I hate it, but I’m gonna have to be 100% honest and say that this book just wasn’t really for me. It wasn’t bad, just not for me.

"Where Darkness Blooms" is a deliciously creepy small-town horror story. Something sinister is happening in Bishop, and the sunflowers are trying to tell us. Missing women and secrets abound in this town, and the mystery begins to unravel for our four heroines. The atmosphere in this book is excellent. If you like small towns, supernatural elements, and creepy plants, definitely look into this book.

Each characters' perspective was read by a different narrator, and it really helped amplify how different these voices are. The timeline was a little hard to keep up with in the first few chapters because the perspective changes so much, but once it clicked, I was completely engrossed in the novel.

The story is dark and creepy, but it's not overwhelming as its a YA novel. It's great if you're looking for a quick horror mystery.

DNF Too out there (and me saying it is saying something)... not a fan of the writing, and it feels like sometimes the character's POVs language and syntax bleed back and forth.

My thanks to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I have fallen head first into “flower face” book covers trend. I am obsessed and I want to read (and possibly own/collect) all of them. This immediately went on my TBR, and it was a no-brainer when I saw I could request the audiobook early.

This is a supernatural YA novel about a small town and 4 girls whose mothers’ disappeared 2 years prior. The girls band together to solve the mystery of this town with its unusual wind storms, missing women, and life-like field of sunflowers.

I actively suspended my disbelief knowing this was a supernatural fiction book. Despite my effort, I had a harder time suspending my disbelief how it took 2 years for these girls to start really addressing what the heck is going on in this town of theirs. I really think the timeline hindered this book instead of pushed it forward.

The audio made it manageable, but the other issue is the multiple POVs. We get the perspective of each main character and it’s too much. I like multiple POVs, so long as they add to the story and aren’t repetitive. Unfortunately, it was very repetitive and their voices (the writing, not the audio) were not distinct enough to separate one girl from the other.

Things I loved:
-The trigger warnings at the start of the book
-Girl power
-Gothic horror vibes
-Book cover
-Rightful revenge
-Audio was well done

Things I didn’t love:
-Too many narrators - mostly because they were too similar and repetitive in the things they were thinking and saying.
- how many times can we hear about the same boys?
- How many times can we hear about the same storm?
-How quickly these characters can fall in love.
-How graphic/violent it gets toward the end. The actions didn’t feel out of place, but the descriptive imagery of the actions did.
-The timeline.

Overall, I mostly enjoyed my time with this and I liked it just fine. I wouldn’t suggest to run out and read it immediately though.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced listening copy!

A cursed place, thirsty for blood. Never content.

Meet the town of Bishop. Where they have horrible wind storms, and women go missing all the time. The story mainly focuses on a group of teen girls, named Delilah, Jo, Jude, Whitney. Their mothers disappeared and they are left alone in this town. As they begin to uncover what happened to their mother, their discoveries lead them on a path where there's no turning back.

The story was very interesting and I listened intently to discover what happens next, and how this town came to be. There is some supernatural elements to the story and surrounding the flowers. The town creeped me out. I loved how the title came to play with the story.
The narrators, Rachanne Lumayo, Sarah Beth Pfeifer, Emily Ellet, and Lindsey Dorcus did a wonderful job portraying the sisters and their friends. Their voices matched well with the characters age and they were also able to portray the male characters very well.

I would recommend this book to fans of YA, mystery and thrillers. I certainly kept me engaged till the very end.
Special thanks to OrangeSky Audio and Netgally for the ALC.
Pub. Feb 20, 2023

I enjoyed listening to this audiobook and I really enjoyed the storyline behind this book. I don't know how much I enjoyed the narrator and I believe that's the reason this book a little lower of a ranking then I was intending. I bet if I read this on my own the star rating would be higher!

Interesting premise, but the ending left me with more questions than answers. The four main girls were interesting characters and I appreciated the incorporation of transwomen into the otherwise binary narrative, but I would have liked some of the side characters flushed out a bit more—they felt a little flat. My only critique of the audio recording was that I sometimes lost track of whose point of view (third person limited) the chapter was in. For that reason, I think I might have preferred reading the book rather than listening to it.

What an entrancing and winding story!

In the town of Bishop, Kansas, secrets are rooted deep within the soil and whispered on the wind. Throughout the years, women are dying or disappearing and it has left four teenage girls alone and motherless.

This is the story of their discovery of the terrifying truth. The town wants blood and one of them could be next.

This was equal parts entertaining and aggravating. I loved the story. I loved the way these girls found strength within each other. I had my favorite character and my least favorite. I had one that I completely broke for and she never once disappointed me. But, at times, there are a couple girls that constantly showed selfishness and it infuriated me. That in no way took away from my enjoyment of the story! I felt the necessity of the contradicting nature of the characters because it gave so much to the realism of humanity in a story based in so much fantasy.

I really love a strong cast in an audiobook experience and this had a whole cast. Fantastic narration!

I had the opportunity to read this as an ARC and I absolutely loved every word, so of course when I had the chance to give this an early listen I snatched it right up.
It was amazing! Listening is an entire experience.
The narration was perfect. It was like a wonderful cheesy campfire tale.
Another teacher and I did have a moment where we scared the crap out of one another because we were both listening to spooky tales this morning. You want to have similar experiences so make sure you listen to this.

Bishop has a huge field of sunflowers and lots of windstorms. And a long list of missing women. When three women disappear in one night, no one is surprised, and their daughters are left to pick up the pieces. All three of them want to move on, but the deeper they dig, the more sinister the disappearances seem, and escape may ne impossible.

This one moved quickly, had some really good character development, and kept me enthralled in the story and the outcome. There was some ueer rep and some solid friendship and mother/daughter theme and issues. Recommend if you enjoy YA and mysteries mixed with horror. It comes out on February 21, so keep an eye out to add to your TBR.

I would like to thank the publisher for sending an arc of this book!

Ok so I got to about 50% before dnfing. I liked the writing but personally multiple pov is an area where I struggle. I find it hard to keep up with and I lose track of who is who and who’s doing what and this wasn’t any different for me.

But also I found the plot to be really interesting but also slow at the same time. Like the book follows this group of girls who have all of their moms goo missing and the town is also kinda creepy too so it keeps you on your toes but it’s slow paced so it’s hard to stay interested.

I love a good ya. Ya is one my fave genres but this has no romance at all. I don’t necessarily need it but I do prefer it (like a super light dusting of romance would’ve is my fave!) but this has very little romance which would’ve been fine if I knew going in that it wasn’t going to have any.

But I feel bad that I didn’t like this book as much as I thought I would. I was so EXCITED to read this and I thought I was going to love it.

Look at that cover art, absolutely haunting!🖤 MPVO Narration - 4.5⭐️

Uncover the mystery lurking in the shadows of Bishop, where rumors of windstorms and missing women have been swirling for years. But when three mothers vanish one stormy night, their vulnerable daughters are left to navigate the dangers hidden deep within their town.

As the daughters dig deeper, they discover more and more strange things going back to when Bishop was founded. Those uncharacteristic windstorms? Well, they may not be so random.
Have they even known a women to leave Bishop? or just... vanish?
And where are those whispers coming from...

Faced with the determination of the town's men to control them, Bo, Whitney, Lilah, and Jude must use their strength and wits to unearth the darkness blooming in their hometown and expose the truth once and for all.

These strong female leads that prove when girls work together, they are unstoppable.

I read this in January, and it's already at the top of the list for the most disappointing book of the year. There are some great concepts here, but the execution is not it. The writing it really hard to follow, the chapters are told my alternating characters, and sometimes the next chapter will jump back in time with out warning which made it really hard to orient yourself in the story.

The characters are pretty bland and there's don't have unique voices, I literally had to make a note about how everyone was related to each other because I couldn't keep up.

The narrators were good - I'm glad they went with four narrators for the four girls.

SPOILERS BELOW

I also just can not accept that THREE parents decided to abandon their daughters in a town that they knew was systematically killing women.

Where Darkness Blooms had me hooked just from the summary. Unfortunately once I got into the book there was nothing it could do to keep me hooked. The book takes place in the town of Bishop. Bishop does not sound like a town anyone would want to live in. Women keep going missing and there are violent windstorms. Who would live here?

The story follows four young women in the wake of their mother's disappearance. Whitney, Jude, Delilah, and Bo. I did not find any of the girls to be all that interesting. The four of them almost blended together to be one character. I had a hard time remembering who was who since the details never grabbed me. It didn’t help that in the audio version all the characters sounded the same.

I felt that the book was going to get better. Chapter after chapter I waited but it just didn’t come. There was one chapter towards the end that I thought it was going to finally make it over that hill. I thought there was going to be a surprise death but it just didn’t happen. Speaking of death. There was a death in the middle book and there was such a lack of emotion that it almost took me out of the story completely. I wanted so much more from this

Sadly I have a hard time recommending this one

I thoroughly enjoyed this audiobook. The narration was spot on and the plot kept me intrigued throughout the story. There were a few spots that I found myself going back to see who was who, but overall would recommend to my YA readers!

While I am not exactly sure which genre this book fall into, I think collectively it is a great YA fantasy read that has a unique way of portraying and addressing some heavy topics like post traumatic stress, rape, cultism, and mind manipulation. I think this read isn't for everyone in the YA community. It is going to take a reader who understands these heavy topics and some empathy for the trauma these girls go through from start to finish. No character is untouched by the brutality of Bishop.

Thank you to Netgalley, Wednesday Books, and this fantastic author, Andrea Hannah for the audioARC copy.

I cannot tell you how many times I said the phrase, "F*cking hell," while listening to this compelling tale of four girls growing up in the highly secluded and odd town of Bishop in Kansas. This story is told from multiple points of view and while sometimes that can be highly confusing (especially in audio books format) this was a must way of telling this story. So much happens and the end happens way before the reader is ready. Lets start with the cover. AMAZING!! I was pulled in from the cover alone and then by the wonderfully unique plot. I have been branching off into the darker side of YA lately and this book was a fantastic treat. From the wonderfully disturbing prologue to the open-ended ending, I was enraptured and fully committed. Not only do you get the gothic style telling, creepy town, lost/dead mothers who all go missing/die at the same moment, four teenage girls now on their own following clues to solve the mystery and all while dealing with the angsts of pre-adulthood...you get a deadly town past where women/girls keep going missing/die, freaky abnormal winds, sunflowers that grow in abundance and seem to follow you around, and men of the town that give off far too many creeps for my creep-o-meter.

There are parts that make me wonder how an entire town could be so blatantly blind to so many deaths/missing girls considering this happens at regular intervals. HOW HAS NO ONE PUT A STOP TO THIS BEFORE? Not everyone in town is part of it, and its not as if the town is completely closed off. They have modern conveniences and even people outside of the town know about Bishop's existence. The dads seem to come, impregnate, and leave. Something doesn't seem as thoroughly worked about about these parts of the story. A few too many places for readers to fall into plot holes, but if you just read the story for what it is and not look too closely at those holes I know you will LOVE this book. Unique idea. Well written. Intriguing mystery that will have you on the edge of your seat til the very last... All check!!!!!

Happily ever after??? You'll have to read and see for yourself ;-P

No regrets!

I got an audio book arc from netgalley and I loved it! It was delightfully creepy and I was on the edge of my seat through the whole thing.

After their mothers inexplicably disappeared two years prior, teenagers Delilah, Bo, Whitney, and Jude attempted to move on. But, with so many unexplained deaths and the eerie weather that seems to keep all the townspeople from leaving, the girls are finally fed up and try to figure out what really happened the night their mothers went missing.

I generally listen to audiobooks in the car on my drive to & from work or when I'm on a road trip, but with this one I had to breakout the Bluetooth speaker when I got home and even my headphones at work because there was no way I could "put the book down." Chills ran up and down my spine as I listened to this incredible thriller by Andrea Hannah set in the mysterious town of Bishop, Kansas. The switching between Delilah, Bo, Whitney, & Jude's POVs really added to the story & I LOVED that each of them had their own narrator in the audiobook.

ALC (advanced listener copy) provided by NetGalley and OrangeSky Audio in exchange for a fair review.

CW: Some of the thematic material within contains discussions of sexual assault (implied, later revealed), stabbing, death, sex (implied), and underage drinking.

Bishop, Kansas, is an odd place. Since its inception, women have gone missing or died. You see, the land is hungry. And the only way to feed the land is with blood...

Two years ago, three women disappeared. All the women lived together with their daughters at a house at the end of their road. While the women were liked in the community, nobody really cared about their disappearance. But their daughters - Delilah, Bo, Whitney and Jude - can't move on. Now the town is putting a memorial in the clearing where they were last seen, despite the fact that they are only a few of the many women that Bishop has taken. The storms are getting worse, and the deaths/disappearances are getting more frequent. What is going on in Bishop?

Admittedly, the cover is what drew me in. It is amazing! It seemed like there were a lot of characters to follow (FOUR main characters!), but eventually I got them straight. The girls each have their own problems: Delilah skin burns each time her boyfriend, Bennett, touches her; Bo is incredibly angry and always picking fights, but she needs answers to the disappearances; Jude is obsessed with Delilah's boyfriend, because she was hooking up with him before he met Delilah; and Whitney spends hours listening to a weathervane, believing her dead girlfriend is speaking through it.

This is toted as being YA, but I think that is a bit misleading. With the exception of how the teenagers view their young loves (which, as an adult, was a bit annoying but authentic), the language and situations were very much adult. The story was well-written, and rather rage-inducing - how in the hell did people just not notice that something is seriously wrong in Bishop? - but thoroughly enjoyable. I found the ending satisfying (for the most part) which is always a big thing for me. Doesn't need to be happy, just needs to be satisfying. All in all, it was a good book.

Where Darkness Blooms is a supernatural thriller that takes place in the eerie town of Bishop, where the sunflowers whisper secrets and the land hungers for blood. The town is known for its recurring windstorms and missing women, but when three more women disappear one night, the case is closed without much investigation. The daughters of the missing women are left to pick up the pieces and confront their own secrets. Whenever the truth is about to be revealed, the wind kicks up and forces people to seek shelter.

In the town of Bishop, a family line is cursed with having to kill women to feed the land. The girls soon figure this out and begin to piece together what really happened to their mothers. The sunflowers play a role in the story, and the land itself is portrayed as a character. The girls must work together to uncover the truth and stop the curse from claiming any more lives.

The story is intense and keeps you on the edge of your seat, but it is a bit predictable. The plot falls short in some places, but the story is still captivating and the supernatural elements keep you engaged. While the book may not be a groundbreaking thriller, some readers will continue just to fill the need to know what happens.