"The land had always been parched but its thirst for blood was learned."

Where Darkness Blooms by Andrea Hannah follows the story of four young women whose mothers have disappeared under mysterious circumstances from their small town of Bishop, Kansas. Best friends Indigo, Cori, and Ava were single parents who decided to pool their resources and move in together to raise their daughters. Two years have passed since the three women disappeared one day without a trace. Their daughters, Delilah, Bo, and twins Whitney and Jude have tried to move forward with their lives, but the pain of not knowing what happened weighs on them. Now, the town has decided to build a memorial for the missing woman. With the dedication ceremony looming, the girls are more determined than ever to find out what happened that day. Because it is not just their mothers, but countless women who have either disappeared or died under unusual circumstances since the founding of the town.

This young adult thriller's creepy atmosphere with supernatural elements kept me hooked. The relationship between the four main characters is complex (they are teenage girls after all), but full of love. The dense fields of sunflowers that surround the town and its near-constant thunderstorms are dread-inducing supporting characters that provide clues to the secrets of Bishop. While the book started off a little slow, it picked up about mid-way through with a satisfying ending.

I didn’t love this, but I didn’t hate it either. I listened to the audiobook from my library and I put it down so many times only to give it more time. I’m glad I finished it because I definitely didn’t predict the way things ended.

3.5 stars
TW: mention of rape/sexual assault, betrayal, blood, murder, abandonment, sexism, misogyny & implied suicide.

A very strong start with this book. It had an excellent eerie prologue, and I genuinely loved the character-driven element of this horrific plot (I mean the compliment). A town that is thirsty for blood, and every six months, a person (a woman)is killed to satisfy the thirst.
It added the fear that men would do anything but sacrifice their own gender to survive. That women are just objects to use, and it's for a 'bigger picture'/ It is sickening but sadly true for the mindset of some men in the world.

Three things let me down in this book:
1) Jude as a character. I could not stand her because she chose a boy over her friend, her sister's safety & then having the NERVE to hesitate when she found out the truth about her lover boy.
2) Whitney's weird instant love with the nursing home nurse. Her girlfriend died six months ago, and she really had no connection with this new love interest, Alma, the nurse, yet they were in love??
3) Whitney & Jude are black???

I will note the ending surprised me like I didn't expect that reveal!

Thank you to Netgalley and Wednesday Books for an e-arc of this book.

The atmosphere in this one is phenomenal! I love the sunflowers and the winds and the creepy town. The cover is absolutely gorgeous!
This one took me a second to get into to the point I actually set aside the ebook and waited for it to come out as an audio. But once I got the audio I enjoyed this one a lot!

CW: sexual assault/rape, murder, kidnapping

Trigger warning: This book mentions sexual assault by name on the page. It is not shown.

So this is a ya horror that I had a bit of time following. There are four characters that we follow and for most of the book, I couldn’t tell all of them apart. There’s one that’s really angry and has been fighting, physically, with other boys most of her life. A set of twins and then the oldest (at least in how she acts) girl who oversaw all the girls.

Their mothers had all lived with them in the same house and it had been a lovely enough home for them. Although the town, Bishop, was creepy. Arid, dry, and surrounded by sunflowers. Miles deep it seemed.

One day, all three women went missing. And this wasn’t an odd occurrence. Women and girls go missing and dye regularly in Bishop. If you’re female presenting, or born, guess what, Bishop will end you.

The book started rather quickly but it still felt like it was dragging. Two girls (maybe three? Like I said I couldn’t really tell them apart.) were into the same boy. A boy named Bennet. Delilah the oldest girl, is dating him. Jude, one of the twins, is into him.

The previous summer, the one that just ended, he was sleeping with her. Then the next day he was dating Delilah. One of his friends, Caleb is who the angry one was always fighting with.

At the beginning of the story, there’s going to be a memorial for the girls’ mothers. But it goes awry when the wind picks up. Bishop has wild winds and storms. It’s just a part of it, along with the sunflowers.

It’s a dark story with the constant loss of women and girls and no one doing anything about it. One of the twins is gay and her girlfriend was one of the girls who died which drives her to wanting to find out what really happened.

Then she meets the girl who works at the nursing home and is instantly “falling in love”. Literally there’s a line in the book where it says “her heart remembered what falling in love felt like”. And this is before anything intense happens that could force two people to form a strong bond faster than expected.

When it comes to the characters, one of them is Latin although I’m not sure where her family derives from. The others are white. Then there’s a girl, the one the gay twin is falling for, who is Black. And we don’t get a description of her at all. Not until after the text blatantly saying “She’s Black.”

The book has some pacing issues, at least for me. It also threw in other sort of esoteric things. And the Black girl, Alma is her name. And suddenly, she’s pulling out a pack of Oracle cards to help the gay twin reach her dead girlfriend. It reeks of the mystic negro trope and that’s just vile. It’s 2023. Even if the author didn’t mean it, this is why you need sensitivity readers.

A Black character who has seemingly mystic abilities and is there to serve the purposes of the white character? No. Gross. Then the instalove oh and of course we get the cop trying to arrest her and the white character going “But she’s Black, that’s not safe.”

Something about it rubbed me the wrong way.

While there are interesting elements to this book, I just didn’t enjoy it. Also the way the rape of a character was handled by the other characters when she finally told them. It was a quick hug and then…that was it? I don’t know, just not my thing.

I received this eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I’m giving this book 2 stars. Only because of the interesting worldbuilding. I wouldn’t really recommend it.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher.

This book had one of the best prologues I've ever read, but then the rest was so slow and so boring and it had no payoff. I wasn't intrigued, I didn't want to keep reading, there was nothing holding me captivated to this book. The ending did not make me feel anything other than annoyed. I won't spoil anything but this book just had no substance and I wasn't creeped out like I was told I would be.

Warning: mentions of sexual assault, death, blood, thoughts of abandonment, violence, abuse

Sunflower fields as far as the eye can see, killers winds and women going missing every six months are the norm in the town of Bishop. But when the mothers of four girls go missing, they won’t take any excuses lying down. To find their mothers they must work together to uncover the hidden secrets Bishop has been keeping.

This was a creepy and chilling read. It took me admittedly longer to finish this because the beginning started out slow but once you get a bit more into it, it picks up the pace. I found that it also helped that the chapters were short.

I don’t typically read thriller books but when I read that it contained creepy sunflower fields, killer winds, and cursed bloodthirsty land, you could say I was intrigued. Plus that cover is gorgeous! 🌻

Andrea Hannah perfectly depicts the sisterhood, found family and motherhood into the fantasy element of the story, which made it that much more powerful to read about. I also loved how she did the subtle foreshadowing throughout the book, it worked really well with the tension building.

Overall, it was a good read & I recommend reading this creepy thriller!

Bishop has always been unusual with all the missing girls and unexplained murders. What is lurking in the sunflower fields and are they the ones call the girls to their deaths? Where Darkness Blooms tries to merge paranormal suspense with patriarchal criticism but falls short. The multi narratives of the women are not distinct enough to be separate and even the characters are blend together. The twins, Jude and Whitney, often seem like the same person and are never really fleshed out. That goes for all the characters, which there are many. They are all flat and one characteristic defining which only makes the plot predictable because there is no depth to the characters.

2.75 stars….

This was the second book that I’ve read in a year with ominous crops and a weird town. This one didn’t do it for me. I think it was the multiple pov’s that threw me for a loop. This book really could have only been from Delilah's and Jude's perspectives and it would have been so much more intense. I really get what the author was trying to do with this story but the suspense was lacking. The girls were so focused on their missing mother's and how they couldn't just be dead and missing that by half way through, I was just tired of that story line. Even when they started unraveling the knowledge that something more sinister was going on, they kept being like "but our mom's were too smart to be taken down by this". It just got repetitive and boring. AS the reader, you knew about the curse from the beginning so having the characters struggle to figure this out was just painful to read at points.

I think I would try this author again, but I don't know if I would pick up horror from them again.

Upon seeing the gorgeous cover- I was reminded of House of Hollow By Krystal Sutherland. I have been chasing that creepy YA fantasy intertwined with floral notes ever since reading it.

House of Hollow this was not. The story centers around a town named Bishop, where the terrifying winds were the least of their problems. Women disappear or die from seemingly natural causes every so often. Everyone in town just seems okay with it? Like it's just another Tuesday, "no I haven't seen Marge since Friday guess she disappeared". However, no one except men seem to be able to leave Bishop. Four girls whose mothers disappeared on the same day decide to move in together and look after each other. As the days drag on, they start to notice whispers of secrets the town would rather keep buried.

There were many plot points that were neither explored or discussed and ultimately, the story felt rushed. It definitely had a creepy vibe but the ending sort of fell apart. An interesting book, but took me a while to finish because of the pacing. If you've read it, what are your thoughts?

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for my fair and honest review. This title is available now!

I will start off by saying I think my students will love this book and I will definitely recommend it to those into mystery with an edge of thriller vibes.

I did not personally care for this story, the premise sounded interesting and while it definitely picked up around chapter 20, that was waaaaay too long for me to get invested. I found it slow and the characters were unlikable (and not in a good way if you know what I mean!)

A good thriller, if a bit convoluted

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

The premise of this book kind of frustrated me. The reader knows at the start what is going on with the prologue. Men doing horrible things to women to keep power, but there never is any clear reason why anyone wants power in this tiny run-down Kansas town that is missing basic services. I think we are supposed to assume it is power for power sakes, but I wasn’t buying it. Points for including trans-women as women who get horrible things done to them and not treating gender entirely as a binary. However, I wanted more creepy and supernatural elements and less men being horrible. My ARC copy had a warning for one character being raped, and this occurs off screen but with reference to it throughout. I also didn’t buy the explanation given at the end for the mother’s choices so all in all, not my favorite.

I was drawn in by the cover. Evil flowers, right up my alley.
I did enjoy it, I just felt the beginning was a bit slow.
I always love a book where women get their revenge.
Men suck.

Thank you so much, NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, Wednesday Books, for the chance to read this book in exchange of an honest review.

Bishop is a city known for various things: recurring, windstorms, many sunflowers and missing women. When three women disappear in a stormy night, none is surprised and their daughter are left to fend for themselves, now living in a dusty shared house and trying to protect themselves. With secrets and lies, the girls are trying to survive. Delihah is the one caring for the other girls, while liking to move on with her boyfriend Bennett, but struggling to bear his touch. Whitney has lost her mother and her girlfriend, Jude, her twin, only wants to forget everything and everyone, but now the wind is whispering her secret: the fling she had with Delihah's boyfriend in the summer. And Bo is sure the city knows what happened to their mothers and wants to uncover it. They are in danger, because the land hungers for their blood too, now.

Where Darkness Blooms is a wonderfully eerie story about a peculiar town, mysterious disappearances and supernatural moments, with four girl as main characters with their lies and secrets and the determination to protect each other and uncover the truth. I loved reading this book. Since the very beginning the reader is captured by this city filled with sunflowers and wind and missing women, about secrets whispered in the wind and lies upon lies. A city founded on blood and secrets. The setting is pretty much amazing and chilling and I felt really involved in the story. By Bo's stubborness, Delihah's care, Jude's feelings, Whitney's pain. I was impressed and blown away by the author's writing style and characterization. Really amazing.

Thank you for the advanced copy of this book! I will be posting my review on social media, to include Instagram, Amazon, Goodreads, and Instagram!

Oh wow. This was a trip. I love a good magical realism novel, and this didn’t disappoint. The story was compelling and the characters were unique. Each bit of the plot was hidden until just the right moment, which made it easy to follow while still being surprising.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to read and review this book.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4

The tiny town of Bishop, Kansas has a long history of dead and missing women. Maybe it's the whispers in the raging wind, maybe it's the way the sunflowers sway knowingly; the one thing the townspeople know is that something is off in Bishop.

When Darkness Blooms is a split-perspective novel that follows a group of young girls (Delilah, Bo, and twins Whitney and Jude) who have been drawn together by one thing - the disappearances of their mothers 2 years ago. As tragedy upon tragedy befalls the women in Bishop, the girls become more and more suspicious of the way their mothers disappeared. As they uncover more of the town's secrets, they realize their lives may now be in danger.

I would have loved for the book to get more into the history and lore of the area - we really only get a taste with the prologue and the hints of information the girls learn through the story. The cursed land is such an interesting angle, but I wish we got more on it!

I also found the beginning of the book a bit difficult to get into because I kept mixing up the characters. As we learn more about them, the 4 main characters become more distinctive, but at the beginning, it is a bit hard to track. I also would have liked to hear more about the relationships between the girls and their families, especially how they came to live together. We don't get very deep into their dynamic outside of the main conflict of the book.

Overall this was a very interesting book. I loved the concept, and I think the themes rang very true throughout the heart of the story. You'll like this if you like thrillers with a paranormal bend to them.

CW for: murder, rape

Crossposted to Goodreads at: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5393104489

- thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an arc to review!

- this was a decent read, with a spooky premise but a lackluster execution, but i enjoyed what was there. i just wish the plot holes were explained more and that character motives made sense, but an overall solid novel!

This book wasn’t for me but I appreciate being sent it. It wasn’t interesting to me. I really liked the cover and I thought it would interest me but it did not.