A Coven in Essex County | Prologue

J.M. Yales is a queer identifying female writer currently living in Chicago, IL, but originally from Milwaukee, WI. Her start in feminist commentary came from personal blogging, but was expanded by FemPop Magazine between 2012 and 2014. Her writing and research interests include the representation of minority populations in Science Fiction genres and the Arts.

Yales refers to A Coven in Essex County as “Horror Fantasy,” and “Historical Feminist Science Fiction,” describing it as “a feminist revision of Lovecraftian horror that explores the personal pain and experiences of women in the fictional town of Innsmouth, Massachusetts.” Thirteen women in shadowy Innsmouth, brides of arranged marriages to the inhuman denizens of the neighboring reef, are bound by the will of their male relatives, until they pursue revenge. In 1926, 60 years after the first girl was married to keep a tense peace between those living on land and in the bay, her grandniece is forced…