This cover was the first thing that attracted me to this book. The story is just as creepy as the cover.

A land that craves blood, numerous missing women, unnatural weather events, and fields of endless sunflowers. This is the town of Bishop where the four MC live with their mothers, that is until their mothers vanish. Two years later the four young women are trying to survive. But the secrets the town holds won’t let them live in peace.

This book is a wonderful blend of horror and suspense. Even when you know who the bad guy is, you don’t know how it’s going to end.

Thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday books for providing me with an ebook ARC in exchange for my honest review. 4 stars!

I was sucked into this story from page one!
The mystery of the missing mothers, the bond of the four daughters, the sunflowers. Everything was so intriguing that I struggled to set this book down once I started.

The writing style is poetic in a haunting way. The way it illuminated the mystery and also the general creepiness of the town of Bishop was gorgeous.

I cannot find any flaws with this book. This is one that I will be eagerly waiting to add to my classroom shelves.

First I would like to thank the publisher for this ARC!! This book really interested me, not to mention the cover is stunning. While the book was a little slow to get started for me, once it did I was hooked! The atmosphere of the town in this book is amazing too, it’s a perfect read for the upcoming spooky season!

Thrilling read! I was able to connect with all of the characters and throughly enjoyed the story the author painted.

The cover and description are what drew me in! Have never read anything by this author, but am so glad I took a chance and requested this one!

Absolutely a fantastic book.

Highly, highly recommend.

If you love a touch of the paranormal and mystery you will love this one!

Thank, you thank you NetGalley, Wednesday Books, and the author for granting me an advance copy of this book in return for my honest opinion!

I was super glad to be approved to read this book as I could see what this book was about via a library webniar. Wow, can you imagine living in a town that is pretty much surrounded by sunflowers? Not only is it pretty it is kind of creepy. What makes it worse is when people start disappearing, and this town's wind rages. I know sounds weird right? Yet, it seems connected in more than one way, and it will be up to Deliah, Whitney, Jude, and Bo. All these young ladies have something in common their mothers are missing; they were there one day, and the next, they were gone. As they start digging for answers, they will find themselves in the middle of something that this town is hiding.
The author did a great job describing this town, and the characters, especially how they felt and dealt with things. The relationship that all the girls had with each other was done so that you could feel they cared for one another. It felt like a sisterly bond even when they were mad at each other for something. The magical factor that came into play was pretty cool. I have never read a story like this, so it was very refreshing to read something that was not predictable or had never been told. The ending I liked. I felt it sorta gave us closure to this town. This book is going into our school library as I am sure quite a few students will be enjoying this.

So great! So much more than I ever expected from this book. the writing was beautiful, the story/plot was so unique and cool, and I absolutely loved the characters. A pleasant surprise! Will for sure be recommending this one once it comes out.

2.5 stars.

The plot was so intriguing, creepy small town, eerie fields of sunflowers, and women that either keep going missing or dying. I felt this was such an intresting concept. There was no build up, you begin right at the action but its a very slow burn from there on out. It follows four girls whose mothers have all gone missing in the town of Bishop. I thought the main characters were fairly well developed overall, but at times they blended together and I had to back track to see whose POV I was reading. I enjoyed that this also included sapphic elements. The cover art beautiful and definitely one of my favourite book covers.,

Each chapter reads from the POV of one of the four girls. When finishing a chapter that I was engrossed in, I then had to read through the next couple chapters of the other girls POVs which made some of the tension I was originally feeling sizzled out. At times the same information overlapped from one chapter into the next, it felt a little repetitive to me.. one step forward but two steps back type of thing.

I wanted to know more about Bishop, this mysteriously cursed town that initially drew me into this book ultimately lacked in atmosphere and setting throughout, it felt very two dimensional. I needed more details on the towns curse, the wind, and the sunflowers to really bring through the horror aspect. I didn't love it and I didn't hate it. I am somewhere in the neutral in-between feeling unsatisfied and wishing that there was more to it (maybe partially from fault of my own, having my expectations set high going into reading this.)

Many thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and Andrea Hannah for sharing the digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my authentic review

This was mysterious, creepy... and fun. As someone from Kansas, honestly what hooked me the most was the line of sunflowers talking back. And boy, was I freaked the hell out. 10/10 would recommend this one, full of mystery and horror... this is not one to miss.

The beginning starts out a little slow as the author build the suspense and the setting of the story. However, right before halfway the boom finally picks up and things apart getting intense. The ending is amazing and the twists, turns, and ghosts really made this book worth finishing!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this amazing story! This is an incredible book with prose as luscious as they are dark! I loved the twists and turns, the atmosphere, the tension--what a read.

I see what this book tried to do. I really do, but it just didn't hit any spots for me.

Part of that is my own fault for the things I expected from this book and how they didn't line up with what WHERE DARKNESS BLOOMS actually is, but there are also just things about this book that fell flat in my opinion. Though I started with high hopes, the beginning already lost its grip on me. Still I pushed through in hopes of falling in love with the characters, the eeriness, anything, but nothing pulled me back in.

I don't think this book needed four POVs, especially not since none of their voices felt distinct to me. The only one who I could really always tell apart was Bo, who was definitely interesting but still didn't leave a mark on me. Except for that, the plot just seemed really messy to me, and, well, that eeriness I hoped for never really showed up.

There's not a lot I can say besides this to be honest, because nothing about this book really stood out to me. Not in the "this book is not unique enough" way, but as in... it didn't make me feel anything, which is an important factor of enjoyment for me while reading. So, unfortunately, WHERE DARKNESS BLOOMS didn't grip me like I wanted it to. I'm still very, very hopeful for the author's next book(s), but this one didn't do it for me.

Without giving away too much of the content, I enjoyed this story.
The initial premise is set up well, the intro gives us a glimpse into the small towns history and the root of what’s going on. Then it throws you into the modern day and leaves you with lots of questions about what’s happening, and what it has to do with the intro. The story was quite interesting but some of the characterization fell a little flat for me. Interestingly, our protagonist Delilah was the least interesting of our central group, in my opinion, and I was much more interested in what her group of friends were doing/thinking. I think it’s definitely worth a read even if I didn’t fall in love with it, there’s certain to be someone who will!

I know I am in the minority but I could not get into this story. It was too weird and I could not understand it. Parts dragged on, yet the action was good.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advance copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Thank you to St Martin's Press and Netgalley for a copy of this book!

This book is so deliciously creepy that I don't want to spoil it by saying too much! I was captivated from the first page and it just kept right on enthralling me.

The writing is incredibly lush and something you can really sink into.

The cover really makes it seem creepier than it actually is.

I feel like I can split this book into parts in the way in which I experienced it. Here's how it was: First 30% - a really slow start, between 30% and 60% - an intriguing story with easy-to-root-for characters,  between 60% and 90% - absolutely getting beaten over the head with the message and themes, the last 10% - a well developed ending.

Anyway. Apart from that, this is actually a pretty good book! The main 4 girls are well developed and distinct from one another. I think that fans of The Raven Cycle series will enjoy this -- the characters have a similar dynamic with each other. The concept of the story is quite interesting in of itself and there were some really twists of phrase used to created a particular image at times. I really enjoyed how characters' feelings were never stripped of complexity -- even if we only saw them experience something for the equivalent of a glance, the multi-layereness of their experiences was always there. Also, the sapphic elements were immaculate. 

The book lacks atmosphere. In a story such as this one, with a magical small town, it's quite crucial to create a really heavy sense of atmosphere, it is what makes these kinds of stories memorable. We never really see much of the town and the magic/horror element doesn't really land quite well because it's not really built up towards from the very beginning, if that makes sense.

Which leads us to my main gripe with this book: it lacks subtlety, in such a way that it makes me think that the author perhaps underestimated her target audience. Everything is very obvious, all the time and, like I said, at one point it feels like you're getting bludgeoned with the message. It was really quite frustrating. I hope you'll allow me one moment to express it: you DO know that young adults aren't idiots, right? You really don't have to painstakingly spell out what you mean to say. You can have subtle themes in YA novels, things don't have to be overexaggerated to the point of almost cartoonish-ness for teens to pick up on what you're saying.

Overall, a pretty good book except for the incredibly heavy handed messaging and lack of atmosphere.

I am extremely grateful for the chance to get early access to this book, however I stopped reading at chapter 6 (14%). I just felt like I couldn’t connect with the book, I’m sure others will love it and get into it better than me but for some reason I just couldn’t get into it.

I will always love and be drawn to books with complicated messy heroines, and the Midwest Gothic setting was a wonderful bonus. I didn't love it quite as much as I wanted to, mainly because I knew what was going on well before the characters did and it was difficult to sustain the narrative tension. Still, I think that was more of an individual issue and many readers who love a good speculative thriller will enjoy this!

I requested an arc of Where Darkness Blooms due to the GORGEOUS cover art which immediately reminded me of the beautiful and haunting cover art of Katrina Leno's HORRID. Pretty girls + flowers/plants covering their faces + horror is MY THING. I had never heard of Andrea Hannah before, but the cover, title, and description had me interested enough to give this book a chance. And I am so glad I did!!

This story is set in the small town of Bishop in central Kansas which is unfortunately cursed by misfortune after misfortune- for women, that is. They just keep disappearing. We follow 4 characters: Whitney, Delilah, Jude, and Bo who live with their mothers. Well, that is until their mothers disappear. Not great.

During a memorial that is held in order to honor their mothers (at the insistence.of Bo), things go sideways which unearths secrets, causing our 4 main characters to begin questioning everything they once thought they knew about themselves, each other and the town they live in.

I knew this was going to be a horror book, so I was not surprised by bad things happening, but what I loved was how unsettling it felt from the jump. It was a slow-creeping horror that had me feeling tense/anxious before anything scary actually even happened. I LOVE that.

This book is FULL of twists and turns. I was constantly wondering and trying to figure out what was going on with the town, the CREEPY flowers (I now have a new fear of Sunflowers, thanks to Andrea), the missing woman, the wind, etc. This book was impossible to put down. I NEEDED answers and needed to know who or what was behind it all. I do not want to spoil anything for anyone so I won't elaborate beyond that, but the ending was ultimately satisfying and was not what I suspected.

This book was exceptional. From the haunting book cover, to the intriguing title to the way it was written from 4 different POVs. I HIGHLY recommend this book to anyone who wants a creepy, haunting, dark and spooky story that is more than just horror. It's about friendship and loss, pain, and the author weaves all of these elements flawlessly.

4.75/5 stars.. Looking forward to more work from Miss Hannah. This lady knows how to write a gripping tale that won't let you go.

First of all, THAT COVER. Gorgeous. I kind of wish the rest of the book would have similarly blown me away.

I dug the concept for this book. I though the four girls were interesting and the writing was solid. Overall, as a psychological thriller, I thought this was a great story. I like the idea of a "town that time forgot" bordered by all these fields of flowers.

However, I just wasn't as jazzed by the supernatural elements.

Again conceptually, the idea of offering women to the land is interesting, but the execution seemed a little all over the place. Sunflowers and wind aren't terribly scary, but they're meant to be menacing here. And the idea of "blooms" is introduced pretty late in the book and didn't really track with what I'd read earlier. Some "ghosts" are dead people, some are alive. The evil men can brainwash people, but sometimes they can't/don't

I think with the domestic plot line and the histories, needs and desires of these four girls being given (somewhat) equal play within this story, there simply wasn't much room left to do all this supernatural stuff justice. And, ultimately that's the part that's being sold in the cover of this book.

Overall, I didn't dislike this story. (Maybe like a 3.5 for me). I just thought it didn't quite rise to the occasion in the way I would have like it to. Thanks to the author and NetGalley for granting me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Trigger warning for reference to rape. (Which come to think of it didn't exactly serve the story. Isn't cutting women's throats and feeding them to the land enough to make someone a bad guy? Did one of them randomly need to be a rapist too?)