2.5 stars

I found myself really excited by the cover and the synopsis, but I was a little disappointed when I actually got to the meat of the novel. It didn't really bring anything new and there were just a lot of plot holes that I couldn't not see.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

The cover drew me in first. It's absolutely beautiful.
The story was not mind blowing, but I see where the author was going with this.
The prologue was better than the execution

The premise sounded great and the first few chapters even sucked me in pretty quick, but after finishing this I felt like there too many plot holes and unanswered questions for me to truly have loved this.

Thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review. I usually don't read very many young adult books nowadays because I have grown out of the genre for the most part. However, the cover of this one grabbed my attention, and did not let go. Killer sunflowers?! Sign me up! Unfortunately, this book did not deliver on all the aspects I wanted it to and the end left me very underwhelmed and a bit confused. I am willing to let plot holes be plot holes for the sake of a young adult audience and I understand what this book was trying to do but the messages at the end are muddled by the actions of the characters. The writing was fine and I would perhaps read something else by this author but as far as the plot goes it was very much a letdown in the end. I can get over the fact that this was much more a mystery (with some magical realism) than it was a horror, but the evil for the sake of being evil thing never works for me and this is how the bad guys felt in this one. The central four characters in this one were very interesting in the beginning but as the story grew and the plot developed, I cared less and less about them. I will say that this book is marketed as young adult and does feel like it was written for young adults which is always a good thing. Overall, 2.5 stars rounding up to 3 for GoodReads. I wanted to like this one but in the end, there was just too much I would've changed at the end to give it a higher rating.

I sometimes have trouble with books where there are more than 1-2 main "focal" characters, and I was a little worried about that going into this - but I didn't need to be at all. All 4 girls in this were incredibly fleshed out and very well done in terms of describing their different personalities and struggles, and I absolutely loved the vibe of the dusty little Kansas setting the girls are in. This was a little different from what I expected but overall I really enjoyed it!

This was a perfect blend of creepy, horror, and beauty. I absolutely love when we play with the dichotomy of beauty and spooky, especially mixed with nature. This book was so fun!

Welcome to Bishop, which is a super eerie town where you will find the sunflowers whispering secrets and the land having a hunger for blood. However, it is known too for the constant windstorms and the sunflower fields stretch so far that you cannot see the begin to end. But, the biggest thing that occurs in Bishop is the women who end up going missing and it never surprises the towns community when they find out more women go missing. In this story, there are three women who go missing on a stormy night and Where Darkness Blooms follow their daughters. Meet Delilah (she wants to move on with her boyfriend, but she cannot stand his touch) , Whitney (she has lost her mother, but has also lost her girlfriend), Eleanor (she only finds peace with the whispers of the old weathervane). and Jude (she is the twin of Whitney and prefers to ignore everything that goes on, but that does not mean she has no secrets-she just may have had a summer affair with Delilah's boyfriend). Secrets will spill as the girls find that Bishop was founded on blood.

This was one of the 2023 releases I was looking forward to since I do somewhat enjoy supernatural thrillers. Plus, the covers with girls with flowers on it is very captivating and eye catching.

I will admit I struggled on and off with this book since it felt like there was a lot of things going on and I kept forgetting who was who. To me, it felt like it was trying to echo other books with similar themes, but did follow its potential all the way and skimmed the surface with the issues it was trying to convey.

The things that Where Darkness Blooms does well are: found family and the empowering and strength of women.

It ended up feeling like an okay read to where I definitely did not dislike it, but I did like it and would recommend it to others. This was close to a 4 star read though, but where I struggled with remembering who was who and finding a few of the characters to be a little annoying is the reasons on the why I settled on a 3.5 star rating.

Where Darkness Blooms shows a ton of potential and I believe Andrea Hannah as an author too has much potential, so I look forward to reading more of Andrea's books to see how she grows with her storytelling and writing.

Decent, started off great, then kinda fell flat. Some things weren't really explained and didn't feel right. Other than that it was well written and enjoyable.

I loved this! The book was a quick, engrossing read. Spooky and all-engrossing, I can't recommend this enough.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press & Wednesday books for the ARC.

WOW. I had no clue what I was getting into with this novel. I was interested mostly because if the genre and trying to branch out. The cover is very mysterious which also drew me. There were a few times I was ready to DNF because it just felt like it was dragging but then the sunflowers would grab a hold of me like they did the girls of the book.

Each girl had their own voice and trauma. It was easy to tell the difference between them which was nice. The progression of their healing was wonderful. The author really gave a great example of female friendship. They were more sisters than friends. The way they came together for eachother in the end was admirable.

I wasnt expecting the twist at the end. I wasn't expecting it to be a happy ending. It was nice way to end it.

"Wash the blood off their hands..."

A town where the sunflowers whisper, the storms scream their rage and an offering of blood settles the ground the past settled on. Hannah crafted a slow burning narrative surrounding four girls and the mothers who've mysteriously gone missing.

The audiobook was narrated expertly by Rachanee Lumayo, Sarah Beth Pfeifer, Emily Ellet and Lindsey Dorcus. This full cast brings voice and persona to the array of characters in this novel. I feel this is one that is best to go in blind on. The writing style is easy to get lost in with the lush descriptives and eery setting.

I enjoyed the unique character personas and the backstory they each have. There are some areas that left me with questions and the buildup was longer than what I generally go for. Overall though, I had a hard time putting this one down.

Thank you Wednesday Books and OrangeSky Audio for the gifted copies in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. True rating 3.5/5

Is this cover not just gorgeous??? Rhetorical, as always. Unfortunately though, despite this beautiful cover, this book ended up being just "okay" for me.... which is honestly super disappointing, as it was an ARC I was really excited about getting. I'm not much of a Thriller/Horror reader in general, but over the last year or so I've been trying to expand/diversify my genres and have found quite a bit of success (especially since, admittedly, I've been starting with YA horror stories and working my way up to books with higher intensities). One of my favorite books from last year was actually "House of Hollow" by Krystal Sutherland, a YA horror novel, and I think I may have set my expectations a bit too high because "Where Darkness Blooms" fell a bit flat for me. I understood what it was trying to accomplish, but I wish the execution was done better overall. While I would still recommend it to others - especially to those who, like myself, are just getting started with this genre - I found that there were some plot holes a bit too glaring for me to ignore, as well as some character motivations/decisions that didn't make sense (again, all imo).

🌻Book Review:
Title: Where Darkness Blooms
Author: Andrea Hannah
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️/ stars

My favorite flower has been a sunflower since I was a teeny tiny gal, so the cover and plot of this book intrigued me. The whole idea was creepy and terrifying, but I don't feel like it was used to the extent of horror like it could have been. The idea of the sunflowers wanting blood was extremely eerie and gave me Children Of the Corn vibes. Overall, not too shabby. I just wish it had a little more creep to it 🫣.

The town of Bishop is no normal small town. This town has devastating windstorms, sunflowers that seem to whisper, many missing women, and rumored to have been founded on blood. Four young girls decide to find out what exactly is going on in Bishop when each of their mothers just up and disappear. The sunflowers give me chills!

This is YA book about small town mystery where three woman go missing and their daughters trying to figure out what’s happened.
It has creepy vibes and small corrupt town atmosphere. It started slow, but eventually the story pace got better. Overall enjoyable read.

This book has lots of good oooky-spooy vibes and the characters are all complex. The sunflowers from this book still live in my hear rent free a few months after finishing it.

**Thank you, NetGalley, for this free ARC. This review is my opinion**

WOW!! I have no read such a creepy book in a long while! How have I not gotten into this genre sooner!? Andrea Hannah did an amazing job in laying the groundwork for this mysterious novel. I mean, look at the cover! Our lovely setting is a town called Bishop, which is known for missing women. Something is taking these women, and it isn't what you expect. The characters were so dimensional, even when I disliked one of them sometimes. I tore through this book in no time, but just forgot to put up this review. Also, I love that there is some rep for mental illness. As someone who has bipolar disorder, it feels good to see characters I can relate to in books.

A slow burn, Andrea Hannah did a great job of building tension through shared trauma and unexplained events, leaving the reader questioning relentlessly. I was pulled into the store more by this relentless questioning than I was by the story, but it kept me reading nonetheless.

Where Darkness Blooms tells the story of missing mothers and the daughters that are left behind. It's haunting in such a way that the town itself becomes a character. Bishop isn't just any small town, it's a town where the sunflowers hold secrets that fierce winds stir to life.

Points for queer representation and for some seriously eerie scenes. Fans of Rory Power's "Burn Our Bodies Down" will enjoy this read.

First, the novel’s concept was quite compelling and made me want to read it, along with the cover. Second, I’m all for feminism and women helping women, but this novel fell flat. There were too many plot holes and boring motivations for what was going on. Finally, the prologue was the strongest part of the novel, while the rest was quite dull.

Delilah, Whitney, Jude, and Bo (Whitney and Jude are twins) are the four perspectives of the novel. For the most part, I kept getting each of the girls mixed up with one another. Out of the three characters, Bo is the most fleshed out. Unfortunately, going back and forth between their perspectives made it much more confusing (and annoying) than it needed to be.

The explanation for why all three mothers left was a huge letdown. I get that they realized they were next on the hit list, but you can’t grab your children before leaving. Then the sunflowers wouldn’t let them back in to rescue their daughters. It was also weak and annoying when the daughters forgave their mothers in only a few minutes.

The fact that the men in the town had magical capabilities, which is why they could get away with this for so long, was just odd. It feels a bit yucky, too, as one, men sexually assault or commit violence against women without magic, and two, removing a woman’s autonomy is too much. The ending with the youngest of the men, Delilah’s boyfriend, Bennett, giving his blood to the flowers before leaving was odd. Is he going to catch up to them? Is the town dead now? Will the flowers try to enact revenge? I’m thoroughly confused! And as far as I know, this isn’t a series.

Speaking of the sunflowers, I still don’t understand the point of them. It’s been weeks since I read the book, and I thought I was missing something, but I don’t think I am. The sunflowers encapsulate the town, and by the end, we find out that the sunflowers represent the women the men killed to keep the town alive. But if that’s the case, why do the sunflowers crave more blood from women?! Is it supposed to represent the theme of white feminism or women not standing up for other women? If so, it gravely missed the mark.

I also felt let down by Eleanor’s character. Before the novel opens, someone kills Eleanor, and yet most people forget about her. Why should I be surprised since Eleanor is a black girl and the mothers are all white? By the end, the book felt like a white-women-rage kind of feminism than true inclusive feminism. Especially when we all know that more Black and Indigenous girls and women go missing or are murdered than White women and girls, yet the primary victims focused on in this book are all white. It’s a bit of a flaw for me. And yes, Hannah is white herself, and I’m not saying she cannot write white characters, but she should give Black characters better due in this book. Or at least recognize that Black and Indigenous women and girls go missing (are murdered) more often than White women and girls. I don’t know the proper protocol here, and I don’t want to speak out of turn as a white person.

There were some good themes that the author is trying to explore here, but this novel definitely needs more rounds of edits and rewrites.

Where Darkness Blooms by Andrea Hannah, is a YA supernatural thriller about an eerie midwestern small town. With a long history of women disappearing. It follows four girls who live together after their mothers go missing. I loved the prologue to this book. It was everything I hoped for in this book. It was creepy, eerie, very unsettling but unfortunately, those feelings didn’t last. After the prologue, the rest of the book didn’t hold up to that feeling I had in the beginning. I didn’t like most of the characters. They fell flat and did not have much development much like the plot with its many issues and I found the motivations of some characters unrealistic and made no sense to what was going on. Again I loved the prologue but after it fell flat, check it out if you like small-town supernatural mysteries, you might enjoy this book more than I did.

I've never thought of sunflowers as creepy, but after reading Where Darkness Blooms, my opinion has definitely been altered. Bishop, Kansas is a town surrounded by sunflower fields and plagued by awful wind storms and... missing and dead women. Delilah, Whitney, Bo, and Jude lived with their mothers together in a lovely home, until one night when all three women disappeared, missing presumed dead. Two years later, a memorial is planned, bringing up many unanswered questions about the disappearances, as well as the unexplained deaths of seemingly healthy girls like Whitney's first love, Eleanor. This group of chosen sisters isn't content to just sit by anymore. But the wind rises when questions are asked, and the sunflowers seem to whisper. What is going on in Bishop? Will the girls be able to solve the mystery? Or will they be the next to fall to Bishop's curse? Pick up this tantalizing YA horror novel and find out.

This one easily pulled me in. The setting of Bishop is perfectly eerie. The deepening mystery keeps you invested. Each protagonist has a distinct character. They had to overcome different obstacles and each fight back in their own way, adding to the depth of the story. I loved the sisterly bond they shared. Together, these girls can do anything. The ending ties everything up well. I would recommend this to fans of YA horror who enjoy stories of girls fighting the patriarchy.