I have a love hate this with this story. On one hand it was immersive and eerily beautiful and it held my interest. On the other hand, this mystery was lacking and our characters weren't my favorites. I'm a bit unsure of how I feel about the ghost chapters. They felt necessary but also unnecessary? Overall I would give this 3.5-3.7 stars.

I received an ARC for this book from NetGalley and the publisher for an honest review.

I LOVED this book. It in a way brought me out of a book slump I’ve been in and got me excited about reading again. In fairness, I don’t read a lot of thrillers so everything felt new and fresh to me.

I really enjoyed each of the characters, especially the genealogical librarian and her story. The author was able to write each character in a way that they felt trustworthy and relatable yet unique.

There were 3 POVs in this story and I liked them all equally. Multiple POVs can sometimes cause me to like one characters storyline over another and then I don’t enjoying reading their stories as much but The Night Flowers kept each storyline fast paced, relevant and as “fun” as you can get while solving a cold case murder.

This book kept me on my toes and wanting to know more. Ready the trigger warnings on this book before reading!

5⭐️

3.5 stars.

Definitely enjoyed the murder mystery aspect of the book. It was confusing with all the geneology and names, but would definitely still recommend it to a friend.

When a couple on a hike inadvertently discover several barrels full of human remains (a woman and two children) in the Gila desert, it kicks off a mystery that will stretch on for the next thirty years. Laura, a librarian just finishing up treatment for breast cancer, dives into a trail of research that leads her closer to the truth, eventually taking her to the Gila desert. She teams up with the somewhat reluctant detective Jean, who is reassessing her own life and work now that she is at retirement age. The mystery is told from the POVs of Laura, Jean and the ghost of the dead woman, who is sorting through her own murky memories of what led to her body in a barrel. The ghost POV is a fascinating addition to this murder mystery. Her portion of this story is part dreamlike discovery of the ghost world while parenting two little girls through the afterlife, and part sorting through her own trauma. The ghosts are also able to influence the physical world, and this one finds small ways to nudge the women towards the truth (for example, causing flowers to bloom at night at the site where the bodies were found). This story is also an exploration of womanhood through this young, dead woman and her children, Laura, who may have beat cancer but who can no longer rely on her body to function dependably in the aftermath of chemo, and Jean who is about to be a grandmother but does not want to give up her work solving cold cases. This is a fresh, new literary thriller and I'm excited to read what the author comes up with next!

Definitely took me some time to get into this one, but the realistic characters created pulled me in and I found this book to be quite hauntingly and sadly beautiful in its own way.

It ended on a bit of a cliffhanger so I could see there being a second book in this series, but it combined a number of elements I loved. Cold cases, believable characters and ghosts in a story I am really glad I chose because of the cover.

4 1/2