Thank you to NetGalley for providing a copy of this book for review. Unfortunately this was not the best choice for me. I was hoping that the eerie small town vibes with hints of horror and suspense were going to delivered, but it did not. This felt like a very young high school drama book with characters that were very immature. I found it hard to believe the way that they acted and the situations that they kept running into. I normally can suspend my disbeliefs but this book was way too far out of the realms of believable. The author did a good job at differentiating the characters. I normally have trouble keeping them straight but it was very easy to read from each perspective.

A creepy town where the land craves blood, and the sunflowers go on forever. And where women go missing. Lots of women go missing. Left behind are their daughters, who want answers. But the town doesn't want to let go of it's secrets so easily. With a well paced story line, you won't be able to put this book down!

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin's Press, Wednesday Books for the ARC!

Title: Where Darkness Blooms
Author: Andrea Hannah
Release Date: February 21st, 2023
Page Count: 312
Format: Audiobook and Netgalley
Start Date: March 11th, 2023
Finish Date: March 17th, 2023

Rating: 5 Stars

Review:

This book is definitely not for people who aren't fans of darker books. This is a book that will smack you in the face at multiple points in the book. Just when you think that you have things figured it out, something else slams you in the face. It wasn't what I was expecting at all. I'll also point out that the book is just as creepy as the cover. If not more. I love books like that though. I am kind of glad that this won't be turned into a series. I'm not really sure if I could handle it as a series. I'd consider it anyway though. I'm a sucker for a good series. I am open to reading other books by this author. I love the writing style!

The town of Bishop has a strange history and a scary request from some of its residents... Two years ago, three women went missing. Their 4 daughters, Delilah, Bo, Whitney and Jude, left behind to raise themselves. But strange things have been happening over the past 2 years... Young, healthy women are dying from odd inflictions. Delilah, Bo, Whitney and Jude know something is very wrong this time around. The storms the town suffers from aren't usually this strong. And the wind or something else is speaking to them... When one of them starts down the path of the town history, things take an ugly turn...

This book had me hooked within a few chapters. I had to know what was going on and what was going to happen with these young women. Were their moms still alive? Were they going to survive? I honestly had a hard time plugging this one into a specific genre because it fit so many. I would definitely recommend this book to fans of thrillers/mysteries or even mild horror.

My only "complaint" is that the ending felt a little rushed. I don't want to give spoilers, so I won't' say why.

Thank you to NetGalley, Andrea Hannah and St. Martin's Press for an Advanced Review Copy in exchange for my honest review.

I had really high hopes going into this read, but I was ultimately disappointed by the actual story.

When I saw the cover, title, and description, I immediately thought of Belladonna and The Last Tale of the Flower Bride and expected this book to have similar vibes. However, after getting through 30% of the book, I could see a difference in the quality of the writing that made it really hard for me to get into the story. Unfortunately, the novel did not grow on me beyond this point.

There were a lot of scenes where I felt that the author was telling me exactly what was happening instead of showing me. Too many of the odd occurrences in the small town felt like they were constantly pointed out and explained, rather than letting me make my own deductions about what was going on.

Overall, I think that this story has a very interesting underlying premise but could have used a lot more polish in terms of the storytelling.

This book had great characterization, excellent story telling, and made me want to keep reading. I will continue to read from this author and look out for their new releases.

What I liked: I like stories where towns have dark legacies or histories and this book did it well. The set up and the vibes were excellent. I didn't care for the huge cast of characters. For me there were just too many and some were names on the wind or from the past. It was just confusing for me. The writing was great, though, and the atmosphere was super creepy!

Quite a bizarre read, but definitely not bad at all. I expected it to be odd from the blurb. Definitely give this one a try.

I really liked the ending and Whitney and Deliah as characters, but I feel like half of the mystery was taken away with the prologue and I really really didn't like Jude. Overall the the imagery was great and the overall story too, but I think there were one too many character pov, I was having hard time caring about all of them.

Perfect for fans of The Grace Year by Kim Liggett!
Creepy, mysterious, found family, everything is not what is seems in this little town where the sunflowers are watching your every move.

Yikes?? I can see what the author tried to do with the plot. It was just a huge miss I think. It lacked feeling. And well, it was just plain Ole wierd. I don't know how to describe it.

“Where Darkness Blooms” is an interesting horror novel with an amazing cover. The cover and description lured me in but I was overall not very impressed with the story. I feel like it’s very reminiscent of other novels and while that’s okay, there are better renditions of it. Despite that, I still had a decent time with the book and really liked the general idea.

Thank you to netgalley for an arc. First of all, the cover is stunning. It is honestly what made me even want to pick this up. This is a book told in multiple POV's. The book was definitely creepy but also a bit slow as well. Three women go missing in a town where women seem to frequently go missing. Their daughters set out to find out what happened.

I scooped this up for the cover. Of course pretty girls and plants will always get me.

The story itself not only felt like it was something I had read before or a Frankenstein or works I had read before, but one that was missing plot points, character motivation, and ultimately fell short. There are multiple POVs, but if you eliminated the names, I could have been convinced they were all 1-2 different characters as they were so lacking in distinct qualities.

However, I know this is more of a YA horror story, so that might have contributed towards the overall tone and cheapened retelling feeling.

CREEPY is an understatement I was really interested in this book because of the cover and I was not disappointed

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy (sorry I am so late reviewing). I really enjoyed this light horror novel. I love sunflowers, and it was fun to see them in such a sinister way. There were some great character dynamics in this story.

I wouldn’t say this is an original concept; but the writing is quite good. Most of our characters (of which we have quite a few) are well put together and have distinct personalities. We have a queer lesbian relationship; as well as couple straight ones. So Where Darkness Blooms checks off my queer representation box.
What is a bit odd here is the obvious men versus women dynamic. Make it a weird evil curse or presence on the land all you want; when the men are targeting only women it sends a message. This oddly skewed message is why I drop this rating down to four stars. I didn’t like that all the men were pretty awful and (seemingly) unredeemable. Whereas the women were given passes for doing some equally awful things. One could argue the girls did some of those things to save themselves; but it still sticks out to me as gender disparity.

One of the major points to the novel is one I want to see more authors tackle (especially in teen books). The idea that our caregivers, parents, important adults, etc in our lives are not perfect. They are going to make mistakes, and it’s vital that we allow forgiveness for these errors. I’m still personally struggling with this from my own childhood. At 40 years old there are still moments i begrudge adults for; even when I know how hard it was at the time and how difficult a situation we were all in. And yet, somehow it feels easy to blame the adults of our childhood doesn’t it?
Andrea Hannah doesn’t go super deep into this idea; but she does graze it at the end and it just reinforced for me how much we need more literature that focuses on this concept. We must allow for errors as we are all human.

Overall this is a decent read. Certainly teens are likely to enjoy it and most adult readers of YA. If you’re hoping for ground breaking horror you are likely to be disappointed; but it’s grim enough that I wouldn’t remove the horror tag for Where Darkness Blooms. I’d definitely be game to read more by Andrea Hannah in the future.

Please note: I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. This is an honest and unbiased review.

I was absolutely obsessed with the concept of this book and the execution fell extremely flat for me. The girls mothers went missing three years prior to the events in the story, yet somehow all the "clues" about what happened three years ago are still just sitting around and nobody noticed them for that long. There's just so many small things that don't make sense and yes, I know the story is like fantasy thriller, but still I need a sense of realism in a fantasy world. The fact that no one in this town questioned the way the sunflowers move or the weird storms, the strangeness with the hospital and certain families, it was all just too much. It shouldn't have taken four teenage girls to finally realize something isn't right.

And speaking of said girls, I feel like their voices weren't unique enough for each one to have their own POV. My logic is always I shouldn't need the author to tell me who is speaking - your characters should be unique enough that I can tell who is narrating now on my own, but with this story I needed the names in the chapters to tell who was talking.

It was an interesting story, but I feel like the end result just wasn't quite as enticing as I expected it to be.

This was a cover pick for me. The stunning imagery with the sunflowers just sucked me in. That being said, it felt like something I had already read. The story was lacking and delivery was poor but the author nailed the atmosphere. Honestly, that's probably what saved it for me.

Andrea Hannah really delivers an atmospheric YA thriller that was a wild ride to read. The setting, the characters, and the story were all well-developed and entertaining.

I will never look at a sunflower the same way again!

Fans of YA horror/psychological thrillers will love this one.