Table of Contents
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Long Dark House, the horror and science fiction bookshop that has spent the year building an audience through pop-ups around the region, will open at 1510 King St. on Tuesday, Sept. 1.
The opening comes with events on either side of it. A ticketed preview night runs from 5 to 8 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 30, giving the first visitors a look at the store before it opens to the public. A grand opening celebration follows Saturday, Sept. 5, running late morning to 8 p.m.
"This store has been a dream for a long time," the store wrote in announcing the dates, "and we cannot wait to finally welcome you through our doors and celebrate with the community that helped bring Long Dark House to life."
Preview night, Aug. 30
The Sunday preview offers early access to the shelves, light bites and refreshments, and a raffle ticket on arrival. Prizes include a one-year membership in what the store calls the Long Dark Society. Visitors can come and go through the evening. Tickets are sold through Eventbrite.
The evening also introduces Madame Coco Emporium, which shares the King Street space and carries artisan chocolates, gifts, candles, tea and fragrance.
Grand opening, Sept. 5
There is no formal program for the Saturday celebration, and the store is telling people to come and go as they please.
Author Lisa Jones Gentry will sign copies of "A Dead Man Speaks," a Clive January mystery. Signed copies can be preordered through the store's website under local authors.
Whisked Away Cafe will run a pop-up with a themed matcha menu built for the celebration. The store is also promising raffles and prizes, music through the day, and chocolates, gifts and curiosities from Madame Coco.
The store
Long Dark House is a Black-owned shop founded by Chanthal, who describes herself as a lifelong reader who found horror and science fiction early — haunted houses and ghost stories on one side, imagined futures and speculative worlds on the other.
The name comes from the idea of the liminal. The store describes it as the threshold between certainty and possibility, "where stories take shape, transformation becomes possible, and the ordinary gives way to wonder."
The shop is built around horror and science fiction, with local, independent and emerging authors, literary gifts, artisan goods from regional makers, and fragrance. Chanthal has described it as a third space for the city — somewhere to browse, attend events, join a book club and stay a while.
Planned programming includes a Coastal Horror Book Club, a Black Horror Book Club, a Final Girl Book Club, a Strange Futures Book Club, a Silent Reading Society and a Teen Horror Society, along with author readings, writing workshops, tabletop gaming and Dungeons & Dragons nights.
Before opening, the store built its following through events across the region, including a witchy summer soiree with Hemlock & Hearth at Hummingbird Bar & Kitchen in July and Patricia's Sunset Cocktails, an evening of themed drinks, tarot readings and coastal horror inspired by a fictional town called Widow's Bay.
Long Dark House joins Friends to Lovers, the Washington area's first romance-only bookstore at 301 Cameron St., as part of a growing wave of genre-focused independent bookstores in Alexandria.
More information is at longdarkhouse.com or on Instagram at @longdarkhouse.
Related stories
Ryan Belmore
