Almost Dark - Softcover

Praise for Letitia Trent: "Think the secret lovechild of Flannery O'Connor and James Dickey." --Dino Parenti, Pantheon Magazine ." . . there are novels that possess an atmosphere so strong, so inescapable that it turns the narrative into an unbelievably engrossing reading experience. More than atmospheric, these rare novels deserve to be called something far more powerful: mesmerizing. Letitia Trent's Echo Lake belongs to this select group, and it doesn't stop there." --Gabino Iglesias, Heavy Feather Review "Trent's years as a poet serve her well in this heavily atmospheric novel, which deftly conjures up both evil and the small town's complicit reluctance to face its past." --Kirkus Reviews "In Echo Lake, Letitia Trent, with deceptively simple, beautiful language, creates a small American town slowly self destructing under the weight of its secrets. Trent illuminates the mystery of family and community, the pain of loss, all the while spinning a tale of murder and suspense. It's at turns a lovely and bone chilling read." --Paula Bomer, author of Inside Madeleine "In Echo Lake, Trent's small town characters guard their secrets, and warn their children away from the mist-covered lake. Dark, ominous, and lyrical, Echo Lake is a beautiful exploration of loss, and the menace of deceptive surfaces." --Karen Brown, author of The Longings of Wayward Girls "Trent's debut novel combines a ripping good scare with prose as rich as dark verse. Her characters wear the imprint of the past like livid bruises, the bravest among them untangling their distorted histories to discover truths about the nature of community, family and self." --Sophie Littlefield, author of House of Glass

Claire, a private and outwardly content librarian, carries a secret: she is wracked with guilt over her twin brother Sam's accidental death fifteen years earlier. Claire's quiet life is threatened when Justin, an aggressive business developer, announces the renovation of Farmington's oldest textile factory, which is the scene of Sam's death along with many other mysterious accidents throughout its long history. Claire not only feels a personal connection to the factory, but she also begins to receive "visitations" from her brother, which cause her to question her sanity. As Justin moves forward with his plans to renew the factory, Claire, and the town as a whole, discover that in Farmington, there is no clear line between the past and the present. Letitia Trent grew up in Vermont and Oklahoma, and studied at Ohio State University. Her first novel, Echo Lake, is available from Dark House Press/Curbside Splendor. Trent's work has appeared in the Denver Quarterly, the Black Warrior Review, Fence, diode, Sou'Wester, Folio, the Journal, Mipoesias, Ootoliths, Blazevox, and many others. Her first full-length poetry collection, One Perfect Bird, is available from Sundress Publications. Her chapbooks include You aren't in this movie (dancing girl press), Splice (Blue Hour Press) and The Medical Diaries (Scantily Clad Press). She was the 2010 winner of the Alumni Flash Writing Award from the Ohio State University's the Journal and has been awarded fellowships from The Vermont Studio Center and the MacDowell Colony. Her chapbook, The Women In Charge, will be out from dancing girl press in 2015. Trent lives in Colorado with her husband, son, and three cats.