Maine, 1780: These are the darkest days of the Revolution...

George knows little of science and would rather shirk his chores and dodge British occupiers in town than study it. When ominous phenomena overtake his little community, though, he finds himself in up to his neck in both deadly intrigues and an expedition of discovery.

Historical Context

Set in the District of Maine, then part of Massachusetts, during the American Revolution, The Darkness depicts a remote coastal region where British naval power, contested loyalties, and limited communication complicated daily life. British forces occupied Castine on Penobscot Bay in 1779, and the disastrous American Penobscot Expedition demonstrated the vulnerability of communities far from the Revolution's better-known battlefields. The eighteenth century was also an era of rapidly developing scientific inquiry, when unusual natural phenomena could provoke both careful investigation and widespread alarm. In isolated settlements, the boundaries between scientific explanation, superstition, and political suspicion were not always easily drawn.