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The Darkest Corners
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The Darkest Corners
Audiobook9 hours

The Darkest Corners

Written by Kara Thomas

Narrated by Jorjeana Marie

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

()

Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

"Gripping from start to finish . . . with twists that left me shocked."-Victoria Aveyard, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Red Queen

For fans of Gillian Flynn and Pretty Little Liars, The Darkest Corners is a psychological thriller about the lies little girls tell, and the deadly truths those lies become.

    There are secrets around every corner in Fayette, Pennsylvania. Tessa left when she was nine and has been trying ever since not to think about what happened there that last summer.
    She and her childhood best friend Callie never talked about what they saw. Not before the trial. And certainly not after.
    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 what really happened, the closer she gets to a killer-and this time, it won't be so easy to run away.

And don't miss Kara's next "eerie and masterly psychological thriller" Little Monsters-on sale now (SLJ)!
LanguageEnglish
Release dateApr 19, 2016
ISBN9780147521361
Unavailable
The Darkest Corners
Author

Kara Thomas

Kara Thomas has written for everything from her high school newspaper to Warner Bros. Television. She is a true-crime addict who lives on Long Island with her husband and rescue cat. She is the author of The Darkest Corners, Little Monsters, and The Cheerleaders. To learn more about Kara and her books, visit her at kara-thomas.com or follow @karatwrites on Twitter and @karathomaswrites on Instagram.

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Reviews for The Darkest Corners

Rating: 3.850515501030928 out of 5 stars
4/5

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I went into this thinking it was going to keep me on the edge of my seat the whole time. Unfortunetly, that did not happen.This was so slow. The majoirty of the story is unraveling a mystery. It was too slow paced for me as I feel nothing really happened for almost half of the story. I would say this was only a two star read for me until the last little bit of the story, where it did finally pick up.I loved the ending as it really did pick up. However; I did not love this and almost DNF so many times. I am giving this 2.5 stars for the ending.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Full review posted on Southern Bred, Southern Read Blog!

    Tessa Lowell has been living in Florida with her Gram for the past ten years ever since she was abandoned by her mom. Tessa has a pretty rough start to life. Her dad was sentenced to life in prison after an armed robbery which left her with just her mom and her sister, Joslin. She had her best friend, Callie, though. Callie and Tessa were thick as thieves growing up... All up until one night when they were eight years old and witnessed a Wyatt Stokes kidnapping Callie's cousin Lori who later ends up being found dead. Lori is just another notch in the bedpost of the Ohio River Monster who has killed three other girls and left their bodies near the motels he picked them up from. Tessa and Callie were the key witnesses that sent Wyatt Stokes straight to death row. After that trial, nothing was ever the same. Joslin, Tessa's sister, ends up running away and is never heard from again. Tessa's mom finally loses it and ends up abandoning her in a gas station parking lot. Tessa gets shipped off to Florida to live with Gram, her maternal grandmother that she doesn't even know.

    Now all these years later, Tessa is forced to come back to Fayette because her dad is on his death bed in prison. She comes out of obligation. Coming back to Fayette starts to make all of those demons she has been holding inside of her for ten years start to resurface.

    "This place is too suburban to be rural, too far east to be a fly-over state, too far north to be redneck country. Fayette simply exists-- the type of place that no one thinks about. The type of place where people up and leave, and if you ask about them years later, it's like they never existed."

    To make things worse, Tessa is staying with Callie's family. She and Callie haven't spoken since she moved to Florida and it is clear that Callie has no intention to rekindle their long lost friendship now that Tessa is back. What happened to them ten years ago is in the past. Wyatt Stokes is in prison and will be executed with any luck. There is nothing to fear and no reason to drag up old memories. That is until another girl, an old friend of Tessa and Callie's ends up dead. She is killed the same way that all those girls were killed by the Monster. This event is big enough to split the crack wide open and force Tessa and Callie to face what happened ten years ago. Maybe what they thought they saw isn't true and maybe the Monster is still out there.

    Here's what I really liked about the book:
    -The ending. Once the pieces start coming together near the end of the book, you can kind of start putting everything together. You can see where certain things are going and can probably guess them. There is one thing that I didn't see coming and it really caught me by surprise. Overall, I'm very satisfied with the ending because we got an answer to everything. Things weren't wrapped up in a neat little bow. It was messy (like the truth usually is) and sad and shocking, but we got all the answers.
    -Tessa is a good main character. She isn't perfect by any means, but she is honest with herself. She knows she has demons hanging out deep down inside of her and she knows that going back to Fayette is probably going to scratch the surface and make her feel those demons again. She isn't what most people would call a likable character, but I can appreciate her and what she has gone through. I think her reactions and how she has dealt with everything feels really accurate to how a girl who has faced a life like hers would act.
    -I really liked Callie more than I thought I would. At first, I thought she was going to be this snooty party girl who dealt with her past by getting hammered, and while all that is true, there is more to the story. Again, I can appreciate the way she acts because she is dealing with a lifetime of guilt and trauma the only way she knows how. I was happy that she and Tessa didn't become insta-BFFs again because that wouldn't feel sincere. Their relationship still feels awkward, but it is healing slowly as each girl gets what they need.
    -The depth that the author put into the story is amazing. There are SO many little side details that while you are reading you think could mean something really important. Sometimes they end up being a clue that IS very important and sometimes it is just small town gossip. I was just really wowed when I closed the book and thought about all the things I learned about each character and how it all came to a head. The book could have gone a thousand different way, but I am very satisfied with how it ended.

    What I didn't like:
    -I wish there was more of a conclusion to what happened with some of the minor characters like Decker and Katie, for example. I want to know what happened to them after everything came out and if they stayed part of Callie or Tessa's lives. I wish the epilogue gave a little bit more.
    -I hated the backstory about Daryl and the stray dog. I understand why it is there and it had the intended affect on me (making me hate Daryl and think he is a piece of shit human being), but I still hate reading about stuff like that. It's a very small part of the story but it is mentioned a few times an it made me sick to my stomach each time. I'm just really sensitive to this kind of stuff, so I acknowledge that this is 100% a me thing and it didn't effect my rating at all.

    Really there isn't a whole lot about the book I didn't like. It was very faced paced and kept me interested the entire time. I was in a huge reading slump before this, but now that I have read The Darkest Corners, I can officially make my first book on my 2016 Favorite List. I kind of just picked the book up on a whim too. We got ARCs of the book back in November from YALLFest and it has been sitting on TBR shelf since then. Yesterday I needed something to get me out of this slump, so I just happened to pick up TDC and read the synopsis. I was hooked from there.

    If you are a fan of thrillers and mysteries, give this a shot.The writing style reminded me a LOT of Gillian Flynn (particularly Dark Places) but with more of a YA angle. It is really hard to find a YA book that is a good thriller, so I think this is author is a rare breed. I hope she releases more books in the same thing. I also really hope she comes to a book convention near me because I have a ton of questions I'd love to ask her about this book.



    You can find The Darkest Corners on shelves April 19, 2016. Trust me, this is not one you want to miss.

    5/5 stars
    -Leah
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A fast paced YA book that was hard to put down.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    When I’m not obsessing over podcasts (which is, admittedly, not often), I try and find a good and/or interesting book to listen to when I am either driving or at the gym. I usually don’t have a plan when I go into looking for an audiobook, and will just look for what’s available. I didn’t have many expectations when I randomly downloaded “The Darkest Corners”, as even though I’d seen it around I’m always a little hesitant around YA thrillers. They can be hit or miss, in my experience. But I think that my limited expectations worked in “The Darkest Corners” favor, because I ended up thoroughly enjoying this book as I drove around or ran on the treadmill.Comparisons have been made to Gillian Flynn, and I actually enjoyed this book more than I have most of Flynn’s work. The first reason is the intricate and tense plot. When Tessa and Callie were seven years old, Callie’s cousin Lori was murdered, seemingly part of a serial killer’s rampage. They were the only witnesses at the trial, as Callie said she saw a man named Wyatt Stokes in their yard. Tessa never actually saw him, but was pressured into confirming it. Now time has passed, and Tessa is questioning whether they had the right guy or not. A lot of this reminded me of real life crimes where police interference and public prejudice focus attention on someone who may actually be innocent. The town of Fayette, where the book takes place, is a small one where difference is looked upon with suspicion and poverty is a plague that seeps into all facets of life, and the underlying tension of this reality lingers on the page. As Tessa looks more into the crime, the story takes on very noir-esque tendencies, which I greatly enjoyed. I did find myself surprised by a number of the twists, and was happy that most of them were laid out and unwound in ways that didn’t make them feel like they were out of nowhere.The second reason is because of our main character, Tessa. While she has the same baggage and messed up background that you might see in a Flynn novel, I think that Thomas knows how to bring more humanity out of her main character. Tessa is certainly damaged, and is having a hard time coming back to her home town, but her struggles and inner conflict manifest in more understated ways. She and her best friend Callie both react to their self doubt and guilt differently, and while Callie being a walking mess might have been a more tantalizing POV in a story like this, Tessa’s subtlety and less obvious trauma was a more rewarding(?) experience as a reader. That isn’t to say that Callie doesn’t go through her own journey, nor that she isn’t an interesting character in her own right. Seeing both her and Tessa approach their investigation in their differing ways was a neat way to unfold all of the intricacies to this mystery. Their interactions with each other felt real too, as they are both aching for the other and the friendship that fell apart, as well as deeply feeling the resentment that each has for each other and the choices that they made after their testimony. Neither of them are totally right nor totally wrong in their baggage related to each other, and their coming to terms with their tattered friendship was one of the best parts of this story.I do think that there were a few too many balls in the air regarding the various facets and side stories with the drama. From Tessa’s convict father to her MIA mother and sister to the abusive father of another friend to a run in with Neo Nazis, it did feel a bit much at times. I am all for red herrings, but when you have a whole school of them I feel that it’s a bit overwhelming and overwrought.That aside, I found “The Darkest Corners” to be a very well done thriller, one that goes well beyond the YA set and could hold it’s own with other stories aimed towards adults. If you are suffering withdrawal from the lack of new Flynn stories, this is a book that you should probably get your hands on.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I would like to thank Random House Children's & NetGalley for a copy of this e-ARC to review. While I received this ebook for free, that has no impact upon the honesty of my review. Goodreads Teaser: "For fans of Gillian Flynn's Dark Places and Stan Shepard's Pretty Little Liars, The Darkest Corners is a psychological thriller about the lies girls tell, and the deadly truths those lies become. There are ghosts around every corner in Fayetteville, Pennsylvania. Tessa left when she was nine and has been trying ever since not to think about it after what happened there 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."One of the most twisted rides you'll ever go on, nothing is as it seems - not for the characters or the reader; this story is just one giant bombshell, caught in the moments just after detonating. I can't say that it's what I was expecting, but it absolutely surpassed anything I could have imagined. Simply riveting. This is a fantastic blend of real and imaginary situations, all swirled together until one can no longer discern the real from the created. Told from Tessa's point of view, we are granted interesting insights into information that could potentially change the outcome of the whole story. Only piece by piece, and almost grudgingly, does Tessa share her thoughts with the only best friend of her childhood, Callie. A childhood cut ridiculously short for both girls, just in different ways. Witnessing the struggles that both Tessa and Callie go through is almost physically painful. It's impossible not to feel something for them. However what you feel will likely change paragraph to paragraph. On the outside Tessa appears only somewhat damaged, while Callie seems fairly normal. But then the faces we show the outside world very rarely reflect who we feel we are on the inside; Callie and Tessa are no different, hiding behind various facades. Given what they've gone through though, well that's pretty understandable. Having been apart for the past ten years means they have to redefine their friendship, if indeed that's what they still are. And all this: their relationship, their shared purpose, and everything that hangs in the balance, it's all condensed into a few short weeks. The pacing of this story is spot on, from the very first page to the very final page. It's a brilliant blend of the intimate and the public, combining those things that a person shares with others, and those they may not even acknowledge themselves. And it's masterfully done, showing us the story through Tessa and the world at large. What Tessa feels seeps into the pages so heavily that it's well nigh impossible for those emotions not to leach off the very page and into your skin as you read. Yet, as with those few people in her life that matter, she still manages to mostly stay behind the barriers she learned to erect very early on. Barriers she's struggling to maintain, even against herself. I simply loved this book! It just takes everything you think you know and turns it on its ear. You'll go in a different person than the one that comes out. And that is the mark of an incredibly well thought out and beautifully crafted story. Even those parts that have a basis in truth are so twisted you'll begin to question the reality and honesty of those external truths. When you can no longer tell fact from fiction the author has done their job; more than just found their job they've set a new standard for the genre. Heaven help those that publish in the same genre after this book; they've got incredible new heights to attain just to stay in the game.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    April 2016 Random House Children's Books
    OK, all you YA fans, listen up because this book review is for The Darkest Corners by Kara Thomas...and it's one you'll want to read.
    The teaser line on the front cover reads, Everyone has something to hide. The truth is that everyone in this novel is hiding something, including Tessa, the main character.
    When she and her friend Callie were young, they were called to testify against a man charged with killing a young woman. There had been a series of deaths in the area, all done in the same method...so they had been murdered by a serial killer.
    But both Tessa and Callie harbor secrets about what they saw, and what they did later. Now their lives have supposedly moved on but both are trapped in that night and the aftermath. Until Tessa comes back to say goodbye to her dying father, who is in jail for unrelated crimes, it seems that they will continue on in that limbo, never fully living but knowing that their secret could destroy what little they have built if it comes out.
    Plenty of suspects here, and Tessa is a strong young woman, so she's not going to allow any of them to pass by without taking action. The book scored points with me on those notes. Still, I thought it would end up as at 4 stars...well written and interesting but nothing truly special.
    Until I hit the part around 80% through the book. Then I went, oh, wow! I can't tell you what happens then but it's a twist I never saw coming. And with that, the book shot from 4 to 5 stars.
    If you like books with plenty of twists and lots of elements flying around, try Reparation, in which a young man must save his sister and his new lover from a cult.
    5 stars!
    I was given a copy by the publisher in order to write this reviews.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    So.

    This was about as dark as you can go while remaining a teen novel. If it had been written for an adult audience, I probably would have been significantly less inclined to read this before bed. Even then, it's not really a dreamless sleep kind of book.

    Don't want to say too much, due to risk of spoilers, but this is a hair-raisingly quick read that delves into...well, the darkest corners of small-town America. (Bonus creep-out points because I went to school in Pittsburgh and took the train by dead-end former steel towns like Fayette several times a year.) There also happen to be not one, but two, very intriguing central characters in Tessa and Callie.

    I'm terrible at figuring out mysteries, but I'm pretty sure everyone else will be flummoxed by this one as well.

    Thanks to Delacorte and Random House for the ARC!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A convoluted thriller than will leave you wondering about the depths some people will go to get what they want.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I received this arc from Kepler’s Books.

    When I was in California and visited Kepler’s Books, I was allowed to choose one ARC off the YA shelf to take home with me. It took me awhile to decide but I finally settled on this one. After reading it, I’m very glad that I chose this one. It was a psychological thriller in the style of Gillian Flynn, but less graphic. It was such a page turner! There were a few times when it dragged a bit but it easily picked up. There is so much mystery surrounding Tessa and what happened all those years ago before she left. And once everything is revealed in the end… WHOA. The ending reveal was such a surprise and I loved that! There’s almost nothing worse than a thriller where you can tell how it will end right away. I definitely enjoyed reading this one!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Tessa Lowell heads back to Fayette, Pennsylvania, a journey that signals a return to childhood angst and the case she and her once-best friend, Callie Greenwood, testified for when they were nine. Tessa, who now lives with her grandmother in Florida, is returning to Fayette to see her imprisoned father, reported to be on the verge of dying. A guest at Callie’s house, she understands, but does not appreciate, the initial cold-shoulder welcome from her once-upon-a-time closest friend. But soon the girls, along with a reluctant friend or two, are caught up in another mystery when a local teen is found murdered. Things have never quite added up for Tessa since that long-ago day when she and Callie testified at the trial of The Ohio River Monster and, with the death of a local teen, she sets off on a search for the truth. Did the testimony given by the girls some ten years ago help convict the wrong man? Could the Monster still be at large, still be murdering girls? As the girls seek answers, Tessa sets out to find the mother and sister she hasn’t seen in ten years. When some strange information surfaces, will she be able to put the pieces together and solve the mystery she doesn’t even know exists?The story, told from Tessa’s point of view, offers readers believable characters caught up in a twisting, turning plot that will keep them guessing right up to the final page and a completely unexpected bombshell of an ending.Highly recommended.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Review courtesy of Dark Faerie TalesQuick & Dirty: Amazing thriller that is full of suspense, surprises and a mouth dropping ending! I really enjoyed this and would highly recommend it to mystery fans!Opening Sentence: Hell is a two-hour layover in Atlanta.The Review:Almost ten years ago there was a murder and two little girls gave testimony and put a man behind bars. But what did they really see that night? How much of their story was true and how much was what the police twisted it to be? Did they put the killer in prison or is he still on the loose?Seventeen year old Tessa hasn’t been back to Fayette, Pennsylvania since she was nine years old! Not long after the trial for Wyatt Stokes ended, her own father was sent to prison for armed robbery and they say he only has days to live, so if she wants to say goodbye she better do it now.She knows that going back is going to be hard but she never imagined how difficult facing her past was going to be. She hasn’t spoken to Callie since she moved and seeing her now is bringing up memories she wants to forget. Secrets from that night that she never told anyone. As Tessa tries to search for the truth she finds more then she was hoping for and this time she might be the next victim!Tessa was a very relatable character and someone you can easily sympathize with. Going through a very traumatic situation at such a young age and then only a few years later basically being abandoned by everybody she’s ever loved has caused her to have a lot of insecurities. She keeps everybody at a distance to protect herself and that has made it hard for her to form any kind of relationship with anyone. Throughout the story Tessa experiences so many different emotions and as a reader that really helps you to connect with her. As you watch her grow and try to make sense of everything that has happened it makes you want to root for her and see her succeed. She overcomes a lot throughout her story and I thought she was a very well written character!Callie has dealt with the situation very differently than Tessa. She’s turned to drugs and alcohol to try to kill the pain and guilt she feels. She has bottled up all her feelings to try to cope and it broke my heart. She is a beautiful girl and she is destroying her life because she is afraid. At first it was a little hard to like Callie, but as the story progresses you slowly get to see the real her and how much pain she is in. I don’t agree with how she coped with things, but I could understand why she took the path she did it. Ultimately, I ended up really loving her character!The Darkest Corners is a psychological thriller that will keep you guessing until the very last page. Thomas does an amazing job providing the perfect amount of information at the right time to keep the reader intrigued throughout the entire story. The characters were developed perfectly, and the writing was phenomenal. I did feel that there were a few moments where the story seemed a little slow, but luckily these times didn’t last very long. There was no romance, which is usually a big issue for me but surprisingly this story didn’t suffer from the lack of romance. I actually think that if romance had been added in it would have just created a lot unnecessary drama. Overall, I thought this was a great mystery full of suspense and twists you won’t see coming. If you are a thriller fan you should definitely check this one out.Notable Scene:Every now and then another answer to what happened that night sneaks in from the darkest corners of my mind. I usually squash it like a mosquito—there’s no point dwelling on questions no one can answer for me.But now that I’m here, I can’t ignore certain things any longer.There are worse things in this world than monsters, and somehow, they always manage to find me.FTC Advisory: Random House Kids provided me with a copy of The Darkest Corners. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Tessa and Callie were childhood friends until something bad happened and they became witnesses in a serial murder case. After that fateful summer Tessa moved away to live with her grandmother to forget while Callie took to partying to deal with her demons. However, new evidence that might free the convicted serial killer has come to light so Tessa returns to her hometown to work with Callie to try to figure out what really happened on that summer night so long ago. The plot is convoluted, slow moving and simply not a great story.

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