On Sundays She Picked Flowers by Yah-Yah Scholfield

TL;DR: Fantastic exploration of breaking generational trauma.
Source: NetGalley, thank you so much to the publisher!

Plot: Judith has to flee and come to grips with her own life and her history.
Characters: Flawed and fantastic, I enjoyed everyone here.
Setting: This was dark, gothic, moving, and horrifying in equal measure.
Horror: The body and gore here was surprising. There is also a creeping insidious feel to this that gets under your skin at times.

Summary:

When Judith Rice fled her childhood home, she thought she’d severed her abusive mother’s hold on her. She didn’t have a plan or destination, just a desperate need to escape. Drawn to the forests of southern Georgia, Jude finds shelter in a house as haunted by its violent history as she is by her own.

Jude embraces the eccentricities of the dilapidated house, soothing its ghosts and haints, honoring its blood-soaked land. And over the next thirteen years, Jude blossoms from her bitter beginnings into a wisewoman, a healer.

But her hard-won peace is threatened when an enigmatic woman shows up on her doorstep. The woman is beautiful but unsettling, captivating but uncanny. Ensnared by her desire for this stranger, Jude is caught off guard by brutal urges suddenly simmering beneath her skin. As the woman stirs up memories of her escape years ago, Jude must confront the calls of violence rooted in her bloodline.

Thoughts:

I’ll be the first to admit perhaps my illness at the time of reading this, coupled with my own personal issues might have changed my thoughts but wow. This was amazing. Judith, within the first few pages of this novel takes some drastic measures to flee the home of her abuser (her mother) and we follow her grapple with that and find her own way in life after.

I cannot recommend this in good conscious for anyone that dislikes violence, and very graphic gore, or any kind of parental abuse depicted in books. That having been said – this is 100% a book I think people should read. The way we see how trauma shapes and changes people, how it becomes generational, and how we grapple with it to break it is lovely. There is darkness here, but even in so much darkness there is light hand hope even if it’s hidden.

I loved this and couldn’t stop reading and I can’t recommend it enough for those that can read it. One of my favorite reads so far this season.