Member Reviews
This story follows four girls, Delilah, Bo, Jude, and Whitney, as they unravel the mysterious deaths of women in their town of Bishop, Kansas. Bishop is familiar with two things: raging winds and sunflowers. Both seem to follow the people in town, staring as they move and acting up at the most inconvenient times, always limiting the things they are capable of doing.
After their mothers' disappeared, the four girls struggled with the idea that they would just up and leave them behind, especially from the town that seems to be keeping them all in. Two years later, and three deaths more, the girls begin suspecting something strange is going on in town, especially after they discover a bloody knife and charm bracelet in an empty field. They are determined to get to the bottom of it, especially after more things start revealing themselves to the girls.
Will they be able to discover the secrets their town has before anyone else gets hurt?
I found this book to be enjoyable overall with its unique concept and interesting storyline. There were some faults with the repetitive beginning and character building/development. The development of some actions felt a little silly, such as Delilah running back to the house after finding out Jude and Bennett were involved.
The writing could use some more refining as there were many grammatical errors throughout. However, this is something I would recommend to other. Overall, I give this story 4 our of 5 stars. The story kept me entertained and reading as it went on.
I found myself incredibly bored while reading. The characters were flat and underdeveloped and tended to blur together, the pacing was strange, and I was just confused most of the time because I couldn't keep all of the POVs and plot lines straight and the plot had some serious issues. Also, where were the horror elements? A lot of the horror/thriller "elements" seemed more like an aesthetic to me and that may have been okay for a YA if the atmosphere wasn't so severely lacking. Overall, not a bad book at all but it just really fell flat for me. I DNF'd over halfway through.
This book started off with a bang and never really loosened the grip it has on you. It was a wild ride from start to finish and I was desperate to find out what happens next.
The one big item I would call out is to potentially move the story of Bishop's origins to later in the book; perhaps after the details of Eleanor's murder. This will help to elicit a more sinister vibe of the townspeople vs just the land. In the end, while the land thirsts, it's the Harding family that are the true monsters.
Separately, it would be more interesting to learn about the madness within the family and would provide a better foil for Bennet's character as he vacillates between his "destiny" vs his "heart". As it stands, the ending is a bit annoying because it reduces Jude's character to a besotted femme fatale and provides redemption for Bennet, despite everything. In addition to Bennet gaining an ending he doesn't necessarily deserve, the mothers being alive actually triggered more anger than relief or happiness. Cori is the only mother to express regret over leaving her children in a town filled with homicidal maniacs and a malicious patch of dirt.
The true ending is where the girls break through the sunflower field and see the road. As a reader, who likes to live in the book's universe a bit longer, I like learning what happens after. However, I'm not sure if the current ending amongst the girls adds anything to the story.
Overall, this book was an adventure to read, but there are a few edits that could help to produce a wicked punch to the ending.
I can’t even explain it but this book gave me such Pretty Little Liars vibes. (But with a touch of the supernatural) It felt like the sort of YA book that would have been given a television series circa 2008. The story felt pretty original although there weren’t really any unpredictable twists. I felt like things mostly played out how I expected them to until the very end when I was just annoyed with some character decisions. Plot points were mostly wrapped up nicely. (Again, I sort of just want to shake some characters and scream at them. But like there were answers given. Just not satisfactory motives, I guess?)
Overall, I liked it! It took me a moment to get into but once I did, I really enjoyed the story.
Love the cover and the description sounded like a great read. DNF, unfortunately. I found the story hard to get into. The multiple perspectives were a bit confusing at times and I would have found it more compelling if the storyline started a little earlier, before the mothers disappeared.
A book filled with everything I love. Spooky mystery, female leads, multiple POVs and thriller. I loved this book. Great writing and great plot.
The prologue and the final chapter were the standouts here and created the haunted atmosphere I wanted that the rest of the book lacked. A strange town, sunflowers that demand blood, a century of missing women -- I was beyond intrigued but the book just didn't deliver. Instead I was met with four POVs (& I'm a reader that LOVES a full cast of characters!) of angry girls without any defining qualities or characteristics; their voices all sounded so similar that I genuinely couldn't differentiate between them.
I wish the romances would have been written out completely. I get it, I was 17 once, but daydreaming about afternoons spent with a sun-kissed boy immediately after learning that boy probably murdered people and is cheating on you *while you're also kissing another boy* had me rolling my eyes. Visiting your murdered girlfriend's grandmother in a nursing home to hopefully learn the truth about what happened to her..and instantly having FEELINGS for the cinnamon-breath girl at the front desk... pass.
The cover is absolutely gorgeous and the opening chapter completely captivated me. I just wish the entire book was just as good.
I really loved everything about this book! It felt spooky and isolating, but still modern and feminist. I loved all the characters and the way the story was told by rotating the focus on characters individually by chapter. The writing was just beautiful, though I did see the phrase "stuck like a burr on a sweater" twice. I think more metaphors like that one would have solidified the Midwest setting a little more. I wasn't sure I really bought that they were in Kansas based on the characters' use of language. If not for the tornados and sunflowers, they could have been anywhere. But on the whole the writing was so excellent. I felt like I could picture everything perfectly in my mind, whether the characters were in a flowershop or an art studio.
I enjoyed the way the story unfolded, with the girls recalling things that happened in the past, leading up to the present. The scenes felt like clues to help the reader figure out what's really going on, however implausible. The action scenes felt tense leading up to the climax and I had grown so attached to the characters, I was anxious to see what would happen.
I thought this was a fantastic supernatural mystery with a touch of horror and the feeling of true crime. I would love to read more from this author, especially on the same themes!
I received an arc of this book from NetGalley. This review contains some spoilers.
This book takes place in a town called Bishop and is from the perspective of four girls: Delilah, Jude, Whitney, and Bo. Their town is known for having a great deal of sunflowers, strong wind storms, and missing women. Two years before the start of this novel, all of their mothers went missing the same day.
To be honest, there were several confusing things happening in this book. The four girls wait until two years after these events to look into their mothers' disappearances, for some reason. Somehow in over a century of this town, enough people kept the secret about the cursed land the town was built on. The prologue gives away the secret of the town straight away and we're left watching the protagonists figure it out. The narrative choices seemed to lessen the sense of urgency, and created a plot hole at the very end that was frustrating to conclude with. In this book about women and violence against women, its prologue and, more jarringly, its epilogue are from the perspective of men.
The structural issues with the narrative were incredibly distracting but the characterization of the protagonists was inconsistent and homogenous. It was difficult for about half of the book to tell the difference between them.
I'm giving this two stars because I think it was actually very fun to see how the mystery came together based on the different experiences of the protagonists. And I enjoy watching women beat the snot out of horrible men.
The prologue was beautiful and intriguing, but unfortunately I found the beginning of the book itself disappointing. I could not connect with it at all. The four main women felt far too similar -- and four is too many POVs for this story. 20% of the way in, I feel that I should be hooked or interested in where the story is going, or at least interested in the characters, but so far nothing has happened. We spend a lot of time on set up, and little time in the plot itself. We also spend so much time in flashbacks, seemingly for the purpose of helping the reader understand the present moment, that I wonder if this story shouldn't have started at some earlier point in the timeline.
It's also a little annoying that any weird personal things are somehow dismissed as "Well, that's just our town." For example, when one of the main characters is described as experiencing a zinging physical pain every time she touches her boyfriend, it's shrugged off with something like: "Besides, Bishop isn't exactly known as a normal place." I'm really not sure I understand how strange physical pain (which she experiences with only one specific person) would be written off as a town thing unless others in the town also experienced it, or it was something discussed amongst the town people.
I gave it my best shot, but it's not for me. However, it might be something you like if you like slow-paced creepy stories with lots of set up and backstory. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.
This book was a wild ride. I have a love-hate relationship with this book because some parts I loved and some parts I really didn't. The whole concept around the cursed town and the sunflowers being alive were a great concept but it didn't seem to me like it was well fleshed out. This book could be interpreted as like a form of women-taking-down-patriarchy book but from all the girls only one stucked out to me as an example of feminism and that someone is Bo. Bo is a queen I stan, she stands up for herself again and again and basically carried all the girls on her back. Delilah was honestly annoying, she brought almost nothing to the story really and she even fell in love with a guy who mistreated and abused Bo. Whitney was sometimes great and I liked her trying to investigate the murder of her ex. I just didn't like the insta-love with her and Alma which came out of nowhere. Jude was the worst of the worst and I can't even explain her horrible behavior during the whole story. Now let's talk about the dynamic between the girls. There is almost zero to none forms of real friendships between the girls except maybe Bo and Delilah. Even the twins don't seem like friends to me.
What I liked about this book is pretty much all the perpetuators dying even Evan who was not a part of it. I liked the sunflowers being alive and helping the girls to get out. The thing is this concept of a living town is so cool but the characters and the characters dynamics kind of ruined it for me. Also would be great to have the character's name above each chapter to know who we're following.
Thanks to Netgalley and St.-Martin's Press for this e-arc!
An absolutely distressing tale of four girls trying to navigate a town, it's wind, the sunflowers, and boys.
Four girls living together after their mothers are mysteriously lost to them in a town that seems to consume its women. They all had lived so happily before with their moms together in a big home. Their town had always felt off, like the sunflowers knew something and the weather was there to hide something.
Jude, Whitney, Bo, and Delilah all realize something strange is happening and start piecing it together with the help of clues left behind by their Mothers and Eleanor, Whitney's partner who passed somewhat mysteriously.
The women of the town all seem to die mysteriously or disappear without reason and the girls eventually connect everything to the towns founders and they're going to be the ones to put an end to it.
It's so intense and deep, each character is so fully formed and the town feels so real (this could be because I'm from Kansas and have driven through these stormy and sunflowery towns all my life) that it's easy to get lost into the book as if it's a reality you're living but you aren't, there's no way for you to help Jude realize what she needs to about Bennet, no way to console Bo over what's happened to her and what she's done, no way to show Whitney that it's okay to move forward, and no way to help Delilah in every way she needs it but they have each other and that's enough.
Everything that's happening feels obvious but were also given a glimpse of how everything started at the beginning of the book and what we know, the book characters have to learn and being there as they figured it out was a journey full of tears and fears.
Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC to review.
This has a lot of potential but it just falls a little short. The characters need to be more distinct but also have more interaction with each other. Particularly the main 4 girls, I get the sense that they’re supposed to have a closeness that we just don’t see here. There’s also something about the way the past is discussed that is just confusing, there are two events, the mothers leaving two years ago and something that happens on some bonfire night that is just never very clearly defined. The two nights are discussed in a way that makes it hard to determine which night they are talking about.
I liked that nothing is fully explained in regards to the curse or supernatural elements, it adds to the atmosphere and mystery. This was a good one to read around Halloween. I was definitely interested in the story of this cursed land, and would like more info about Delilah being a ‘Bloom’ and kind of just the Hardings in general because I feel like we didn’t learn much about how they got this curse and how they got away with stuff for so long and just why they were really doing this. Ok I’m rambling. I liked the book but I just think it’s missing some things.
Side note:
Ok so at the beginning of the book there’s this perspective of the Land needing blood and it’s sort of like the Land is the ‘bad guy’ getting these horrible men to kill women for it. But then these cursed men who kill the women control the wind?? And there’s this creepy sunflower field (which obviously grew out of this cursed land) but the sunflowers turn out to be good? So the wind is evil but the sunflowers grown from blood are actually good? Idk maybe I’m thinking about this weird it just seems like that should be reversed. Have a creepy sunflower field grown from blood trapping people in the town, and have the wind symbolize freedom and help the girls escape.
"Where Darkness Blooms" is a dark, creepy book. The town of Bishop, Kansas was founded when a traveler responded to the call of the land and fed it the blood of his first wife. Where blood was spilled, beautiful sunflowers grew. However, the land continues to crave blood, which is unfortunate for the female residents of Bishop. Woman in Bishop tend to die mysterious and unexpected deaths; especially when the victim is a young healthy woman. The story focuses on four teenagers -- Delilah, twin sisters Whitney and Jude, and Bo -- with absentee fathers and whose mothers were friends and shared a house together and who mysteriously disappeared two years ago. The four girls have struggled since their mothers disappeared, and some were struggling even before that, especially Bo, who is a giant ball of anger. The founder and his descendants have managed to keep the land sated, and the means of doing so a secret to all but a select few, aided by the strong windstorms that plague the town, as well as the fields of sunflowers, which prevent those the land wants from leaving. As the town prepares a memorial for the three missing women, the girls will start uncovering information and delving into the secrets of the town in an effort to discover the truth about their disappearances, as well as the unexplained deaths of other women in town. The truth is far worse than anything they expected.
I received a copy of the e-book via NetGalley in exchange for a review.
This is a story about a town called Bishop where windstorms are always happening, sunflower fields are on all sides of the town and women keep going missing,
When 3 women go missing at the same time, their 4 girls are left behind to try and find out what happened to their mothers. This book definitely had creepy vibes to it. I will never look at a sunflower the same way again. The mystery surrounding the women that go missing was very intriguing and had me keep turning the pages to find out what happened.
The only problem I had with the book was a part in the ending. I just didn't believe in some of the motivation for the reasons for the characters actions.
I gave the book 3.5 out of 5 stars.
This book comes out on Feb. 21st 2023
Thank you to Netgalley and Wednesday books for allowing me to read a arc.
In the tiny town of Bishop, the earth requires blood sacrifice to keep the howling winds from destroying everything. Women periodically go missing or turn up dead, yet no one seems to be able to find them or discover their killers. I wanted to read this because I am a big fan of supernatural elements, magical realism, etc. and I was anticipating this story would have that based on the description. The story was fast-paced (I don't mind alternating POVs) so I kept reading, waiting for something truly magical or for a reason to be revealed about the town. Some great concepts, for sure, but they didn't develop as I had hoped they would. Still, I did enjoy reading and turned lots of pages every night before bed. Thanks to Netgalley for the arc to review.
This was such an interesting and weird story. I loved the details I got from this one. I have not read anything like it before. Overall, very interesting and felt unpredictable.
AS CAWPILE:
Characters: 10 | Atmosphere: 10 | Writing: 10 | Plot: 7 | Intrigue: 9 | Logic: 6 | Enjoyment: 9
Total: 8.71 / 4 Stars
I want to preface this review with a huge thanks to the author for including trigger warnings in the beginning of the book. It was done well, without spoiling anything, and made sure I was in the correct headspace before continuing. So seriously, thank you.
This book was written in the kind of prose that makes you want to highlight every other sentence. It was truly beautiful and emotion evoking in a way I haven't felt with a book in a really long time. The characters felt raw, and real, and their struggles truly tangible despite the curse/haunting going on. The ending had me in tears with the different layers of forgiveness and lack thereof, especially because most books swing heavily one way or the other on that topic. The feral and soft spectrum of each of the girls was beautifully written, and I had a really great time reading this one.
It had me on the edge of my seat, and pleased with the ending. There were times the logic was a little hard to follow, the plot stuttering around a bit, but the characters and prose made up for it.
When I first saw the deliciously creepy cover for this on NetGalley, I couldn't resist. And this book did not disappoint. This supernatural mystery/thriller with its bloodthirsty land, whispering sunflowers, violent windstorms, and claustrophobic small town setting were so well described that I could picture all of it as if I were there in that dusty town in Kansas (especially since I know what it's like to grow up in a dusty small town with a lot of sunflowers).
The main characters were fleshed out quite well. Their personalities, strengths, flaws, and character arcs complimented each other in believable ways, and I loved being able to watch them grow as the story progressed. Despite their mistakes, they ultimately remained loyal to each other, as well as determined to help each other bear their burdens and stand in the face of unspeakable evil perpetrated by men.
While this story is a mystery, there is much more to take away that that. There is the strength of family, and the courage and determination of women and girls to stand against the patriarchal society that would do them wrong, or even sacrifice them, without a second thought. This book perfectly shows their strength and resilience, and demonstrates just why stories like this need to continue to be told, even shouted about. It ultimately deserves a place among great feminist YA literature.
Thank you Netgalley and Wednesday Books for allowing me to read the eARC of Where Darkness Blooms in exchange for my honest review.
Andrea Hannah chose a perfect backdrop for Where Darkness Blooms, a small dusty town in Kansas that is full of mysterious sunflowers and a dark secret.
The writing style drew me in, but there was something about this book that didn't really stick for me. Maybe it's because I am not the biggest fan of creepy novels or the fact that I got a bit confused by the many different POV told in this story. I wasn't able to connect with any of the characters and found myself skimming the last few chapters.
I feel bad not being able to rate this higher as I had such a soft spot for Bo and I thought the writing itself was beautiful!