A searing Southern Gothic saga unfolds in the Texas Hill Country, where history's silenced voices rise amidst an astonishing tale.
On the eve of the Civil War, Polish immigrants Marcin and Agnieszka Anderwald arrive in Bandera, Texas, seeking a fresh start in a new land of faith, fertile soil, and freedom. But their dreams quickly become nightmares when Marcin provokes a sinister specter hell-bent on revenge. A battle ensues for the hearts, minds, and souls of the Anderwalds and their extended family of immigrant outcasts, Arab camel wranglers, wounded warriors, and a songstress on the verge of madness. As the generations unfold, each faces its own harrowing ordeal against unrelenting evil. Will the Anderwalds break free or remain forever wretched and undone?
Heralded as "a genre-bending thrill ride through Old Texas," with "characters so well-crafted they crawl off the page," The Wretched and Undone was named a Killer Nashville Top Pick for 2024 and a Claymore Award Finalist for Best Southern Gothic.
Autorentext
J. E. Weiner is a writer and novelist based in Northern California. Her debut novel, The Wretched and Undone, a searing Southern Gothic tale set in the Texas Hill Country and inspired by real people and actual events, was released by History Through Fiction on March 18, 2025. The book was named a Killer Nashville Top Pick for 2024, a 2024 Claymore Award Finalist for Best Southern Gothic, and a semifinalist for the 2025 Laramie Book Awards, recognizing emerging talent in Western, First Nations, and Americana Fiction. Weiner's creative nonfiction has appeared in the literary journals Madcap Review, Five Minutes, HerStry, and Chicago Story Press, as well as the recent grit lit anthology Red-Headed Writing (Cowboy Jamboree Press, 2024), and her work was recently shortlisted for The Letter Review Prize for Essays & Nonfiction. Weiner is a founding member of the Pacific Coast Writers Collective, and while living and writing in blissful exile on the West Coast, her heart remains bound to her childhood home, the Great State of Texas.