Review--Bloom by Delilah S. Dawson

 

Rosemary meets Ash at the farmers’ market. Ash — precise, pretty, and practically perfect — sells bars of soap in delicate pastel colors, sprinkle-spackled cupcakes stacked on scalloped stands, beeswax candles, jelly jars of honey, and glossy green plants.

Ro has never felt this way about another woman; with Ash, she wants to be her and have her in equal measure. But as her obsession with Ash consumes her, she may find she’s not the one doing the devouring…

I'm kind of going backwards with Delilah S. Dawson's shorter horror novels, but since they are all standalones, it does not matter! Lol. I picked up Bloom while I try to time my reading a book before an event just right and I guess we will see how that turns out later! This was yet another story that slowly builds up the unyielding terror while tantalizing you with little hints and warnings along the way!

Rosemary was just living her life anew after several breakups. She found out her boyfriend was cheating on her, so she left him and then in a roundabout way she became more distant from her overbearing mother because of that as well. She was just living life and trying to get by when she meets Ash at a farmer's market. For some inexplicable reason, Ro finds herself drawn to Ash in a way that she's never felt before. 

In some part this book was about Ro exploring her own identity and self-discovery. The greater part of it turned into a love story of Ro and Ash slowly falling in love with one another and learning to let another person into their life. Both women were very independent and used to doing things their own way, so there were some hiccups in their relationship. Some of these hiccups were what caused this reader to raise her eyebrows because things just seemed a bit off.

There were some subtle clues as to what was happening, but naturally, Ro isn't really aware of any of this. I do have to say that the first 175 pages pretty much read like a contemporary novel with a few odd things happening here and there. So needless to say, I was a wee bit bored. But again, this is a me issue. The story just had too much ordinariness going on coupled with romance.

Honestly, it was until the last 25 pages or so that things finally got interesting--for me. That is when the true horrors started coming to light and I have to say those were some exciting pages and left you with an earth-shattering ending! I kept debating how I thought things would end and I was nowhere near close to this guess!

So all in all, not my favorite horror read from Dawson, but Bloom was still intriguing and creepy enough! I had fun speculating what I thought was happening during the random moments of weirdness, but there was just too much "ordinary" moments for me to fully enjoy this one.

Overall Rating 3/5 stars