Where Darkness Blooms

This seething, surreal horror novel follows four teenage girls—Bo, Delilah, Jude, and Whitney—who struggle to navigate the supernatural events that befall their small Kansas town. Two years after their mothers all disappeared under mysterious circumstances, forcing the four girls to move together into a house at the edge of town, hot-tempered Bo demands that the girls finally host a memorial in their mothers’ memories. When a brutal windstorm strikes during the memorial, the resultant disaster uncovers questions regarding their town’s long history of missing women, and the circumstances behind their disappearances. Bo’s frantic search for answers, Delilah’s attempts to hold everything and everyone together, and sisters Whitney and Jude’s individual romantic struggles add further complications to their slowly imploding lives. The girls’ pursuit of the truth forces them to confront past traumas and reckon with secrets they’ve been keeping from one another. Occasional dips into stock high school relational angst sometimes slow momentum, but the roiling, ever-present tension underneath it all invests readers in the group’s plight. Sharp and rich prose by Hannah (Of Scars and Stardust) blends Faulknerian descriptions with visceral bluntness that artfully marries itself to the story’s eerie atmosphere. Ages 12–up. Agent: Victoria Marini, Irene Goodman Literary. (Feb.)