Putting it simply, On Sundays She Picked Flowers by Yah Yah Scholfield consumed me from the very first page with a tale that is haunting, poetic, and deeply human–while also not. On Sundays She Picked Flowers is not just a beautifully written horror story, but also about transformation, survival, and reclaiming peace.
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.
At the core of On Sundays She Picked Flowers is a story about a woman escaping the world to find safety in solitude, only to discover that with peace sometimes comes with its own shadows. Scholfied crafts a truly gripping tale balancing the serenity of the countryside with an undercurrent of unease, creating a sort of Cottagecore horror that’s is both emotional with also atmospheric. What we get is something almost dreamlike, a story that feels part classic fairytale and part fever dream come to life.
When reading I felt a raw honesty in Scholfield’s writing. Each line felt intentional, as if it had a pulse, almost alive, while also including so much heat and representation. Scholfied seems to bring her own life experience, as a Black, autistic, queer creative, to the book, taking a supernatural horror and grounding it in truth. On Sundays She Picked Flowers not only terrified me at times, but felt truly authentic, as it was more of a conversation with the reader than a performance.
While there are moments of horror and unsettling terror, the author crafts a tale featuring trauma, identity, and heating without ever flinching or sugarcoating. You grow alongside Jude, feeling each pain and suffering moment. Feeling almost fully immersed in the story at hand, extremely hard to put down.
On Sundays She Picked Flowers by Yah Yah Scholfied is not a light read, packed with horrors (both real life and fictional), but ultimately hopeful. There are few books that linger with me long after reading, but this is one of those novels. A story about pain, but also about reclaiming joy and finding something beautiful in the aftermath. On Sundays She Picked Flowers is one of the best horror novels I have read in recent times and is highly recommended.
On Sundays She Picked Flowers hits bookstores everywhere on January 27, 2026 from Saga Press. The audiobook is available for preorder via Libro.fm!
