Here we have another creepy-ass book, but this time, it's the whole town that's messed up! The town of Bloom is a bit of a mystery. Women and girls go missing on the regular, but the most that the town's Powers That Be do is throw up a statue and move on. And even that is rare, frankly. But when three women go missing at once, their daughters have to band together to survive in this weird place.

I suppose you have to suspend some disbelief that this town can exist like it does in modern day society, but once you get past that, it is certainly an entertaining story, full of secrets and mysteries. Each young woman who lives in the house, Delilah, Jude, Bo, and Whitney, all have their own stories and their own buried secrets to content with, along with the pain of their missing mothers. While the girls used to be inseparable, things have been tense, and rifts are very clearly happening.

We get the points of view of each of these characters, which generally works well since it enables us to get to know each of them, though doesn't make any one particularly stick out. But it does certainly make you feel for each of the girls, and make you realize that this town treats women as disposable, whether they're missing or not. The book is also extremely atmospheric- I certainly felt the isolation and, for lack of a better word, "wrongness" of the town and its inhabitants.

The book was entertaining throughout, as I was definitely invested in finding out answers to the secrets and mysteries. I was certainly invested enough in the characters and their relationships to be desperate to see how it all played out for them. I was also really pleased with the ending, it worked really well with the story and I was satisfied.

Bottom Line: Overall, a solid mystery with a lot of likable characters and a definitely messed up town with an equally messed up past.

Talk about a book that grabs you by the throat right from the get, drags you right into its pages, and never lets you go. My issue? It should’ve let us readers go a little earlier.

I know, I know! I’m always complaining books are too long. So sue me. Or that books have too many epilogues when just one would suffice, thank you very much. This books suffers from that rare combination I call “The Return of the King Syndrome” (for those who have seen Peter Jackson’s “LOTR: The Return of the King”): Too many chapters at the end that read like epilogues so you think this chapter must be the ending, but then there’s another chapter that makes you think the same way, but then there’s another chapter that would’ve sufficed as a perfectly good ending as well. This goes on for several chapters. I would’ve nixed all but maybe two or three of them.

But the ending? *chef’s kiss*

This book feels a little like The Village, a little like Midsommar, a little like Hannah Whitten’s Wilderwood, and there’s a touch of The Handmaid’s Tale in there too. Even as I write this list of cultish/occult/horror/ and speculative fiction influences that I felt traces of in the framework of this novel (and, for some reason, there’s an episode of Criminal Minds that involves someone running through a sunflower field to hide from an unsub, I think), I know I can’t write this list down without acknowledging the other half of this book, which involves women working the soil, spilling their blood, sweat, and tears into it to bring forth crops mostly for the menfolk to eat before they do and flowers to bring beauty to the world.

If you pay attention to the narration clearly in the very beginning of the chapter you can tell it’s the time of the Dust Bowl Migration, and the town of Bishop is established when the land there calls to one particular migrant from the eastern seaboard, who had restlessly been searching for a place to establish his own town. We don’t find out until later that the place where the town founder has picked to become Bishop, the town where the events of our book take place, is in Kansas, which suffered the most drought and agricultural damage of any state during the Dust Bowl period. It was a truly damaged land, deprived of life. It called to this restless soul searching for a place all his own, and it spoke to him. And he paid the price many times over to establish Bishop, a town that was his, and his alone.

By the time the story of our four friends starts in earnest, it’s much further into the future. Twins Whitney and Jude, angry Bo, and lost Delilah. All four live together in Deliliah’s house, since their mothers collectively disappeared one day two years ago and haven’t been seen since. Was it murder? Did they just decide to leave their daughters and run away? No one knows. But the answers to what happened that day have haunted all four girls every moment since, and they still long for closure. For answers. Each of them have their own theories and opinions they don’t tend to share with the others. All four of them have secrets, some of them painful. And all four of them know something is wrong with the town of Bishop, but none of them are able to put their finger on it.

Andrea Hannah writes in her acknowledgements, “This is the first book I’ve written in a long time that feels like me.” Well, I applaud you, Ms. Hannah, for getting your literary groove back, because the juxtaposition between these large flowers blooming in the sunshine and yet knowing somehow that becoming sunflowers would both give the men reason to not cut them down but also would give the women of Bishop some protection if they needed it with their sheer height was a stroke of genius. You gave the men the wind and the earth, but you gave the women the flowers and the water. Necessity is the mother of invention, and the dead women of Bishop used what was once theirs to invent a way to fight against the patriarchy that ruled their town until the day would come when the town could be freed.

There’s not a lot of world building to do in this book, and there’s not a magic system, per se. This book is almost entirely driven by the characters and their emotions. I’d actually wager this book would be nothing without emotion. They flow, fly, simmer, and rage through every character, sometimes to the point where it almost feels palpable. I love a book where I can almost taste a character’s feelings in my mouth, like the saltiness of tears or the sourness of disappointment. Keeping this book small in geographic scope fit Ms. Hannah’s writing style so well I kind-of hope she doesn’t stray to anything in the epic/high fantasy genre, where characters are far-flung around another world, where time will be taken away from intense and passionate characters.

This book could’ve been rated 5 stars, if it weren’t for the awkward and stuttered denouement.

I was provided a copy of this book by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, views, and opinions contained therein are mine and mine alone and are given of my free will. Thank you.

File Under: Coming of Age/YA Fiction/YA Horror/Cult Horror/Ghost Story/Horror/Mystery/Occult Horror/Speculative Fiction/Psychological Thriller/Thriller/That is Effed Up/YA Mystery/YA Thriller

Where Darkness Blooms is the story of four girls: Delilah, Whitney and her sister Jude, and Bo. Their mothers disappeared but the girls don't think they're dead. In fact they're convinced that their sunflower-laden, blood-hungry, obscenely windy town, Bishop, has something to do with their disappearance.

I think I've found that YA horror just isn't my thing. I've given you several tries YA horror, but I just don't seem to enjoy it. Despite the fact that there are four main characters, I just couldn't connect with any of them. Jude is the literal worst pining for her friend's boyfriend after hooking up with him (once?). Whitney spends the majority of the book grieving for her dead girlfriend despite finding another girl way hot. Not sure what Delilah and Bo did in this story. Maybe mourn her missing artist mother while being unable to touch her boyfriend (Delilah) and be angry at everyone always (Bo)? At least I think. I had a hard time caring about any of the characters.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this ARC. Unfortunately, I just couldn't get into the story or the characters.

"There are a lot of strange things in this town. It's best to keep the strangest one close to be safe."

I was excited to read this one because I enjoy a good YA Horror, I love the cover, and the idea of "the flowers are always watching" intrigued me to my core.

In short, I liked this story.

The prologue really pulled me in, and I found myself hungry to know more of the story. There is definitely some time that passes between the prologue and the actual story, but there is a sense of foreboding the whole way through. This town almost feels like a cult, not only with the endless sunflower fields that never die, but also with the fact that nobody ever enters or leaves the town. The sunflowers and wind prevent that from happening. Plus, there is a lot of stormy weather in this book, so the atmosphere is all around top notch.

Then you have the characters, four girls bonded together through childhood and stuck together through the same sense of loss. They each lost their mothers, and stuck together ever since. The girls all grieve in different ways throughout the course of the book, especially when they pass the two year mark of their disappearances, but there is also a lot of fear for the other girls and hope that they don't have to experience that sense of loss a second time.

There is also the charismatic town mayor who definitely does not have any bad qualities or creepy feelings around him, and a couple other characters that get mentions but don't really serve as a main part of the story. The cast of characters is big, but they are all easy to keep track of and are all different in their own ways.

I kind of guessed the "bad guy" of the story early on, but there are hints here and there so it was not hard to figure out. No spoilers here! The prologue kind of laid out the main problem that the story would have too though, so I never truly found myself surprised by the events of this book. Still, the atmosphere was well written and I liked the characters.

Overall, the story feels unique and it is one I will think about for some time to come, even if it was a bit predictable and not super surprising. I still absolutely love the cover, and the stormy summer atmosphere was top notch! I appreciate that the author included some content warnings at the start of the book (at least in my digital ARC), and I would definitely be open to reading some other books by this author.

[Thank you Netgalley and Wednesday Books for an e-arc of this book, all opinions are my own.]

Content warnings: blood, death, abandonment, violence, gun violence, infidelity, rape, body horror, racism, sexism

This YA book was just ok for me. There are multiple POV’s so you get to know each of the four girls. Although it was creepy at times I found myself bored most of the time.

Three women go missing in the town of Bishop. Their daughters come together to figure out what to do. They eventually discover the dark secrets the town’s male residents are keeping.

Where Darkness Blooms is available now.

Thank you stmartinspress and netgalley for this arc in exchange for my honest review.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this creepy story!

I wasn’t really sure what I was getting into with this because it jumped right in to a complicated world where 4 teenage girls are living together because their moms all disappeared a few years earlier. The girls seem to spend zero time together and honestly to dislike each other—though the distance and animosity gets explained later. The strange events surrounding their town (and the not-at-all-hidden misogyny) were frustrating because it seemed so obvious that things were seriously wrong, but no one was bothered by it. Even the girls pretended that things were fine while they internally crumbled and dealt with traumatic events that the others weren’t necessarily aware of.

The first half of this story was pretty slow for me with a lot of “I can’t believe you still don’t think this is bad!” from me directed at the characters. It wasn’t until people start sharing info that it really picked up and the ending was quite satisfying. The explanation for the mothers’ disappearance was frustrating and did not endear them to me, but it could have been worse.

I was also surprised by some of the content and had to take a few breaks from the text so here’s some content warnings: sexual assault—not graphic and a flashback/recounting but still disturbing, murder, blood, violence, violence against women, misogyny, sexism, kidnapping, non-consensual/manipulated-into-it sexual activity (still sexual assault, but a specific type), abandonment, loss of a loved one, police brutality, and probably more? This was a lot.

Where darkness Blooms was a very strange read in a good way. Totally different type of story seems like an old curse land story in a very modern time. I would’ve bought this based off the cover and the description

This was such a fascinating book. It's modern, but with a tinge of dystopia. But not in the "end of the world" way, but more isolated community.

I was worried that trying to keep track of so many characters would be difficult. Although the girls are all pretty similar and there isn't much to distinguish them, it wasn't that hard to keep track of who was who.

The beginning of the book was a lot stronger and more mysterious than the last 30% or so. There's something incredibly eerie about sentient flowers that kept me turning the pages, though. I was eager to learn the mystery behind the town of Bishop, why women disappeared / died so frequently and without much fanfare into their deaths, and what the four main characters of the book had to do with it all.

The book really reflected on the curse of being a woman, how important we are to sustaining life, and how necessary it is to fight against the patriarchy.

You definitely have to suspend your belief a little bit, as there is some sort of magical element to the town / people / sunflowers. While it isn't explained all that well, it is introduced in a way and at a point that, as a reader, you've already had a taste of supernatural elements, so it wasn't super jarring. I would have liked more explanation though, but I didn't feel lost without it.

Where Darkness Blooms is a supernatural thriller about an eerie town where the sunflowers whisper secrets and the land hungers for blood.
This is a book that I requested purely because I loved the eerie cover and who wouldn't want to read about killer plants and flowers?! Where Darkness Blooms reminded me so much of The Ruins and The Children of the corn with the isolated small town setting and killer flora that craves humans. WDB is atmospheric, horrifying and makes you think twice before approaching an unidentified flora. But its also emotionally refreshing with young female characters in survival mode! Only thing that would have been more advantageous for the readers was a character chart or some sort of list to keep up with all the characters in the story. Otherwise, a perfectly written creepy and suspenseful ya thriller. I will gladly read weakness to strengths story over rags to riches any day and I enjoyed listening to this well narrated page turner.

Thank you Wednesday books for the ebook!

I was totally drawn in by the delightfully spooky cover (I am here for the girl + plant + body horror cover vibes, okay?) but honestly if this had been a little less boy drama, a little more action/conspiracy/ride-or-die friendships - especially in the beginning - I would have liked it a lot more.

It took a long time to really take off, trying to establish all four of the girls’ characters and give us backstory. But honestly nothing particularly interesting happened until the 25% mark. The same can kind of be said for the end, with the climax hitting in the 85% range, leaving a huge chunk of book left to die a slow death…

I think the meat of the story was just spread too thin. Once each character hit their stride in the middle section of the book, once they were working together and when the real conspiracy started coming into play, it WORKED. But I think it would have benefited from having one or even two less POV characters.

Actually 3 1/2 stars.

Delilah, Whitney and Jude (twins), plus Bo, had their mothers disappear one stormy night. A year later, the town of Bishop holds a memorial for them. Had their mothers vanished like many women have in the past? Why does the wind get violent only here? What is up with those sunflowers that the girls think are watching them?

The book starts off slow and keeps that pace until close to the end. The creep factor begins to slip in, but the pacing could have been a little faster. It starts off with a man and his wife settling there; something in the earth makes a bargain with him so he kills his wife and founds a town. Then it goes to the present, where we meet Delilah, Bo, and the twins, Whitney and Jude, all living in the same house as their three mothers. But their mothers all vanished one night and all the girls wondered if they had died or just left them. This novel has both horror and romance (But does the guy care or just want a sacrifice?). The storyline is good, but the pacing could have been faster, instead, the reader gets a slow burn, making one anxious to get to the meat of the story.

Where Darkness Blooms is one of the best books I have read this year.
The town of Bishop is known for exactly three things: recurring windstorms, endless fields of sunflowers, and missing women. Two years ago, three more women disappeared and only the women’s daughters took it seriously. Even then some of them want to move on but the four girls all realize they can’t when the wind kicks up a terrible secret at their mothers’ much-delayed memorial. These girls each want real lives, but they have lost so much. But the town wants more—it wants their blood.
This book is dark. It deals with all the ways women can be hurt all the way from cheating boyfriends to rape. In fact, in Bishop women aren’t even humans, just mice you would feed to a snake. But you can’t turn away. Women will identify with at least one of the girls and the desire for that character’s survival is visceral. The book is written from each girl’s perspective allowing readers to see what is really in each one’s head and behavior.
Andrea Hannah writes the girls beautifully. They all have hopes and dreams but also their own secrets. Hannah unfolds those secrets slowly leaving each character section with a cliffhanger keeping you reading. While the secrets come slowly, the plot continues to move; important plot points happen in each chapter.
Hannah also blends the supernatural easily into the story. From the first moment of the prologue, it is easy to suspend disbelief. Never once does Hannah push things too far like some authors are want to do. Instead, the supernatural is both a dark part but also a beautiful part of the book.
YA can be dark and still be beautiful. And that is how I will see sunflowers from now on.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!

I am a sucker for covers with creepy plants. This book had me from the start. I love the atmospheric beginning with the history of the town. Who thought sunflowers could be so sinister! The girls felt extremely believable as characters, which I don't find to be the case with a lot of YA.

I was drawn to the cover of Where Darkness Blooms by Andrea Hannah and pulled in by the synopsis. Welcome to the town of Bishop known for endless fields of sunflowers, recurring wind storms and missing women. You’ll want to get cozy for this dark tale as sisters not of blood but shared loss fight for their lives and others.

The story opens with a prologue, and we learn how the town was founded. Fast forward and we are in the dilapidated farmhouse where Delilah, Jude, Whitney and Bo live. They’ve been alone since their mothers disappeared two years ago. Delilah is mourning not just the loss of her mother, but Eleanor, the girl that made her stomach flip-flop. Elenor dropped dead in her front yard, just another unexplained female death in this town’s history. Bo is angry, so furious. Jude likes to pretend all is well and Whitney is dating the boy Delilah shared an evening with… the very night their mothers went missing.

Strange, unexplained wind storms, voices carried on the wind, and sunflowers that are always watching, waiting, and listening.

When the town builds a memorial to the girls’ mothers, things come to a head. Eleanor is speaking to Delilah, Whitney is looking for answers, and Bo has found a knife. The tale that unfolds pulled me in as we received perspectives of the girls and the wind kicked up. This town holds a dark secret, one that affects the woman and it’s hungry. Starving.

I thought Hannah did a good job of laying down the history and building the suspense. I’ve always been creeped out by tall fields of vegetation thanks to King and Hill. The tale was dark and atmospheric, with supernatural elements. The ending left me satisfied, but I won’t be visiting any rural towns called Bishop.

Full of magic(al) stuff but set firmly in reality with some of the best characters I’ve read this year so far. The writing is hit or miss but that’s easy to overlook. It’s a pretty cool YA horror.

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and author Andrea Hannah for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.

What an eerie little fun mystery. The town's land craves blood and horror. The scenery was sinister and sucked me in. The characters were well-fleshed out and compelling.

i really enjoyed this!! i LOVE settings that are sentient in horror books, i think it just adds this really fun creepy factor. the sister and mother/daughter dynamics explored in this book were so well done and i really loved all 4 of our main characters: bo, delilah, jude, and whitney. i think they all brought something different to the story and they all felt like heros in their own way.

this is definitely a story that is enjoyable because of the journey our MCs go on and how they solve the mystery of the town and their mothers’ disappearances. you kind of already know or have a general idea of what’s going on so there’s no real plot twist or unexpected moments but i didn’t mind that at all! i still felt very engaged the entire time reading and i will definitely be checking out more from andrea hannah in the future!

🖤🌻A twisted story about a small town built on ground that holds pure evil. The only way the town can survive is if some of its inhabitants don’t. How far will these families go to ensure their success?

It’s a unique storyline. I have not read anything remotely close. I was pleasantly surprised by how novel the ideas were. Crops that must be given human blood to survive and grow? Sounds like a town I wouldn’t want to visit…and forget the sunflowers. You’ll never stop by the side of the road to take a picture in a sunflower field again. 🌻

A fun read that I’d recommend if you’re tired of reading the same predictable tropes over and over 🙃

The cover is also stunning

Bishop is a town haunted by sunflowers, windstorms, and missing/murdered women. The most recently missing women, a trio of best friends, left behind four daughters: Delilah, Whitney, Jude, and Bo. They are surviving the best they can, but they all want answers to two crucial questions: Where are their mothers, and why are so many women being killed? As they dig into Bishop’s history, they realize something isn’t right with the town. The closer they get to the truth about Bishop, the more danger they are in. What is Bishop’s secret? Why are women getting killed and going missing? Will the girls find out the truth, and at what cost?

I admit it; I mainly accepted the publisher’s invitation because of the cover. I usually don’t get books purely based on their covers, and this was a rare expectation to that rule. I am glad I did because this book was one of the creepier ones I have read this year. It was sufficiently scary and made me want to know why the author made sunflowers so evil.

Where Darkness Blooms storyline centers around the town of Bishop and four abandoned girls: Delilah, Whitney, Jude, and Bo. It explores the aftereffects of child abandonment and trauma gritty and raw way. But this book also showed that most people rise under extraordinary circumstances (in this case, the town and a madman out for their blood). I was equally saddened and amazed at what these girls could do while their mothers were gone.

The town of Bishop was creepy. It was blocked off from the rest of Kansas by unending fields of sunflowers. Those sunflowers always seemed to be watching the town. The fields were where the murdered women were found and where the girls’ had a memorial to their mothers. Bishop started getting weirder and weirder as the book went on. Even though it was fictional, the wind started driving me nuts. I couldn’t figure out how the wind and the sunflowers were connected until the end of the book. Everything (and I mean everything) was explained at the end of the book.

I liked Delilah. She came across as the group’s mother hen and was determined to look after the other girls. Her relationship with Bennett was different. I don’t know if I could stand to be with someone whose touch hurt me. But, somehow, she managed, even though she liked someone else. I felt terrible for her because while she missed her mother, she figured her mother had voluntarily left her. She was so sad, yet so strong.

Whitney was a huge factor in determining why their mothers left. But, when things started coming to light, Whitney was the one who did the leg work. She went and interviewed her ex-girlfriend’s grandmother in the nursing home. She was also the one that put two and two together about the town founder. All while fighting an attraction to a nurse’s aide who helped her and running from the bad guy.

Jude is Whitney’s fraternal twin. I didn’t have an opinion of her until her past with Bennett was discussed. Then I had an “oh crap” moment when I realized it was Delilah’s Bennett. I found Jude a little mopey and somewhat obsessive over Bennett. But she could do what she had to when push came to shove.

I wasn’t a fan of Bo. She was so angry and self-destructive for almost the entire book. It was hard to imagine her as happy in any form. I got at least some of her anger. I would have been pissed, too, if my mother had just disappeared. But, it was clear from the beginning that her anger was more than that. I would love to say she was helpful, but I felt she hindered more than helped. Her temper gets her into some trouble towards the end of the book.

I was shocked at who the villains turned out to be. Well, one of them, I was surprised at who it was. The other two, I had a feeling they were bad news. Coupled with what they could do with the wind, I wasn’t surprised that they played with the girls as long as they did. Of course, why they did it was also explained, and it made me so mad!!

The end of Where Darkness Blooms wasn’t what I expected. I can’t get much into it, but I wasn’t very excited when certain things happened. I was expecting one thing, and the complete opposite happened. But it was that last chapter that made the book for me. I was pleasantly surprised by what the author revealed and then by what the author had that character do.

I would recommend Where Darkness Blooms to anyone over 21. There are language, violence, and sexual situations. See also the trigger warning section at the top of the review.

Many thanks to St. Martin’s Press, Wednesday Books, NetGalley, and Andrea Hannah for allowing me to read and review Where Darkness Blooms. All opinions stated in this review are mine

This was such a pleasure to read. Very atmospheric, creepy and fiercely feminist, Where Darkness Blooms held me spellbound until the final page. Thank you to Wednesday Books and Netgalley for the chance to review this advance copy. Where Darkness Blooms is available for purchase everywhere you buy books now!