“Get it out of me.”
It was the last message Holly received from her brother, Dane, before he was found cleaved open in his fiancée’s lavish Savannah townhouse. Police ruled his death a suicide sparked by psychosis, but Holly can’t shake the idea that something else must have happened... Something involving another message he sent that night, the one that mentioned a “game” his fiancée, Maura, wanted to play… Determined to discover the truth, Holly begins to stalk Maura. But what begins as an investigation quickly veers into a darker fixation, one that lures Holly into the depths of Maura’s world: Savannah high society, eerie black roses, and a whisper of something more sinister. Soon, Holly is feeling a dark attraction to the one woman she shouldn’t trust. As Holly falls deeper for Maura and her secrets, she’s left with only one choice: find out what happened to Dane... before she meets the same fate.
I was expecting a horror novel, but I just didn't feel it. There were dark gothic vibes from this book which I enjoyed. I couldn't connect with the main character mostly because she did not feel like a strong character. The writing was good. I can say that I absolutely love this cover and could not get enough of the feeling the book gives.

Ooh, a southern gothic with a spooky/supernatural twinge to it! Very different read. I really enjoyed the overall plot, the imagery and descriptive language was excellent, and the characters were well fleshed out. There was a great sense of urgency and it was a Ray creative storyline. Ultimately I found the inclusion of the supernatural element kind of took away from the story - it felt unnecessary and detracted from the believability. In my opinion it would’ve been better if Maura was just poisoning people/dosing them with herbs rather than growing parasitic flowers inside them. I also thought it was super off-putting that Holly engaged in a sexual relationship with her brother’s ex. Like, very soon after his death. In the same bed that her brother used to sleep in. *Shudder* that’s just creepy, and not in a gothic novel type way, just in a gross way.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bantam Press for the e-ARC in exchange for my honest review. This was a 3.5 rounded up to 4 for me.

Holly's brother kills himself in a particularly violent way. Holly's guilt over her backing away from him during his mental health crisis, spurs her to investigate. She also is attracted and fascinated by his girlfriend with an intense and sinister presence, she gets involved with her and find herself getting lost in the horror of the situation she finds. Parts of this book worked very well for me, got involved right away and read it quickly. I got the metaphors she was trying to create but had to suspend belief many times as it went further along, so that direction/horror was less interesting to me. but others will probably love it

The pitch for this book was right up my alley: Southern, Gothic, murder mystery with LGBTQA themes. Chef's kiss!

But the execution was anything but. The book's "Gothic horror" elements are campy, and too well-telegraphed. The protagonist calls attention to the antagonist's suspicious behavior from the get-go, instead of the author allowing the unsettling mystery to build. And the protagonist allows herself to be put into precarious situations, the dangers of which she is NOT naive about, which makes her unsympathetic. For instance, Common Sense 101: Don't accept purple tea that makes you dizzy from the woman you think murdered your brother.

But more than the book's campy, dopey attempts at paranormal horror, the book's biggest flaw is that it actually has too many realistic triggers or cringe-inducing moments. Before you can lose yourself in the paranormal horror, there is a whole third of the book devoted to the death-by-suicide of a family member, and the grief of the protagonist. If, dear reader, you are someone who is sensitive to drama (as I am), you should have fair warning about what's in this book:

- Suicide
- Dead sibling
- Fighting parents
- Parent with cancer/Cancer death
- Drugs and alcohol/roofies
- Dead animals (mice)
- Viscera and exposed organs
- Overhearing roommates having sex
- Overhearing roommates unfriending you in your hour of grief
- Depression, anxiety, avoidance, grief

I started avoiding this book, because instead of getting lost in the fantasy of it all, I was instead being jarringly reminded of all the painful moments from my own life that I /turn to reading/ to help cope with! This book was sloppy, sometimes too over-the-top, sometimes depressing and mundane; it didn't try nearly hard enough to tie its themes together and build a story that makes the reader want to invest in it. This book made me sad, anxious, annoyed and impatient. Not the vibe I was pitched, and not the vibe it was going for I'm sure.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for the copy of Such Pretty Flowers. This is a creepy, hypnotic read. Once I got started, I had a tough time putting the book down because of the writing and the story. Holly is curious, naive and needy, which makes her the perfect target. Maura is alluring but repulsive at the same time. There is some action near the end, but the book is mostly atmospheric and foreboding, crossing into horror territory at times. I was disappointed in the end and the reveal because they felt too simple and neat and I thought the story deserved a more intriguing conclusion.
If you’re looking for an enthralling read and don’t mind a little horror this might be the book for you.

Reviewed for NetGalley:

What a creepy, strange book, but in a good way.

Holly coming to terms with her brother’s passing, befriends his ex, Maura to try to uncover why her brother took his own life.

Surprising, intriguing, and off the wall.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

***


I am so grateful to the publisher for reaching out on this one. I was immediately drawn into the narrative.

Holly's brother has seemingly taken his own life in a bizarre and gruesome way. It was a shock to everyone he knew. Holly needs answers and decides to seek those out in Maura, her late brother's fiance. Things just get more confusing from there.

I enjoyed the structure of the story. It's modern and interspersed with text messaging, an element I found interesting.

About a quarter through the book,
I was full of questions and really didn't know where the book would go. Thriller? Murder? Speculative? Even at the halfway mark, it wasn't evident.

Without spoiling things, I'll say that it's messed up and the tail end of the book is non-stop action.

This was an original and thrilling read.

2.5-3 stars
Such a good premise just not fully developed. It almost gets there but then just kind of falls flat. I think with a good rewrite and edit this could really be a great book!

I'll be honest, I requested this book first because of the GORGEOUS cover. And second because of how interesting it sounded!

Unfortunately I found it to be just weird and I started losing interest about halfway. :(

Thank you for the opportunity to read this!

This is one of those great creepy books that keep you reading long into the night! Holly is devastated when her brother, Dane commits suicide because he'd sent her an odd text the night before and the circumstances surrounding his death are very odd. And when she meets his girlfriend, Maura she is in for many surprises as this woman is strange but welcoming and Holly gets caught up in a relationship with her that is brazen and defies expectations. Needless to say, I put everything off until I finished this as it got under my skin (maybe literally) and I found myself racing through the pages! Be prepared for a nightmarish read as it is nothing you will expect...but it's mesmerizing!
Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!

⚠️BOOK REVIEW⚠️
(minor spoilers)

When Holly’s brother Dane commits gruesome suicide, Holly is certain his girlfriend Maura is behind it somehow. All because of a cryptic text Holly received from him the night of his death. As Holly takes it upon herself to get to the bottom of this tragedy that struck her brother and her family, she finds herself being weaved deeper and deeper into Maura’s intricate web of mystery and intrigue. Or is it one of murder?

This read is alluringly thrilling with an impossibly impulsive mystery woven throughout. I’ve read quite a few sibling downfall mysteries lately, and I specifically loved the creepiness and sensuality throughout this one. Cerra absolutely nailed the tone here, and I truly think this story would make a great film.

It’s a quick read that kept me guessing until the very end. The ‘twist’ is clever and true to the tone and character behavior.

However, I do think the relationship between the protagonist (Holly) and antagonist (as we later learn, is Maura) could have been better fleshed out. It would have added some core components I felt were missing in the storyline between the two and their hastily developed relationship. (Their whole relationship reminded me of a fever dream.) And, being a shorter read, it most definitely had room for page count. This story had great bones, but even the foundation of a house without walls and a roof is only studs. I also felt like the ending was rushed and terribly anticlimactic. Matias being at the townhouse in the end seemed to serve no purpose?

All that being said, this mystery/thriller gets a solid 3-star from me. I would recommend it to those who love creepy horror elements in their books without the grotesque-ness of slasher books. And props to you if you could even guess the ending— I surely couldn’t!

This book was sent to me through #NetGalley in exchange for review.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. This story was so creepy and I devoured every second. This was the perfect spooky read for October.

When Random House sent me an email notifying me that I was pre-approved to read this, I hesitated. The cover pulled me in, but the mixed reviews made me hesitate. I'm honestly having a hard time putting my finger on what I feel is an appropriate star rating for it.

Holly is a young 20-something living in Savannah, dealing with the aftermath of her family life when her brother gruesomely kills himself in the townhouse he shares with his girlfriend. Eventually, she ends up moving in with this girlfriend, Maura, in an attempt to get closer to her and try to figure out what caused her brother to commit suicide. From there the book slowly edges into strange horror.

I'm having a hard time rating it, because while I read it in its entirety in one day, there were some major holes in the plot, and the climax of the book felt too easy. Things wrapped up very quickly, and altogether too neatly in my opinion. I was left feeling fairly unsatisfied. That said, I think I will be giving this book 3.5 stars rounding down, simply because of the issues I am having personally with the plot and questions I am left with no answers for.

Thank you to Random House Ballantine and NetGalley for the electronic ARC of this for review.

This was a very strange read. I was highly intrigued by the premise and the blurb, and the cover is absolutely stunning. It started off really strongly for me, pulling me in from the get-go- but about 40% in it started getting, well, weird. And the weird just kept getting weirder - and not in an engaging and interesting way that had me furiously turning pages to find out what's happening but more in a way that had me slowly and almost reluctantly turning them because I really didn't know that I cared to see what came next...

I like weird and creepy tales as much as the next guy (actually, probably more than the next guy), but something about this one just kept making me scrunch my nose and want to stop reading. I'm not sure exactly why - it's not that I was so turned off by the way the relationship between Maura and Holly developed (although the ick factor there, due to her dead brother, was high), or that I was too creeped out by the blood drinking roses or Maura's mercurial and ominous behavior to continue reading. It's more like I just suddenly realized that I was turning pages to turn pages, rather than to see what happened next.

I lost interest and I'm not exactly sure when or why. I never get halfway through a book and then decide not to finish it - if I've committed myself that far I usually at least skim to the end to see what the twist or reveal was. But I just lost the threads of this one so intensely that I didn't even want to do that. I'll give it three stars for the first half of the book, but I honestly can't rate it beyond that point because I couldn't find myself interested enough to finish. This one just wasn't for me...

The premise of this book was gorgeously alluring – a Southern gothic mystery, featuring a murder mystery, queer main characters, and carnivorous plants – but unfortunately, I came away mostly disappointed.

This book did some things well: its main character was well-portrayed in her "messy" stage of young adulthood, and the premise is really, really promising; there's a lot of good ideas underlying the plot and the character dynamics.

The execution, however, falls flat. The atmosphere isn't well-established enough for the book to really feel Gothic, and the setting was very underutilized. The characters weren't developed enough to keep my attention, and every time it felt like we started to get some complexity, or details which would make us emotionally invested, the thread got mysteriously dropped and never picked back up (like Maura's relationship with her mother). The ending was predictable and dissatisfying, and in all, the story felt like it didn't really GO anywhere.

Not for me, at the end of the day, despite the extremely promising synopsis. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an e-ARC!

The synopsis for this title intrigued me immediately. I had never requested a book so fast in my life. However, after reading said book, I have found that the synopsis leaves the reader expecting way more from this book than there actually is. Do not get me wrong, I enjoyed this book. The story's ambiance is immaculate, the twist is fun, and the plot is incredibly well-structured. But, my problem with the story is that the twist is practically revealed midway through the story, and it never deepens. The twist is all there is, and while the story wraps up well in the end, it feels very anti-climatic. I felt robbed after reading it because I felt I was missing out on all the synopsis promised. While the story has a strong plot and beautiful writing, that simply was just not enough for me. However, I would include this novel in my classroom if teaching in a high school setting because it is an exciting read that excludes inappropriate elements for students, such as explicit sexual content and inappropriate language.

Big thank you NetGalley and to the publisher for the chance to review this book pre-release.

This book had me in a tug-of-war. I loved the start, and the plot and gore-y descriptions were right up my alley, but somewhere in the middle I felt a bit lost, and I think that was because I couldn't relate to the main character/her choices at ALL. The book itself was well-written and had a very interesting plot, but personally my lack of interest in the MC made me lose focus of the plot because it felt like effort I didn't want to exert just to get to the end and say I'd finished it.

This was a good story by a new author for me. Kept me guessing, engaged with the characters and flow. Look forward to more.

I’d like to first start off by saying that this southern gothic horror genre was something I have never read before. I went way out of my comfort zone with this one, but figured I’d give it a shot. Like I expected, I found most of the plot to leave me with a weird uncomfortable feeling. The story was very creepy and there was underlying haunting/unsettling vibes throughout the entire book that kept me on edge, in a good way or a bad way, I couldn’t tell you. My skin was crawling the whole time though.

We start right off with the suicide of Holly’s brother shortly after he sends her a cryptic text.
Holly has a hard time wrapping her head around this, and cant help but suspect something being off about Maura, who her brother had been dating and living with. Their relationship always seemed odd and was very fast paced, so Holly begins to suspect that Maura isn’t who she seems and isn't as innocent as she portrays herself to be.

Her brother had become very paranoid in his final days, he told her that something sinister is growing inside of him, leaving Holly very confused trying to decipher whether it was his delusions talking or if something was actually going on behind close doors… perhaps in connection with his strange relationship with Maura.

When circumstances cause Holly to move in with Maura, she uses this opportunity to spy, trying to find out if Maura is hiding something that could explain everything. It doesn’t take long for Holly to discover that Maura is lying about things and is keeping many secrets, such as a mysterious greenhouse and ominous basement, perfect for keeping something locked away.

While continuously investigating, Holly finds herself consumed by Maura’s presence and is thinking of little else but her. So of course, this leads to Holly feeling drawn towards her, and she battles with a sudden attraction that sends her head spinning. Holly is overcome with guilt, doubt, and feels like she is betraying her brother. Not only that, but can anything good really come out of these feelings? Or will she end up just as delusional as her brother, ultimately meeting the same end?

There were a few plot holes and some things I felt were left unresolved, so overall I’m giving it 3 stars.
But if you enjoy thrillers, horror, or just a super dark and unique storyline, then this is the book for you. You’ll be on the edge of your seat anxiously looking for the answers Holly desperately seeks, and trust me when I say what’s to be uncovered is truly horrific and surprising. Make sure to check for trigger warnings such as: gore, suicide, and unsettling topics. This is not for the faintest of hearts.

This one was not for me. It was a very exciting premise and started off strong for me but about 45% in it became very tedious and never really picked back up. It felt like a good idea that just fizzled.