Taking place during the mid-1930s, when the devastating Dust Bowl hit the midsection of the United States, “What Blooms from Dust” tells the story of the Goodbye family of Nowhere, Okla.
After a tornado hits the prison where Jeremiah Goodbye, the notorious Coin-Flip Killer, is in the process of being electrocuted, he is able to survive the brief electrocution and escape. Along the way to finding himself back in Nowhere, he rescues a young boy, Peter Cotton, who is being sold by his mother. Peter is a strange boy who doesn’t speak much for himself, but mimics everything others say — and oddly enough totes around a typewriter.
Set on killing his twin brother Josiah, who had turned him into the police for burying four dead bodies, Jeremiah returns to Nowhere with Peter in tow.
After being hit repeatedly with one dust storm after another, a massive storm — referred to as Black Sunday — hits, covering the town with much more than just dust. As the town’s residents begin to act strangely — speaking with no filter and then becoming slow, lethargic and numb — Jeremiah and Peter must figure out how to bring the town’s people back from a supernatural haze that could lead to death.
As always, Markert does an amazing job digging into and revealing the realness to an historical time period. Readers will feel the panic and heaviness of the dust storms, the dryness from the lack of rain, and the hopelessness and despair from the lack of an end to the storms in sight.
“What Blooms from Dust,” besides being a great historical novel with a supernatural twist, is on the most basic level a story of kindness and what can grow from kindness. As mysterious events begin to occur in Nowhere, we see what the power of kindness can lead to — and the change it can bring about. This story also deals with the concept of healing through truth, forgiveness and reconciliation, and the importance and impact of our deeds and actions.
This story is also a bit of a suspense as we weave through the plot to determine what is causing the mysterious events to occur. Markert is expert at dropping just enough hints that there’s more than meets the eye, and keeps the reader guessing the truth behind the mystery.
Fans of authors like Billy Coffey and Shawn Smucker, or those desiring a clean version of authors like Stephen King, will enjoy this novel.
Five stars out of five.
Thomas Nelson provided this complimentary copy for my honest, unbiased review.