Praise for From These Dark Abodes

Manusos’s poetic and emotional writing brings poignancy to this story of people who have lost everything, including the knowledge of what they lost. The result is twisty, complex, and rewarding speculative fiction.

Publishers Weekly Review

FROM THESE DARK ABODES is an intricately crafted labyrinth with hidden spaces in between that weaves together decadent body horror, complex relationships—intimate like hugging bones, exposed like peeled back skin—told through prose with an intoxicating atmospheric pull, crawling with sensory details.

Ai Jiang, Hugo, Nebula, Bram Stoker Award nominated author of LINGHUN and I AM AI

FROM THESE DARK ABODES clawed my heart open and brought the sinew and sharp needle to sew it closed again. From Lethe’s fathomless longing to Petunia’s claustrophobic, crushed-down postpartum existence, this novella felt terribly human–filled with all the ways we hurt and help each other.

Aimee Ogden, author of Nebula Award Finalist SUN-DAUGHTERS, SEA-DAUGHTERS

Both mysterious and intimate, From These Dark Abodes will enthrall you and make you fall in love with all the charming imperfections of humanity.

Eugenia Triantafyllou, author of Six Versions of My Brother Found Under the Bridge

From These Dark Abodes is a wonderfully dark page-turner overflowing with fairytale-like dread. Much like the revelers of St. Edah’s who strip themselves of flesh to unsheathe their gilded bones, this novella continually changes shape until it reveals its vulnerable center in its final pages. A tender triumph about grief, memory, and elusive self-acceptance, as well as a masterful myth-mystery you’ll want to reread once you reach the end.

Thomas Ha, Nebula, Locus, and Shirley Jackson-Nominated Author

“Dreamy and evocative, From These Dark Abodes is a novella suffused with longing that explores the meaning of life through the specter of death.”

A.C. Wise, author of The Ghost Sequences

For all its grandeur and size, St Edah’s is a stifling, claustrophobic prison for servants Petunia and Lethe. Horrified by the nightly skeletal revelries they’re forced to serve, the women seek escape and glimpses of their old memories, and instead stumble on the darkest secrets of the house. Manusos’ talent for building an atmospheric world around the reader—trapping them brick by brick like an authorial Cask of Amontillado—is on full display here. From These Dark Abodes blends gothic mystery with bloody body horror in unexpected ways; fans of Shirley Jackson and Silvia Moreno-Garcia will feast gluttonously here.

Lindz McLeod, author of Turducken and Sunbathers

Part harrowing journey to the underworld, part poignant queer love story, Lyndsie Manusos’s From These Dark Abodes is an entirely thrilling reading experience. At times tender and terrifying, Manusos’s prose is a revelry of gorgeous, gripping language. This novella will heal and haunt you with a tale that not even the waters of Lethe could make you forget.

Emma Bolden, author of The Tiger and the Cage