I love character-driven thrillers. I love that while I was reading this book I was more concerned with the journey than the destination. The most important thing to me wasn’t “whodunit” but “who were the victims?” Because this book doesn’t hold out a whole lot of hope for an arrest or even a solid suspect when it starts out, but what it does strive for is to put a name to the victims of the crimes that are central to the plot.

It’s a 30-year-old cold case with misplaced and missing paperwork, degraded evidence, and no witnesses. Detective Jean Martinez has transferred to Sierra County’s cold case bureau and wants to clear their department’s oldest cold case, or to at least give the victims their names back. And librarian Laura MacDonald comes across the case on a message board while she’s being treated for breast cancer (the author herself is a breast cancer survivor) and uses her spare time to research the case and then ventures into genealogical research to try and help to achieve the exact thing the detective is doing. Eventually, Laura takes a leap of faith and flies to New Mexico to present everything she has to the detective, and a kindredship is forged.

What I’m saying above doesn’t sound like a thriller, does it? Well, that’s because this book isn’t high-octane. It’s not the type of thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat. This is a simmering thriller, just tiny hot bubbles that keep pricking and poking at you. Maybe it’s even a little bit of a different burn at times, like the antiseptic burn of rubbing alcohol or the blistering heat of a sunburn. Maybe it’s the cold chill that makes you stop in your tracks or that feeling like someone’s just behind you that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up. It could even be the feeling that makes you feel like you’re suddenly some sort of prey. Most of the thrill comes from interlude scenes from the POV of the dead victims, who are present in some sort of spirit form, haunting the site where their bodies were found. To say more than that about those scenes, which range from poignant to gross, would be spoiler-iffic.

The separate and then woven together stories of Laura and Jean run parallel in that both women start out this book fighting off what they think is inevitable: Laura’s breast cancer has already taken so much from her and might eventually take more and Jean’s husband is dead set on her retiring in the next year or two, even though she is very clear that she’s not ready to give up her shield. But with her daughter about to give birth to her first child and the cold case bureau about to be cut down to part-time, Jean is starting to run out of time to close out this one case. But then Laura comes along with some new information, along with some new hope.

This is what I mean when I say this thriller is more about the journey than the destination. Of course we readers want to know who’s responsible for these crimes. Of course we want to know who was sick enough to do this. But that’s not the point of this book. The point of this book is about giving victims back their names and their voices. It’s about giving them back their families and their backgrounds. It’s about remembering the victims of crimes whose trails have long gone cold and no one seems to care about them anymore.

To an extent, this book is also about extolling the virtues of forensic genealogy, which has helped catch criminals like the Golden State Killer, but I have very conflicting feelings about this field on a personal level, so I’m not going to go into that here.

It’s a beautifully written book about a very brutal event and two women who just want to do something helpful with the years they have left in their lives. It’s terrific.

A copy of this title was provided to me by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.

File Under: 5 Star Read/Crime Thriller/Ghost Story/Murder Thriller/OwnVoices/Suspense Mystery

🌷 A R C • R E V I E W 🌷
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Title: The Night Flowers
Author: Sara Herchenroether
Rating: 3.5/5 Stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ (rounded up to 4 stars)
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Trigger warning right off the bat, this deal heavily with a character fighting cancer. There is many details surrounding this characters treatment and complications. If this is a triggering issue, I would recommend refraining because this is a major topic of conversation throughout the book.
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I liked this one; this was told in multiple points of view and followed three characters, one dead and two alive as the mystery of a cold case gets unraveled. I like how detailed Herchenroether got into the characters personal lives, it made me feel like I knew them. I liked how everything unfolded with the dead persons perspective. I thought the ending was good, but felt it maybe could have been executed a tad bit better.
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What did work for me was the incorrect medical jargon. Nothing bothers me more than when people who are not of the medical profession attempt to write medical issues and completely butcher it, seriously just ask for help - I’d gladly give it. I noted multiple things in this book that was incorrect and it was something that really irked me. I also wasnt a huge fan of the lack of chapters, rather the chapters were broken up into each characters section, which yes there was a separation, but I like a chapter to know when to stop reading hahah.
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Overall solid easy fast that kept me interested and invested in the story. I liked the mystery. Enjoyed how everything came together. I’ll definitely pick up more of her work in the future. The Night Flowers just released on May 2. Check it out!
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Thank you to @netgalley and @tinhouse for the earc in exchange for my honest review!

It is hard to believe The Night Flowers is a debut mystery from author Sara Herchenenroether, so sure footed is her story telling skill and command of natural sounding narrative language. Perhaps this impressed me overly much, because I read thiis right after reading a horrendously bad thriller that is inexplicably on the NY Times bestseller list, despite its amateurish writing. That was not the case here. Each thought, each conversational exchange, felt natural and true. Early on I highlighted one descriptive sentence i quite liked . It turned out to be one of many, but I'll quote it here since I saved it, " A man with a faintly British accent that sounded like perfumed Earl Grey in a porcelaiin teacup answered."

At the beginning of The Night Flowers, two hikers discover three bodies that have been hidden in barrels, deep in the forests of New Mexico. Once released from their hiding place, it is evident that these bodies have been there a long time, probably twenty years. We will not see these hikers again, but it is this discovery that sets the story into action. There are three POV's, a genealogist. a police detective, and the spirit of the woman found in the barrel. All three are women characters with their own story, and I was drawn into learning more about each of them.

Laura, the geneologist, is a cancer surviver. We learn snippets about her fight against the cancer and how it updended her life. Trying to find the identity of this woman and two girls found in a barrel has given Laura, a librarian, a purpose in her life which seems as if it has been blown apart. While the details of her cancer treatment are not a substantial part of the story, so excruciatingly realistic are the details, I had to pause in my reading to see a biography of the author. Sure enough, she is a cancer survivor. I sat beside my mother as she went through treatments and watched the huge toll it took on her, and this part of the story was very realistic.It was interesting to watch Laura almost doggedly search for answers to identify these victims and give them a name.

Jean, the police detective, is near retirement, and her husband is ready for her to take it, stay home, and give attention to their lives. Jean asks for his forbearance, the chance to solve this last cold case. Her investigations are leading her in a seemingly different direction than what Laura is discoving, doing her work remotely in another part of the country. But when Laura finally thinks she has the answers and comes to New Mexico to meet with the detective working the case, their paths will converge in the quest to find the identity of the victims, and maybe even find their killer.

As previously stated, I really enjoyed this story, which was a bit different because it was a cold case, and I enjoyed the two female leads. It was satisfying to see them work together and solve the case. This is mainly a police procedural, although there were also a lot of personal details about the main characters. I know the fashion today is to have a big splashy story, with a huge twist ending, but I found this well written and emotional story extremely satisfying to read. I look forward to the authors next story, and wonder if we might see these characters again in a future work.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author, and W.W.Norton and Company for allowing me to read an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

📚 The Night Flowers by Sarah Herchenrother 📚

Thank you @tin_house for the ARC!

I really love mysteries, especially ones that are a bit literary and that feature a location as a main character.

This book is not really a classic mystery, since it does include the voice of one of the victims and that voice/ ghost reveals parts of the mystery as the book goes along. The other two main characters are interesting and the way they work together is fun to read.

The cold case mystery is set in the Gila National Forest in New Mexico, and in a small town called Truth or Consequences. The descriptions of the hikes and drives that the characters take, along with the lonely desert houses they find in their investigation made me feel like I was truly in a hot, dusty NM environment which I enjoyed. The mystery was not as expertly plotted as some I've read, especially with the ghost offering up info relatively often, but I still was curious and wanted to know how it would end, so that was a win. The genealogist's research was fascinating as well. The cancer backstory was something I found interesting, as it's rare to have a character go that in depth into their treatment in a novel and I appreciated that. The end of the book made me think that a sequel could be coming, and I would definitely read it!

It's pure magic when an incredible cover is combined with a great story. I really enjoyed this one. It was different than your regular police procedural and was a great slow burn mystery. Thank you so much to tin house for the ARC of this one!

The Night Flowers is not your average police procedural thriller. We follow two women as they investigate a 30-year-old murder in the deserts of New Mexico. Laura is a research librarian and amateur genealogist who distracts herself from her battle against breast cancer by reuniting people with their lost family members. Jean is a police detective who has to balance her family life with the pressure of being assigned to a cold-case investigation of the murder of a woman and two children. There's also a third woman, the ghost of the woman who was killed, whose POV adds a creepy, atmospheric element to this story.

As someone who works in the criminal justice system, I don't normally enjoy police procedurals and legal thrillers. But The Night Flowers was hard to put down. I really enjoyed Herchenroether's characters, especially Laura and her cancer survival journey. Jean didn't have as much depth, but I was still rooting for her. When the two of them teamed up, they each became stronger. What made this book stand out was the atmospheric, paranormal elements that kept the mystery alive.

Thank you very much to NetGalley and TinHouse for this eARC!

Thank you for the ARC. As a side note, there were many typos in this book - I stopped counting at 5.

My review:

I LOVED this book. It in a way brought me out of a book slump I’ve been in and got me excited about reading again. In fairness, I don’t read a lot of thrillers so everything felt new and fresh to me.

I really enjoyed each of the characters, especially the genealogical librarian and her story. The author was able to write each character in a way that they felt trustworthy and relatable yet unique.

There were really 3 POVs in this story and I liked them all equally. Multiple POVs can sometimes cause me to like one characters storyline over another and therefore don’t enjoying reading their stories as much but The Night Flowers kept each storyline fast paced, relevant and as “fun” as you can get while solving a cold case murder.

This book kept me on my toes and wanting to know more. Ready the trigger warnings on this book before reading!

5⭐️

Jean and Laura are both at critical points in their lives when they team up to solve the cold case that has haunted Jean for years- the woman and two children found in barrels in the Gila National Forest. Jean is about to retire from her job as a detective and Laura is finishing treatment for breast cancer (know that there are many details of this). And then there's the ghost- the woman who was killed, who offers her vantage point. Laura's ability to research brings them answers but it's slow. This meanders a bit and it's not that suspenseful but there are surprises. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC, A good read.

Laura has barely survived breast cancer. In pain, and with too many feelings to process, she turns to her background in genealogy, to occupy her mind with something other than cancer, and hopefully solve a cold case.
Jean is a cold case detective sure that the original detectives missed something. A woman and two children were found in the Gila National Forest in New Mexico many years ago. They were never identified and she cannot imagine that no one missed them or searched for them and she’s determined to find the killer(s).
There is also a third POV, but I’m not going to say who that person is. It it is such a unique aspect to the story and provided much needed information.
I was amazed at how an unsolved case could provide so many clues so many years later. I felt so sorry for what Laura was suffering through, but admired her tenacity regarding putting together the facts about the people involved in this very very old cold case.
Their were many layers to the story, and besides being a page turner, it’s one that will remain with me for quite a long time,having gone through some pretty intense surgery at the end of last year myself. Laura’s character was the stand out POV for me and I couldn’t stop reading.

Night Flowers is one of those slow burn mysteries, perfect for a night at home. I read it during a thunderstorm and it was perfect. Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I love a haunting mystery and the ghost story part of this book was fantastic. It was a little hard to follow along with the different stories at first because there were no real “chapters” and I would get a little confused by the turn in perspective, but once I got it figured out, this was a great book!

This is a rather unusual mystery, for several reasons. First, the decades-old cold case is solved by two women, a police sergeant and a librarian who specializes in genealogy. The genealogy aspect is an intriguing one, and proves to be a powerful tool. Second, author Sara Herchenroether is a breast cancer survivor, and the genealogist in the novel has just had a mastectomy. The character’s struggles, including a trip to the ER when she nearly died of sepsis, ring true. Third, one of the murder victims is also a character in the book, who, from her place in the spirit realm, struggles to try and warn her murderer's next victims.
A very gripping story, well told, whose pieces come together like a jigsaw puzzle.

I thought to myself as I started reading this book that I would only give it three stars. Why, oh why, do I do that to myself? Yes, it’s not a magnificent feat of literary composition but as I read further I realized that this book wasn’t half bad.

First it is set in my favorite place….New Mexico. Second it has two strong female protagonists with demons of their own. When they join forces to solve a very cold case involving a mother and her children, we’ll let’s just say they are a force to be reckoned with.

I am hoping this becomes a series. Oh, I didn’t mention the ghosts. They play a big part in bringing a devil to justice. The afterlife doesn’t seem so bad.

Enjoy!

In her haunting and complex debut, Sara Herchenroether weaves together a thrilling mystery with an interpersonal portrait of two women - Laura MacDonald a research librarian facing a recent breast cancer diagnosis and Jean Martinez a veteran cold case detective. The two have differing investigative methods but when both women start focusing on the same 30-year-old case, they find one another and work together to find answers. Herchenroether also includes a spectral version of the victim and her point of view. When seen from all three perspectives, the personal narrative of these women becomes just as intriguing as the murder mystery itself.

Wow! I loved this one--hooked me right away! It's a mystery, and we follow several characters, including a genealogist and a detective who are trying to find out more about a cold case of a Jane Doe and 2 young girls found in a remote New Mexico forest. We also follow the dead woman and learn her story. About 70% in, it seemed almost like a different writer started writing-the characters didn't seem like themselves-and it confused me a bit, but then I was drawn in again, ands couldn't wait to find out what was going to happen. I will definitely be reading more from this author!

In 1983, 3 bodies were discovered in barrels by two hikers in New Mexico’s Gila National Forest. Having been there a while, the police were never able to identify who the women and 2 children were. Almost 30 years after their discovery, two women from across the country, with two very different lives and for very different reasons commit to identifying who the victim were. Laura MacDonald, a retired librarian with a passion for finding people’s lost loves ones, is determined to put a name to the victims so that they won’t be forgotten. Detective Jean Martinez, sees this cold case as the crux of her waning career and wants nothing more than to determine the culprit of the grisly crime. Half a decade after the crimes were committed, the unlikely pair might just be able to determine the truth behind the murders.

Told from 3 perspectives this book was lovingly written. The writing is fantastic and the idea behind the story is great. Both Laura and Detective Martinez get their chance to tell their stories. While both women are completely different, they both bring a unique take on the case, and I really enjoyed the contrast between them. However, I felt that Laura’s storyline was much more flushed out and engaging. Martinez’s character seems a little flat to me and I felt that I never really got to know her.

The 3rd POV was from the ghost of one of the victims, and while I didn’t not like the narrative, it really pulls the genre of the story into speculative fiction territory, which I struggled with. In the first half of the book, when it came to the 3rd POV, I felt slightly lost. The direction didn’t seem defined until halfway through, and so it took me half the book to understand the point of the narrative. Once I was onboard though, I did enjoy getting hear how Jane Doe perceived her death and situation. It wasn’t my favorite storyline though, so I could have also done without it.

I appreciated the Breast Cancer Survivor story and the way Herchenroether dived into Laura’s story. Her story was fascinating, and I loved the tenacity she shows not just during her Cancer journey, but just in her eagerness to find peoples lost loved ones. I think it was a great example of how sites like Ancestory.com, 23 and Me, and others are working to connect people to their roots. It’s fascinating to understand where you come from, and my dad has always been big into exploring our family tree, which has rubbed off on me as well. Personally, I found Laura’s story to be the most engaging, impactful, and interesting.

Personally, I felt that there were two distinct halves of the book. The first half dives deep into the personal lives of Martinez and Laura, with hardly any reference to the murders. Around halfway through though, it completely switches, and we get little to no more detail around their personal lives, and the focus is solely on the investigation. There was a lot of personal build up for both women, without much payoff, in my opinion. Both Martinez’s storyline and the 3rd POV of Jane Doe were just not fully engaging for me, and I felt they slowed the pacing of the story quite a bit. So, while the writing was wonderful, I felt as if I was slogging through the book at times. I would have ultimately preferred to just have the entire book written from Laura’s POV.

My last complaint involves the investigation itself. I honestly could not keep track of the suspects and families in the investigation. There were some name changes, some history around naming conventions of different cultures, but ultimately there were just too many people that were brought into the conversations. I couldn’t keep track of them all. I thought more than once that a family tree graphic would have been helpful.

There are so many great things about this book, and I hate to only give it 3 stars. While I really enjoyed a lot of parts about the story, the negatives outweighed the pros for me, which is why this was a 3.5 star read, rounded down to 3. The 3rd narrative really contributes to a more atmospheric feel, so I’d recommend reading if you enjoy more atmospheric or gothic type mysteries.

The Night Flowers comes out May 2, 2023. Huge thank you to Tin House Books for my advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion. If you liked this review please let me know either by commenting below or by visiting my instagram @speakingof.books.

This reads almost as two different books.

The first half is heavy in the lives of two different women. Laura, an amateur, is deeply involved in a missing person's case, is also living with breast cancer. Her storyline includes multiple surgeries and appointments. Laura's timeline gets a bit confusing, almost too much information with her genealogy project.

Jean is a cold case cop and a soon to be grandmother. She's working on solving a cold case that has haunted her for years.

The storylines combine as the women join together to solve the mystery of the woman and two children in the barrels.

It was a good story, but I felt it got muddled with the personal lives. Snippets are fine, but the overall mystery of the people in the barrel was more interesting to me.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review.

Laura a librarian who has survived breast cancer dives into a 30-year-old mystery. The mystery of a woman and two children found dead in barrels in the national forest. No one was ever able to identify them, but Laura has a background in Geneology and thinks she may be able to crack the case.

Jean a detective in the cold case unit is also working on this and when she and Laura begin working together things really begin coming together. I loved watching them untangle all of the threads for this case and the genealogy parts were definitely a favorite.

The third POV was very unique and interesting. It was unexpected and I wasn't sure if I would like it, but I thought it added something special to the story. I loved the way it ended, although I would have actually liked to have seen more of what happened right after the bad guy was caught. If this ends up being a series I would definitely read them.

Laura, our research librarian, has a lot going on. She is facing her own mortality and trying to solve a few mysteries before she goes. As a result she really does not give a crap about being safe. I loved it.
I loved the book. It was full of mysteries, sad and interesting.
If you are into cold cases and geneology you will love this.

I have a love hate this with this story. On one hand it was immersive and eerily beautiful and it held my interest. On the other hand, this mystery was lacking and our characters weren't my favorites. I'm a bit unsure of how I feel about the ghost chapters. They felt necessary but also unnecessary? Overall I would give this 3.5-3.7 stars.

"So you want to solve a murder without the victim's name, without a murder weapon, without any forensic or any eyewitnesses, and you want to solve it forty-maybe fifty years after the fact?"

It is the thirtieth anniversary of the oldest cold case in Sierra County, New Mexico. In August, 1983, hikers discovered two 55 gallon steel drums containing the bodies of a young woman and two young children hidden in a remote, unprotected area outside the boundaries of Gila National Forest. Initial forensic reports were unable to identify the severely decomposed remains. DNA analysis was not yet available.

Laura MacDonald, awaiting breast cancer surgery in a Connecticut Hospital, googled her favorite crime site. She discovered the story of three unidentified victims, a 30 year old cold case in New Mexico. "While time had erased Jane Doe's body, cancer had erased Laura...Jane Doe had no name, no date of birth. Here in the hospital wilderness, Laura was only her name and date of birth. She had no voice. No identity outside her diagnosis. Both had lost control of their bodies." Laura, a librarian and amateur genealogist, would open Ancestry and write on message boards used by web sleuths in an attempt to find a thread leading to the Sierra County Jane Doe. By embarking upon this search, she hoped it would serve as a needed distraction while undergoing breast cancer treatment.

Detective Jean Martinez was close to retirement. If it were up to her husband, Jean would have retired yesterday. She, however, was not ready to throw in the towel! She wanted to review her oldest cold case: The Sierra County Jane Doe. "Jane Doe and her girls deserved their names back. A name meant you mattered...If to no one else...they mattered to Jean." "Jean treated each case the same, each victim the same. People with a family and a story...".

"People tend to think of us as shadows. Blurred black mist...You can't measure a ghost...". Speculatively speaking, Jane Doe wanted to be heard. She wanted to tell her story, for if not, she would only be remembered for the way she died, not for the life she lived.

"The Night Flowers", although fascinating, was uneven in its delivery. Told in alternating voices of Laura and Jean, the first half of the read concentrates on character reveal. This delayed the pursuit of the case, soon interspersed with some "ghostly assistance" from Jane Doe. It was fascinating to learn that paleoclimatologists, studying the atomic composition of bones, soil and dirt could pinpoint where Jane Doe and the two young girls came from. The parameters of the search were now feasible. Laura would travel from Connecticut to team up with Jean in New Mexico to work on this difficult, daunting cold case.

Perhaps I was not the right reader for this tome. My expectation was one of unraveling a complex murder mystery and unmasking the killer. I was unsettled by the detailed medical aspect which was seemingly cathartic and well stated.

Thank you Tin House and Net Galley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.