My Rating: 5 Stars!

Cover Rating: 10/10 how could I critique the art of this cover? It’s stunning in every way. I think it depicts the creepiness of the sunflowers in the book very well. The haunting almost dead looking girl also has a lot to do with what happens within this book. It’s a fantastic cover.

Publisher: Wednesday Books

Publish Date: February 21st, 2023

Number of Pages: 320

Received: Netgalley provided an e-arc in exchange for an honest review

Purchase: Amazon

Synopsis: Andrea Hannah’s Where Darkness Blooms is a supernatural thriller about an eerie town where the sunflowers whisper secrets and the land hungers for blood.

The town of Bishop is known for exactly two things: recurring windstorms and an endless field of sunflowers that stretches farther than the eye can see. And women―missing women. So when three more women disappear one stormy night, no one in Bishop is surprised. The case is closed and their daughters are left in their dusty shared house with the shattered pieces of their lives. Until the wind kicks up a terrible secret at their mothers’ much-delayed memorial.

With secrets come the lies each of the girls is forced to confront. After caring for the other girls, Delilah would like to move on with her boyfriend, Bennett, but she can’t bear his touch. Whitney has already lost both her mother and her girlfriend, Eleanor, and now her only solace is an old weathervane that seems to whisper to her. Jude, Whitney’s twin sister, would rather ignore it all, but the wind kicks up her secret too: the summer fling she had with Delilah’s boyfriend. And more than anything, Bo wants answers and she wants them now. Something happened to their mothers and the townsfolk know what it was. She’s sure of it.

Bishop has always been a strange town. But what the girls don’t know is that Bishop was founded on blood―and now it craves theirs.

Opening Sentence: “The land had always been parched but it’s thirst for blood was learned.”

Musings:

Where Darkness Blooms wrapped around my heart and squeezed it till it ached in a good way. I adore this novel. It’s definitely going to be a new favorite that I recommend to everyone as a severely misunderstood and underrated novel.

When I finished reading this novel I was drawn to check out the good reads reviews for it and I was surprised at its low ratings. The majority of them disappointed that they went into this book expecting this spooky haunting story that would chill you to your bones and finding out that this book does not contain that at all. This isn’t a bad thing. This book is not written to terrify. However, taking a look at just the very first line of the novel the true meaning of the story as a whole can be found.

“The land had always been parched but it’s thirst for blood was learned.”

This novel is a metaphor for generational trauma and being the one in your family to either continue or break the cycle. The land is an aching thirsty creature begging to continue the cycle of death and bloodshed. The women of the island are those this trauma has been inflicted upon generation by generation.

I will never get over how the ending of this book made me feel. I was crying so much and I was feeling healed at the same time. We hold on to the trauma our parents pass down to us often out of a deep desire to show them that we can be the person they want us to be. However, when that person that they so deeply want us to be aligns with toxicity they can’t see because they’ve never saw any other way to be it becomes this sad cycle of continued pain.

The other parts of this novel that I loved was that even though their a lot of reasons some of the girls find themselves at odds with each other it is often due to the curse of the town itself. The tension begins there and manifests itself in more then just the terrible and fantastical ways it often does.

The imagery of this novel is something I also love. Endless creepy almost human feeling sunflowers all over the town. Raging storms that seem to strike during conversations about the strange happenings in the town almost as if it is listening and doesn’t want you to know more.

I read this a while back so I don’t remember the names of characters very well. However, I remember enjoyed the relationships they had. I love that one of the girls who lost her girlfriend to the curse meets someone new and struggles with allowing herself to love again. I even enjoyed the messiness of the other two girls in the novel being infatuated with the same boy and it causing hurt between them, but it works because it stems from something deeper then what either of them had ever been able to control.

All in all:

This book is beautiful. It’s fantastical and at times terrible consequences are dealt. It’s vivid and aching and healing all at once. It allows it’s characters to be messy teenage girls trying their best to figure things out in a situation that they were put in because of previous generations mess ups. It’s hard to know what to do without good guidance and they make mistakes and they hurt each other and themselves, but it’s not without hope. These girls bleed and ache and want for a life beyond the walls of the town they’ve been trapped in since they were born and they learn how far they are willing to go to free themselves.

I started this one quite a while ago but it fell off my radar. Returned to it for spooky season this year and it definitely fits for a spooky season read. This is an eerie little tale that involves an ancient curse and land that craves female blood. It was creepy so it gets points for that - but it’s also multiple POV that is occasionally hard to keep track of. Also, for me personally there were just some parts that didn’t resonate with me by the end of the book (which I can’t use more detail without spoilers so I have to leave it vague).

Overall not a bad story, just not a home run for me. It might be someone else’s perfect creepy read though.

I was gifted an e-arc from NetGalley; all opinions are my own.

When their respective mothers mysteriously disappear, four young women find themselves thrust together in a ramshackle house, forming an unlikely, makeshift family. Each of them harbors a distinct perspective on the circumstances that have brought them together; some are in search of answers, while others yearn to move forward with their lives.

Narrated through alternating points of view, "Where Darkness Blooms" unfolds as a narrative that gradually unfurls, exploring themes of grief, love, and unwavering determination, all set against the backdrop of an enigmatic mystery.

The story is enriched with a captivating atmosphere and adorned with eloquent prose, making it a compelling read for those drawn to young adult coming-of-age tales, narratives infused with magical realism, and those with an inclination for unconventional mysteries.

However, the narrative does grapple with pacing issues, which may deter some readers. Nevertheless, a notable feature of this book is its inclusivity, as it extends its discussion to encompass trans women and non-binary individuals, offering a refreshing departure from the typical gendered storytelling found in similar narratives.

3.5 stars rounded to 4.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for sending a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Quick read with a supernatural concept - I was a bit confused on whether the wind and sunflowers were positive or negative influences. This is primarily a book about relationships: between mothers and daughters, sisters and friends. Well written but nothing really new.

I could not get through this one. I DNFed at about 23%. It was slow and confusing. I kept waiting for something to happen or to make a little bit more sense for me to want to keep reading, but it was just a lot of random build up and characters, but nothing that I really could identify as a culmination of a plot.
The premise was interesting, but it just timing and development was not done well and I could not keep my attention long enough to want to keep reading.

<b><i>“Bishop just wasn't the kind of place that could satisfy restless, hungry women with sharp edges.”</i></b>

I finally read this book after I let Keeley down on our buddy read for months. Bishop is a small Kansas town surrounded by fields of sunflowers where people never leave and women are killed or go missing all the time and no one bats an eye. We follow four girls who are reeling from the disappearance of their mothers and just trying to survive in this town that is not kind to women.

The chapters alternate between the four girl's POVs and each girl definitely had a distinct voice. The atmosphere of this small dusty town surrounded by ominous sunflowers was really captivating and helped me picture the setting perfectly. There were some instances of beautiful prose as well. At its core, this is a feminist story about how men will commit acts of violence against women for their own gain and power.

Going into this, I thought it was going to veer more towards botanical body horror but it really was more of a paranormal thriller. Not holding it against this book - it was just my own misconception that may have taken from my enjoyment a bit. My main gripe with this book is that I had a hard time suspending my disbelief for some of the paranormal elements of the book. I can't put my finger on it, but something just fell flat for me in my reading experience.

Where Darkness Blooms is both a quiet book and a book that lets out a visceral scream. Any woman who reads this book will connect to it in some way or fashion. We all know what it means to live in a world that sees us as lesser than. I found myself within these pages, within these four girls bound together by a curse that they didn’t make but are forced to contend with.

The writing was whimsical and dark and biting all at the same time. I very much enjoyed getting inside each different girl’s head, I only wish that we as the audience could have gotten a little more depth to them. I understand the writer wanting to hold back on the secret telling, but just a little more given at the beginning would have made this 4 1/2 star book into a 5 star read. Still, very compelling and beautiful

Where Darkness Blooms by Andrea Hannah - First, soooo sorry for the late review(l, I read this back in February before it came out but I was also super sick and taking a break so when I got back into things I completely forgot about this baby. Anyways, creepy creepy, creepy, magical realism book with a creepy, crappy town an even creepier sunflower field. The world pretty much does not exist outside this town, but when 3 mothers(on top of many other women) go missing, their daughters start to look into things. Maybe things did align with my review because this book is the perfect spooky Fall read!

I just want to first start off and say that it was the cover of this book that sucked me in.

So the characters were a little on the weird side. Not our 4 main girls, but the rest of the town is just, I think the best word is to say weird. I mean no one found it weird what the four girls had in common? I would be freaking out if I lived in a town where four girls lost their moms.

So ok, I liked this book. I didn't LOVE it but I def liked it a lot. It was a different book if that makes sense. There were some plot holes where I was like "Uh..wait a sec" but over all the book kept me interested.

Thank you so much to the publisher, the author and #Netgalley for my copy!

**2.5-stars rounded up**

Where Darkness Blooms was an early-2023 release that I had been anticipating for months. The synopsis was intriguing and this cover called to me. I mean look at her...

Then I started seeing some reviews that made me pump the brakes a bit. They weren't bad necessarily, just some of the things mentioned made me question whether or not this would be to my tastes.

I knew I'd pick it up eventually, it just didn't end up making my priority list. Recently, the audiobook became available through my local library and I decided now was the time. It's finally September and if this cover doesn't scream Autumnal, I don't know what does.

Sadly, I just felt sort of meh about this one. I've waited almost two weeks before writing my review, because I didn't want to come off as being too hard on it. I have a tendency to burn hot, even when I consider a book to be middle of the road, or even good.

Sorry for that, personality flaw, and the thing is, I know this is a solid story that a lot of Readers will love and connect with. The writing style, and overall story format though did not suit my tastes at all.

So, what's it all about?

This story is set in a small-Midwestern ((I believe)) town called Bishop, which is known for it's chronic windstorms, endless sunflower fields and disappearing women.

We follow four teen girls, who all live together, sans-adults. Whitney and Jude are twins and then there is Bo and Delilah. The girls are connected, besides by the regular bonds of friendship, by the fact that all of their moms disappeared on the same night, never to be seen again.

In the present timeline, while disappearances are still occurring, a much delayed memorial is planned for the moms and it causes the old tragedy to be dragged again to the surface, revealing new secrets in its wake.
The girls work together to dig into the town secrets, trying to get to the truth, all while navigating the basic trials and tribulations of teenage years.

We have a few things here that I do tend to enjoy, eerie small town vibes and long-buried secrets. Those elements did work for me somewhat. However, the way it was all presented sort of took the shine out of those two things.

Most critically, the way this one kicked off. By 25%, my overall feeling was confusion. I found the four girls difficult to distinguish from one another and didn't enjoy just being dropped off in their chaotic lives without context. Unfortunately, I never really ended up finding my footing, and frankly, just gave up after a bit. I could appreciate the concepts, but had to work really hard not to DNF it.

In spite of the fact that this didn't really work for me, if you think the synopsis sounds intriguing, or are as enamored by the cover as I was, you should absolutely check it out. You could end up loving it. There's a Reader for every book and a book for every Reader. This one not being to my personal taste means absolutely nothing at the end of the day.

Thank you so much to the publisher, Wednesday Books, for providing me with a copy to read and review. I always appreciate the opportunity!

I was obsessed with the idea of this book and the prologue really drew me in. I love small-town horror and the idea of the town itself being a bad entity keeping people within its boundaries was such an interesting vibe. Unfortunately, this book was riddled with plot holes and indistinct characters. Right off the bat, how are 4 minors living together and managing to pay the bills???? There is barely an explanation about absent fathers who don't care to provide for them and so the town just?? lets them live? They're children and none of them work. Also, the storms being what keeps people in the town limits also seemed weird and wasn't something explained at all.

On top of that, the four MCs aren't unique enough to differentiate a lot of the time. There is not enough space four separate girls to tell the story of themselves and their mothers. In that same vein, the supporting characters were so flat as to not exist and the romances were the least believable part of the book. Some of them happen out of nowhere and exist for literally a chapter.

The "twist" was obvious from the beginning and I don't think the plot has enough within it for it to have been a gripping read. The atmosphere is done slightly well but this book could have used more length and less characters to make it a great story.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my ARC!

I feel as though the characters lacked depth, which made it very hard to feel engrossed in the story. I think this may be do, in part, to the frequent changes in POV and the short chapters. It was difficult for me to connect to the characters and feel attached to the story.

Man, this was such a fantastic read! To live in this town that had so many women die and disappear, and to have it a common place thing, where the women are mainly judged for that happening to them? Yeah, that would not be a good town to live in!

This story about these four girls, whose lived together with their moms, moms who have since gone missing, yeah, I really enjoyed getting to know them! It took a minute to see each one as their own person, but having the perspectives in a consistent (I think throughout the book) order helped!

There were two main mysteries. What happened to their mothers, and the other women in the town, and the founder. That those are tied together, well, it was great to watch the girls put those pieces together. Between that all their relationships and those ups and downs, there was plenty going on in this book!

That ending though, that was intense. Like, between setting the police station on fire, being tied up and one of them knifed to the point that the attacker thought she was dead, yeah, that was a lot. I'm really glad that we got a decent time afterwards to close off the book!

Loved reading this book, and I can't wait to read more by Andrea Hannah!

This book felt like a feminist version of the show Supernatural without all of the monsters and with more wind and sunflowers, probably because it’s set in Kansas and has creepy elements lol. Typically, I’m not one for picking up supernatural thrillers or supernatural books in general but the idea of this one really intrigued me and from the moment I picked it up, I was enthralled. It’s so different from any other book I’ve personally read and it even brought a few tears to my eyes by the end of it.

Where Darkness Blooms most DEFINITELY has triggers that I recommend researching before picking up but if you love atmospheric small creepy towns with talking sunflowers, wild winds, secrets and missing girls.. it’s for you. This will definitely be a spooky season recommendation for me even though it wasn’t insanely creepy.

Read if you like:
- lgbtq representation
- Supernatural elements
- Creepy midwestern towns
- Sisterly bonding
- Found family
- Flawed characters
- Mystery & intrigue
- Haunting prose
- Multiple POV

Well this was a super weird read. I was compelled enough to keep reading the entire story but I can't really say if I liked the book. There was a LOT of violence in this story, be it basically all the main female characters being physically abused within the pages of the book and one character having been raped before the book started with the perpetrators getting no punishment and the girl was still getting ongoing torment. It was a lot to take and I would make sure to give lots of trigger warnings and apprehension to recommend this to another reader. I was also expecting a real ending with a satisfying conclusion, but instead it was incredibly anticlimactic and I felt let down after all the build up of the story. I feel like this was unique but I would not really recommend it to anyone. Pick it up at your own discretion.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It caught my attention right away and kept it right through till the end.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher I was able to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
***
Where Darkness Blooms by Andrea Hannah is a YA supernatural thriller.
The town of Bishop is known for a few things, the giant sunflowers that stretch far and wide, the strong winds, and their long history of missing women. When three more women go missing no one is surprised but their daughters Whitney, Bo, Jude and Delilah aren’t content with not knowing. At the memorial for the three women (not at all suspicious when there is such a long history of missing and dead women but only these three get a memorial) the wind kicks up evidence of what may have happened to them. Each of the girls have very different personalities and pick up different parts of the clues needed to unravel what is happening in Bishop but they need to move quick before one of them disappears next.
***
I liked this story but struggled with jumping back and forth between all four girls (I’ll be honest I didn’t care for Jude but adored angry feisty Bo). It felt like too much for the page count getting all four girls when I wasn’t as interested in Jude or Delilah but wanted more of Bo and Whitney (especially with Whitney’s backstory of losing Eleanor and struggling with the loss of both her mom and her girlfriend). The story did seem pretty slow moving and I struggled with the pace but I really liked the relationship the girls had with each other. It wasn’t particularly peaceful or altogether friendly but their reliance and one another was a particular kind of sisterhood that I really enjoyed seeing in the story.

"Where Darkness Blooms" by Andrea Hannah is a haunting and atmospheric novel that delves into the shadows of secrets and the complexities of family ties. The story unfolds with a sense of mystery and unease, drawing readers into a world where nothing is as it seems.

Hannah's writing style is evocative and immersive, creating a chilling atmosphere that adds to the tension of the narrative. The characters are multi-layered, each harboring their own secrets and vulnerabilities that contribute to the overall sense of intrigue.

The novel skillfully navigates the blurred lines between reality and illusion, offering readers a journey through the psyche of the protagonist. As the story unfolds, the distinction between truth and perception becomes increasingly uncertain, heightening the suspense.

"Where Darkness Blooms" successfully captures the complexity of relationships within a family, particularly those tainted by hidden truths. The emotional depth and psychological exploration make the story resonate on a deep and thought-provoking level.

While the novel excels in its atmospheric writing and psychological depth, there were moments when the pacing felt uneven, particularly in the middle sections. However, the unsettling ambiance and the unraveling of secrets maintain the reader's curiosity.

In summary, "Where Darkness Blooms" is a compelling and eerie novel that invites readers into a world of mystery and psychological suspense. If you enjoy stories that blur the line between reality and imagination while unraveling family secrets, this book offers a chilling and absorbing reading experience.

Yes. Yes. Yes. This book was absolutely incredible imo and I am surprised it has not garnered more of a fanbase. It’s a perfect fall read, especially if you are into folk horror

I adored the feminine rage of this book and felt it did an awesome job of answering the question of what if the patriarchy was a small town. the book made me desperate for answers and i devoured it.