The Northwoods Chronicles: A Novel in Stories

by Elizabeth Engstrom, Alan M Clark (Illustrator)

Overview

A novel of short stories which reveal the residents of a small northern Midwestern town where unusual events are the norm.

Publisher's Weekly Starred Review:

"Dark fantasy writer Engstrom (Black Leather) starts on familiar ground, but rapidly turns this 'novel in stories' into a genre-blending exploration of love, aging, grief and sacrifice. Fast-paced, melancholy and beautiful, the overarching narrative binds a collection of good stories into a superb if unconventional novel."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780999665602
Publisher:	IFD Publishing
Publication date:	11/27/2017
Pages:	254
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.58(d)

About the Author

Elizabeth Engstrom grew up in Park Ridge, Illinois and Kaysville, Utah. After a successful career as the owner of an advertising agency, she sold her business and used the seed money to finance her first novel, When Darkness Loves Us. She went on to write fifteen additional books and taught fiction in Oregon colleges and at writers' conferences and conventions around the world.

Editorial Reviews

“Dark fantasy writer Engstrom (Black Leather) starts on familiar ground, but rapidly turns this “novel in stories” into a genre-blending exploration of love, aging, grief and sacrifice. In Vargas County, children under 12 occasionally vanish, but the locals have long viewed this as a tithe taken by the town in exchange for the happiness of the other residents. Fast-paced, melancholy and beautiful, the overarching narrative binds a collection of good stories into a superb if unconventional novel.

—Publishers Weekly STARRED review

Engstrom, a skilled horror fiction stylist whose novels include the biographical Lizzie Borden (1991), here gives us a deliciously creepy collection of interrelated stories. White Pines Junction is a quaint, sparsely populated tourist town that, along with its many outdoors-oriented charms, harbors some very dark secrets. Aside from a little-publicized history of hometown thugs and serial killers, the town trades deaths with its garbage dump on a one-for-one citizen-rat basis and hosts a motel whose residents’ nighttime reveries become frighteningly true. Perhaps most disturbing of all, the town is tormented by an epidemic of mysteriously disappearing children. Engstrom’s chilling scenarios will haunt readers’ dreams for days.

—Booklist Review

From the Publisher

Dark fantasy writer Engstrom (Black Leather) starts on familiar ground, but rapidly turns this "novel in stories" into a genre-blending exploration of love, aging, grief and sacrifice. In Vargas County, children under 12 occasionally vanish, but the locals have long viewed this as a tithe taken by the town in exchange for the happiness of the other residents. This theme is explored directly in stories like "House Odds," in which real estate agent Julia has to decide if her grandchildren would be in greater danger in town or away with their drunken father. Other tales merely use the disappearances as a backdrop, such as "Skytouch Fever," in which aging Sadie Katherine is forced to choose between her steadfast beau and a rakish visitor, and the wittily ironic thriller "One Quiet Evening in the Wax Museum." Fast-paced, melancholy and beautiful, the overarching narrative binds a collection of good stories into a superb if unconventional novel. (Aug.)

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