Where Darkness Blooms

Where Darkness Blooms by Andrea Hannah was a story of vengeance and feminine rage. Following a story of the town of Bishop and the daughters of three missing women, Hannah crafted something feral and beautiful.

All quotes are from an advanced reader copy, and may or may not reflect the published edition.

From Goodreads:
Andrea Hannah’s Where Darkness Blooms is a supernatural thriller about an eerie town where the sunflowers whisper secrets and the land hungers for blood.

The town of Bishop is known for exactly two things: recurring windstorms and an endless field of sunflowers that stretches farther than the eye can see. And women—missing women. So when three more women disappear one stormy night, no one in Bishop is surprised. The case is closed and their daughters are left in their dusty shared house with the shattered pieces of their lives. Until the wind kicks up a terrible secret at their mothers’ much-delayed memorial.

With secrets come the lies each of the girls is forced to confront. After caring for the other girls, Delilah would like to move on with her boyfriend, Bennett, but she can’t bear his touch. Whitney has already lost both her mother and her girlfriend, Eleanor, and now her only solace is an old weathervane that seems to whisper to her. Jude, Whitney’s twin sister, would rather ignore it all, but the wind kicks up her secret too: the summer fling she had with Delilah’s boyfriend. And more than anything, Bo wants answers and she wants them now. Something happened to their mothers and the townsfolk know what it was. She’s sure of it.

Bishop has always been a strange town. But what the girls don’t know is that Bishop was founded on blood—and now it craves theirs.

AS CAWPILE:
Characters: 10 | Atmosphere: 10 | Writing: 10 | Plot: 7 | Intrigue: 9 | Logic: 6 | Enjoyment: 9
Total: 8.71 / 4 Stars

The land whispered, More.
“I will get you more,” The man replied. Then he began to build.

I want to preface this review with a huge thanks to the author for including trigger warnings at the beginning of the book. It was done well, without spoiling anything, and made sure I was in the correct headspace before continuing. So seriously, thank you.

Bo had forgotten how to cry, but she still knew how to bleed.

This book was written in the kind of prose that makes you want to highlight every other sentence. It was truly beautiful and emotion-evoking in a way I haven’t felt with a book in a really long time. The characters felt raw and real, and their struggles were truly tangible despite the curse/haunting going on. The ending had me in tears with the different layers of forgiveness and lack thereof, especially because most books swing heavily one way or the other on that topic. The feral and soft spectrum of each of the girls was beautifully written, and I had a really great time reading this one.

Something wasn’t right in Bishop.
And she was going to find out what it was.

It had me on the edge of my seat and pleased with the ending. There were times the logic was a little hard to follow, the plot stuttering around a bit, but the characters and prose made up for it.

Delilah had always thought that secrets were evil little things, capable of bringing down an entire empire, or even a rickety home at the end of Old Fairview Lane. Until she decided to keep one of her own.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
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