This book was absolutely fantastic. I've already added it to our list for order this year and will recommend it to students.

4.5/5
Not only is the cover for Where Darkness Blooms gorgeous, but the story is rich in dark, eerie nature aesthetic. This story is told from four alternating points of view -- Delilah, Whitney, Jude, and Bo. The girls' moms disappeared two years prior (and are likely dead), and recently the town decides to erect a statue of them in their memory. This stirs up questions in the girls as they begin to search for answers, which uncovers some long kept personal secrets and a deadly curse.

I loved that this story was told in 4 different points of view. Each perspective easily flowed from one into the other, providing different pieces of the mysterious puzzle. And each girl had their own wants and goals and were complicated. The imagery (a LOT involving wind and sunflowers and storms) perfectly set the tone. The pacing moves quickly and I found myself flipping pages, hungry to find out what happens next.

This book is a perfect fall/winter read, and I wish I could experience falling back into it for the first time again.

Thank you St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for an advanced readers copy in return for an honest review.

I received an advanced copy of this book through NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review. I was invited to read this title by the publisher. The initial description interested me enough to accept this book. The missing women trope has been done to death, quite literally at times. I think the writing was beautiful and nuanced. There were just too many characters and Points of view to keep track of and the character development was uneven. Also this book meandered a bit and dragged as well as some difficult subject matter related to sexual assault and tensions in the small town of Biahop, Kansas. There were also some inaccuracies or logical fallacies I couldn't ignore. Be that as it may, you might enjoy this book when it comes out Feb 21, 2023.

Where Darkness Blooms focuses on four girls--Delilah, Bo, Whitney, and Jude, trying to figure out what happened to their mothers, who disappeared 2 years earlier. In doing so, they discover that women mysteriously go missing in Bishop and the girls take it upon themselves to find out the truth.
I wanted to love this book. I truly did. I love a creepy small town vibe with paranormal elements. But this book had so many flaws and inconsistencies that it wasn't enjoyable.

There's a fair amount of diversity--a Latina main character, lesbian MC, two sapphic LIs, and diverse side characters/townspeople. I also enjoyed the girls' friendships, although we don't see how exactly these bonds were forged beyond living together, and the strife within their friend group doesn't make sense at the beginning.

All four girls' POVs read the same way, and the only way to differentiate them was to remember the chapter number (the book cycled through the four in the same order, no complaint there) or the general plotline of each girl. Personality-wise, they all seemed the same because their personalities felt underdeveloped.

In terms of plot, the underlying plot of a curse in a small town was really interesting, but all of the moving parts solely created confusion and did not enhance the plot. A list of examples:

-Timeline: When everything happened is confusing--That Night seems to refer to several nights which defeats the purpose of there being "That Night." Unless I'm missing something, which is fully possible because of the lack of clarity.

-Lack of exposition. Normally this isn't a huge problem, in media res is a thing, but since the plot goes from 0 to 60 at the 60% mark, at that point, the reader still doesn't have a baseline or enough information to piece together the underlying story before being thrown into the action despite ample time to do so.

-Inconsistencies--When Whitney and Eleanor started dating is very confusing--it sounds like they met the night of the bonfire, but Whitney's mom was aware of Eleanor and wanted to meet her? And then immediately after the bonfire Eleanor dies? It was very unclear how their relationship developed and there was no reason to be emotionally invested in them beyond a surface level.

-Psychic powers?? Suddenly the girls seem to have psychic powers? Delilah is a Bloom, whatever that means, but it isn't ever explained beyond one sentence by the villain. Bo can talk to sunflowers or communicate through them? But it's really the telephone of the afterlife? And she also apparently can't die?? I couldn't tell what was metaphor and what was reality. Whitney doesn't seem to have much in terms of power except maybe communicating with the wind like her twin. And Jude can talk to the wind? Which is just an extension of the villain? If these powers were more fleshed out and utilized more, especially Delilah's identity as a Bloom, it would be more compelling and less confusing. Perhaps a plot point could be figuring out which one was a Bloom.

-Mother Abandonment--At the end, it's revealed that Indigo, Ava, and Cori (the girls' moms) escaped the town because they realized that one of them would be next and that the villains realized that they figured out what was happening. However, this doesn't make any sense, as these mothers (with the slight exception of Indigo) are incredibly dedicated to their daughters--why wouldn't they take their daughters with them? Instead they abandon them in a town that will inevitably target them with no information to help the girls. Even if they knew the girls were supposed to be the ones to break the curse (which makes no sense-this idea doesn't come up until the girls are forced to confront the villains), it's hard to believe these moms, who gave their all to their daughters, would simply abandon them and hope for the best. For 2 years. They knew another girl/woman was taken and sacrificed every six months--that's enough time for all of their daughters to be sacrificed. And only Cori half heartedly tried to get back to her daughter? Terrible mother awards all around.

-Medical inconsistencies--Whitney passes out, but then in the next chapter Jude says she can tell Whitney is conscious. Even if this was a twin telepathy sort of thing, Jude emphasizes that they don't have that multiple times throughout the story. At the end of the story, Jude is shot in the leg--why didn't the sunflowers save her like they did Delilah? Even if it was because she was too far away, how come she never goes to a hospital once she escapes? At the end, Jude's bullet wound never makes a reappearance after its removal and (likely unsterile) suturing up by Alma

-Deeper subjects relegated to surface-level--SA and police brutality as plot points.

-The SA of Bo seemed like a way to differentiate her from the others. It did not add anything to the story other than bringing up that Caleb would never face consequences because of who his dad is. It's also unclear why Bo was targeted? Again, this just felt like the author wanted to make an important point but just skimmed the surface of the complexities of SA. I did appreciate the trigger warnings for this at the beginning of the book.

-Police brutality: Alma is taken by the police for Whitney resisting arrest? And Whitney is concerned about Alma being beaten and harmed because she's Black, but then when Whitney goes to bust her out, Alma is just sitting in a chair perfectly fine? This felt completely unnecessary--while it's important to acknowledge police brutality, Whitney does nothing to try to help her crush and just says that she's worried because of police brutality. It seemed very performative and was brought up for no real reason other than to bring it up?

-The curse was broken so easily by the semi-not bad guy bad guy, which begs the question, if he knew how to break the curse and was so against getting involved with it, why didn't he break it in the first place? He also got off scot-free as far as I could tell, but his ending is ambiguous. It was an anti-climactic ending that let a man break the curse that was harming women instead of the girls who actually did the heavy lifting and killed the men responsible (except aforementioned semi bad guy bad guy). If this book was meant to be feminist, it failed on that front.

I don't think this is the worst book ever, I will reiterate that I enjoyed the underlying plot, but there were a lot of moving parts that took away from the potential of this book.

First off, the concept was killer and I love oddities and this premise was an amazing start for me. I was hooked from the first bit, although the pacing really through this book off kilter. It was very repetitive in some parts and made the story drag in the pacing. This is a perfect cozy book for September/October spooky season if you have the time. It just could've been a bit shorter and conveyed the same story. My overall rating for this book is 3/5.

Extended Breakdown:
Characters: 3/5
Story: 4/5
Pacing: 2/5

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“Missing women were as much a part of Bishop as the sunflowers and storms.”

Where Darkness Blooms is a YA mystery that takes place in the troubled town of Bishop and it follows four young girls with just one thing in common: their mothers are missing.

The strong introduction to the story combined with the intriguing title and stunning cover had me HOOKED.

Unfortunately though, it quickly fell flat. The characters were one dimensional for me and I could not attach myself to them, nor bring myself to care about them at all. Sometimes I couldn’t even tell the characters apart, they got so muddled. The pacing has issues and there are a few plot holes that do not make sense to me. Also, the “twist” doesn’t make sense either and it’s very unrealistic — and yes I know, it is fiction and that is fine but it still needs to at least have a rhyme or reason or it’s just a train wreck.

I think my biggest complaint is, this wasn’t really weird enough or creepy enough. I would not call it horror and it is just barely a thriller to me; I found it lacking in suspense. It’s more of a mystery to me.

However, all that aside it was not a bad book. It was actually pretty decent and the writing for the most part was beautiful. I really liked the prose (but like I said, pacing was an issue) so it dragged some times. It had a really interesting plot and setting, good atmosphere.

It just has too many conflicting issues so it didn’t quite hit the mark for me.

Thank you NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press & Wednesday Books for the ARC!

Like other reviewers, I see squandered potential in this book, and give it two stars. It drops next year, so maybe some improvements will be made, though I won't hold my breath.

For me this vibed on a level with Wake the Bones, on the surface and atmospherically. The heartland/rust belt Americana meets folk horror, down to spooky things happening in the farmland and taxidermy popping up. The thing is, I loved that other book, while this just didn't deliver.

My main thought reading this was "messy", again and again. There seemed no structure to the narrative, no reason for the multiple POVs that were not distinct enough to distinguish whose we were in during a given chapter, and slapdash romantic drama all over. It read muddled. I couldn't gauge the age or characters, how they legally all lived together, or any of the pragmatic measuring points that would normally tie even a fantasy narrative together for me.

We push the cornfield as a setting ripe for horror, but may I present the sunflower crop as the next candidate, because wow, I see it. I'm mad it didn't pan out in this book. The setting had immense potential to be super creepy, but the writing went the opposite direction of atmospheric for me. It read flat, and I was soon incredibly bored by that and other narrative choices like the multiple POVs.

This didn't float my boat but I hope it'll work for others with different tastes!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the e-ARC!

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars.

This had so much potential for me, but it was lackluster compared to my expectations. While I thought the all around representation was great (POC, sapphic, trans, etc.), the story itself had a lot of issues. I found it to be pretty predictable, especially because of the prologue, and while it was haunting as hell, it didn't quite hit as well as I suppose it was intended to. It was slower paced, but the pacing did not pick up, leaving much to be desired.

More extensive review to come on Maeflower Reads.

I'm so pleased that the content of this book perfectly matches the gothic, haunting cover. Not every person-with-flowers-coming-out-of-their-faces book has delivered on that particular subset of horror, but this? This was a chef's kiss incarnate.

The characters were vividly drawn, and their relationships nicely messy and complicated. The real star of this book, though, is the land itself. It's thirsty and treacherous, doing whatever it can to keep the women of the town isolated.

I'm absolutely recommending this to fans of Wilder Girls, the Wicked Deep, and Sawkill Girls.

This cover was the first thing that attracted me to this book. The story is just as creepy as the cover.

A land that craves blood, numerous missing women, unnatural weather events, and fields of endless sunflowers. This is the town of Bishop where the four MC live with their mothers, that is until their mothers vanish. Two years later the four young women are trying to survive. But the secrets the town holds won’t let them live in peace.

This book is a wonderful blend of horror and suspense. Even when you know who the bad guy is, you don’t know how it’s going to end.

Thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday books for providing me with an ebook ARC in exchange for my honest review. 4 stars!

I was sucked into this story from page one!
The mystery of the missing mothers, the bond of the four daughters, the sunflowers. Everything was so intriguing that I struggled to set this book down once I started.

The writing style is poetic in a haunting way. The way it illuminated the mystery and also the general creepiness of the town of Bishop was gorgeous.

I cannot find any flaws with this book. This is one that I will be eagerly waiting to add to my classroom shelves.

First I would like to thank the publisher for this ARC!! This book really interested me, not to mention the cover is stunning. While the book was a little slow to get started for me, once it did I was hooked! The atmosphere of the town in this book is amazing too, it’s a perfect read for the upcoming spooky season!

Thrilling read! I was able to connect with all of the characters and throughly enjoyed the story the author painted.

The cover and description are what drew me in! Have never read anything by this author, but am so glad I took a chance and requested this one!

Absolutely a fantastic book.

Highly, highly recommend.

If you love a touch of the paranormal and mystery you will love this one!

Thank, you thank you NetGalley, Wednesday Books, and the author for granting me an advance copy of this book in return for my honest opinion!

I was super glad to be approved to read this book as I could see what this book was about via a library webniar. Wow, can you imagine living in a town that is pretty much surrounded by sunflowers? Not only is it pretty it is kind of creepy. What makes it worse is when people start disappearing, and this town's wind rages. I know sounds weird right? Yet, it seems connected in more than one way, and it will be up to Deliah, Whitney, Jude, and Bo. All these young ladies have something in common their mothers are missing; they were there one day, and the next, they were gone. As they start digging for answers, they will find themselves in the middle of something that this town is hiding.
The author did a great job describing this town, and the characters, especially how they felt and dealt with things. The relationship that all the girls had with each other was done so that you could feel they cared for one another. It felt like a sisterly bond even when they were mad at each other for something. The magical factor that came into play was pretty cool. I have never read a story like this, so it was very refreshing to read something that was not predictable or had never been told. The ending I liked. I felt it sorta gave us closure to this town. This book is going into our school library as I am sure quite a few students will be enjoying this.

So great! So much more than I ever expected from this book. the writing was beautiful, the story/plot was so unique and cool, and I absolutely loved the characters. A pleasant surprise! Will for sure be recommending this one once it comes out.

2.5 stars.

The plot was so intriguing, creepy small town, eerie fields of sunflowers, and women that either keep going missing or dying. I felt this was such an intresting concept. There was no build up, you begin right at the action but its a very slow burn from there on out. It follows four girls whose mothers have all gone missing in the town of Bishop. I thought the main characters were fairly well developed overall, but at times they blended together and I had to back track to see whose POV I was reading. I enjoyed that this also included sapphic elements. The cover art beautiful and definitely one of my favourite book covers.,

Each chapter reads from the POV of one of the four girls. When finishing a chapter that I was engrossed in, I then had to read through the next couple chapters of the other girls POVs which made some of the tension I was originally feeling sizzled out. At times the same information overlapped from one chapter into the next, it felt a little repetitive to me.. one step forward but two steps back type of thing.

I wanted to know more about Bishop, this mysteriously cursed town that initially drew me into this book ultimately lacked in atmosphere and setting throughout, it felt very two dimensional. I needed more details on the towns curse, the wind, and the sunflowers to really bring through the horror aspect. I didn't love it and I didn't hate it. I am somewhere in the neutral in-between feeling unsatisfied and wishing that there was more to it (maybe partially from fault of my own, having my expectations set high going into reading this.)

Many thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and Andrea Hannah for sharing the digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my authentic review

This was mysterious, creepy... and fun. As someone from Kansas, honestly what hooked me the most was the line of sunflowers talking back. And boy, was I freaked the hell out. 10/10 would recommend this one, full of mystery and horror... this is not one to miss.

The beginning starts out a little slow as the author build the suspense and the setting of the story. However, right before halfway the boom finally picks up and things apart getting intense. The ending is amazing and the twists, turns, and ghosts really made this book worth finishing!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this amazing story! This is an incredible book with prose as luscious as they are dark! I loved the twists and turns, the atmosphere, the tension--what a read.