Listen to the introduction

Sally Ann is a bright and bubbling farm girl, still caught in the thrill of a brand-new husband and a shining future ahead. When a careless exploration leaves her trapped underground, she learns to live again in the absence of everything she once knew. Even driven by love and light, Sally Ann finds the deepest darkness within herself in When Darkness Loves Us.

Old Martha Mannes has been a part of Morgan, Illinois since her birth. The whole town knows her as the dim-witted woman who was born without a nose, but Martha’s mind wasn’t always a blank slate. Unlocking the monster buried deep in her memories may bring back the sparkling child she once was…or it may send those around her crashing down into the nightmares of a little girl gone wrong.

A reprinting of Elizabeth Engstrom’s first book, this two-novella collection twists together the beauty and horror underlying the seeming simplicity of small town life.

Reviews:

• “Finding the light when swamped in darkness is never an easy thing. When Darkness Loves Us is a collection of two novellas from Elizabeth Engstrom. One story follows a young farm girl as she is engulfed by an underworld and yearns to escape, and an old woman who is facing the monsters of her past. Two engaging stories make When Darkness Loves Us quite a pick.”
  —Midwest Book Review
• "A masterpiece, and one of the finest tragedies I've read in years."
  —Horror Show

Blurbs:

• "Fresh, inventive, stylish and captivating, the work of a writer of unusual promise."
  —Dean Koontz
• "Behind that soft-voiced style is power, is surprise, is... ferocity."
  —Theodore Sturgeon

Book Details:
Trade Paperback
ISBN 978-0982159668
218 Pages

About the Author:

Elizabeth Engstrom is a speculative fiction author who was nominated in 1992 Bram Stoker Award for Best Fiction Collection for her book Nightmare Flower. Her anthology Dead on Demand: The Best of Ghost Story Weekend spent six months on the Library Journal "Best Seller List." Her short story, "Crosley", was picked to be included in The Thirteenth Annual Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, edited by Ellen Datlow. Her work has been published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Horror Show, American Fantasy Magazine, and Cemetery Dance. Visit her on the web at http://www.elizabethengstrom.com/.