In this sequel to Curing Time, Thomas has returned to look for the daffodils that used to bloom in Walt and Daisy's yard every spring, as they sat underneath the big oak trees sipping cold water just drawn from the well.

The day of Thomas' return was a blustery April day in 1990. T.S. Eliot's tortured, cruelest month—the one that could not make up its mind, offering the hopes of gentle days, yet delivering mostly broken promises.

PRAISE FOR WHERE THE FLOWERS BLOOMED

“. . . a page-turning sequel to Curing Time, his breakout novel, and picks up the story of Hume Rankin and his family in North Carolina, particularly the idealistic Thomas, in this titillating tale of southern mystery, murder, and manners, proving there is always a cost to going home. Swink firmly lodges himself in the tradition of southern fiction, where nothing is simple, the land is dusty and mud-caked, and issues of race have been and continue to be ever-present, but this tale is also about how family is what matters most, though sometimes even this may make you pay the highest price.”—Steve Cushman, author of Portisville and How Birds Fly

“In this suspenseful outcry for racial justice, Tim Swink brings shamanism to bear on the old Southern plague of the sins of the fathers staining the generations. Where the Flowers Bloomed offers an ambitious take on the genealogical novel and challenges Thomas Wolfe’s declaration that you can’t go home again. Swink’s cross-cutting technique achieves cinematic impact, as bigotry and bloodletting succumb to reconciliation.”—Michael Gaspeny, author of A Postcard from the Delta and The Tyranny of Questions

Tim Swink

Books