Where Darkness Blooms by Andrea Hannah

Abstract

Reviewed by: Where Darkness Blooms by Andrea Hannah Fiona Hartley-Kroeger Hannah, Andrea Where Darkness Blooms. Wednesday/St. Martin’s, 2023 [320p] Trade ed. ISBN 9781250842626 $18.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9781250842633 $10.99 Reviewed from digital galleys Ad Gr. 10-12 The women of Bishop, Kansas, have been disappearing ever since the town was founded, murdered by men of the founder’s family to satiate the cursed land. Why is the land cursed? Readers are better off not asking and simply following the alternating [End Page 189] narrators—Delilah, Bo, and twins Whitney and Jude—as the four girls navigate their interpersonal relationships, attempt to unravel the disappearance of their mothers, and confront the myriad ways they’re trapped in a dead-end town. Though a prologue knocks the suspense out of the bigger picture, smaller mysteries abound: Why did local heartthrob Bennett Harding suddenly dump Jude for Delilah, and why does his touch cause Delilah pain? What really happened to Whitney’s girlfriend Eleanor, found dead in her own front yard? What are whispers on the wind trying to tell the girls, and what secrets hide in the fields of sunflowers that surround the town? The gender politics are blunt, and well-intentioned attempts at gender inclusivity fall a little flat—some readers may find trans women being sacrificed alongside their cis sisters a pretty gruesome form of gender affirmation, even though there’s also a surviving older trans woman. However, the messy, imperfect characters, uniquely Midwestern creepiness, and scenes of cathartic violence as things escalate from bad to bloody will certainly find an audience. Throw this one on the “revenge girls” reading pile. Copyright © 2022 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois