I was intrigued by the description and so glad that I had a chance to read this -- I truly have no words to describe this. It's unique and haunting and such a captivating tale.

This far exceeded my expectations! Not only does Where Darkness Blooms have a beautiful cover that draws you in, but so does the story of four friends from Bishop Kansas where nobody seems to leave but there's a concerning number of missing and murdered women. Not only does this book have themes of friendship, grief, trauma recovery, mystery, and small-town living but it also contains one of the best examples of the environment actually being a character of its own that I have seen in a very long time.

I would recommend the audio version of this book. It is very clear, well-done, and feels like it fits the story well.

I really enjoyed this book! I loved the small town setting and the storytelling, I really enjoyed the author's writing style as well.

This book was intriguing from the very first page. it was atmospheric and haunting and thrilling. Everything about this book, from the writing style to the world and its powerful girls freeing themselves to just everything has made me so happy that this this book exists. I would def recommend to the right people.

Bishop has a weird history of women going missing. The climate can be unforgiving in this little town surrounded by sunflowers, and there really isn’t much to offer so no one is too concerned over the disappearances. Now, three more women are gone, their daughters left to band together and figure out how to move on. But when secrets come out at the memorial for the missing women, the daughters are all forced to confront the things they’ve done while also discovering that there may be more to the missing women than meets the eye.

This is a hard one to review. I ended up giving it 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4, because after an incredibly slow start (so slow I had to put it down for awhile) but I really did end up enjoying the culmination at the end of the story.

The idea was great, I’m just not sure about the execution. It may have been better suited with less main characters. I was getting them confused and also not caring enough to keep them straight. There are rare occasions where I feel as though a book would be better as a TV show or movie, and this is definitely one of them. I think it could’ve been a beautiful dust bowl, dark tinted vibes, atmospheric and slow burn creepy. And these are all things that I think the author was going for, but things that just weren’t screaming through on the pages. 

All in all I'll say that I've been kind of a hater towards YA thrillers and horror, but I've been coming around. I think the genre has been improving and I'm super excited to have more content coming out.

This book instantly sucked me in by the atmosphere and writing style, and I stayed for the girls freeing themselves from the curse of the men around them, it was wonderful and powerful!

There were elements of this that I enjoyed, but overall it didn't work for me. I stopped feeling engaged around halfway through, and found the end frustrating.

I loved the premise of this book. Stories about spooky towns always have my heart. Add in some mysterious disappearances and usually I am sold, but execution wise, this story fell short for me. 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. Not my favourite read this year, but definitely not bad. The atmosphere was there, which I loved, but the characters and their development just missed the mark for me.

A creepy story perfect for fans of mysteries that gets bit supernatural in ways and love sibling relationships. I love how these sorts of books really focus on characters and setting, making them always very atmospheric reads. This was a perfectly unsettling summer read!

Whoaaaa. This one started out as a story I wasn’t sure if I would enjoy — but through the multi-person POV this story trapped me in Bishop with the girls and made me fight for their freedom! I was sucked in pretty early on and didn’t stop reading until it was over! Highly recommend!

dnf at 10%, just not my kind of book. horror is not really my jam, but sometimes it can be done right. i'm intrigued by the setting so i might come back to it later, but for now i am shelving it.

I loved this book, although the characters were pretty one dimensional but this makes sense since it’s more of a plot driven book. I liked the reveal and didn’t see it coming I thought the atmosphere and overall tone of the book was really great. I would de finish read from this author again

I didn't end up finishing this ARC. I don't think that's the fault of the book but more so what I enjoy, and don't enjoy, in my horror. This was more of a contemporary book with horror elements v what I like—a horror book with contemporary elements. This will be good for those who like these sort of books!

Where Darkness Blooms is a fine enough read if you don’t think too hard about it, and I don’t even mean that in a bad way. I enjoyed the plot, I liked the characters and setting, and as long as I suspend a lot of disbelief & don’t start asking questions that reveal plot holes…I had fun reading this one.

Bishop is a small town where women mysteriously die or go missing with an alarming frequency. Our plot centers on four teen daughters, two years after their mothers all disappeared. The girls are certain something strange is happening, but the town seems to just accept that these things happen. This town is also surrounded by fields of sunflowers, and experiences really awful windstorms very often. Weird stuff is afoot.

I liked the four main girls; I found them distinct enough, and while four POVs was maybe too many for this short of a book, I enjoyed each of them. The writing itself is pretty good, with lots of great description and focus on creating atmosphere. Where things break down is more in the realm of motivation, setting development, and pacing. The motivation for the “bad guys” was pretty under developed & while I can see what the author was going for, the execution wasn’t quite there. For the setting, it was hard to understand the town or Bishop - sometimes it seemed very tiny, sometimes it seemed pretty big, and we never really got to see what life in the town was like. Since the setting was such an important part of the plot, this was a bummer. Lastly, pacing was off; the first 30% of the book dragged on & then the final half of the book bopped around too quickly from big reveal to big reveal.

But overall, it was a fun enough book & one I could see teens enjoying. I’ll likely add a copy to my classroom library. I mean, the cover alone is worth that.

Not my favorite (characters felt a little flat) but still enjoyable! Not sure that I'm the target audience, writing felt a little young?

The cover of this book is what got me! It was creepy yet beautiful which is exactly how I would describe the book as well! This book is a supernatural thriller, with missing women and loads of secrets and lies to unpack. I do wish that the book had a bit more character-building since the story was told from multiple viewpoints but I wouldn’t turn the book down for that reason alone. I will be recommending this book.

I picked this one up because the cover (and the synopsis) was giving off strong House of Hollow vibes (which I loved!). The writing is super atmospheric, though I did have a hard time following the 4 narratives (some of the characters felt too similar, but that may just be me). Excellent creep-factor though!

The day I started reading this, my first ever sunflower bloomed. Now when I chose this on Netgalley, I didn't pay close attention to the flowers on the cover. I went in knowing it was a horror. When I read the first chapter and it mentions sunflowers and that the main characters are hesitant and a little terrified of them, I freaked the hell out and my little sunflower that had just opened that day and was soaking in the sun rays became public enemy number 1. Not really but everytime I went outside for my garden walks, it got a side eye from me.

Enough about my paranoia, I ended up really liking this and I gave it a 4 star on Goodreads. I wouldn't necessarily classify it as a horror because even though I got paranoid and the timing couldn't be more wrong, it was more of a thriller mystery to me.

This book was just as creepy and Crawly as the cover. I absolutely loved it! Definitely will be recommending this author

I love this cover. It's so genuinely creepy and stunning - it matches the general vibe of this book perfectly! I did enjoy this story, I didn't mind the boy drama along with the mystery of what was going on. The prologue gives us a pretty telling secret that the girls don't know, so you, as the reader, know more than them and just wait for them to catch on. I loved the wind and the peaking around corners and the general creepy vibe the story and author did wonderfully!

But I can't say I loved this one. There were a few things I thought were really obvious and I was sad the others hadn't caught on. I found the living situation and the hospital situation completely unbelievable! Who is paying their bills? Who doesn't know where the small town hospital/medical office is? Sometimes it felt like the girls just woke up in the town as teens and didn't know it at all. How is there anyone in the town (I'm thinking that girl at the retirement home) that these girls don't know? There were just so many parts that made me scratch my head.

But I was entertained. I did love the overall feel of the story. I did this as an audio and the narrator was great, really adding an ambiance to the creep and adding to the overall feel of the story. I just wish I'd been completely wrapped up enough to ignore some inconsistencies.

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.