Coming on March 18, 2025
Cover Reveal Coming Soon!
The Wretched and Undone
A sweeping Southern Gothic saga unfolds in the Texas Hill Country, where history’s silenced voices rise amidst an astonishing tale that defies expectations.
By J. E. Weiner
A sinister specter is hell-bent on revenge, and an ethereal woman in white is desperate to repel the menacing force. A battle rages 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. A sweeping Southern Gothic saga unfolds in the Texas Hill Country, where history’s silenced voices rise amidst an astonishing tale that defies expectations.
On the eve of the Civil War, Polish immigrants Marcin and Agnieszka Anderwald arrive in Bandera, Texas, seeking a new beginning. But when Marcin crosses paths with a vengeful ghost known as the Shadow, their dream quickly turns into a nightmare. The Anderwalds’ baby drowns, and Agnieszka is convinced she is to blame. She starves herself to death, returning from the grave as a ghostly Woman in White, determined to protect her family. Marcin and Agnieszka’s son, Zacharias, burdened by grief, becomes entangled in a quest for vengeance that threatens his very soul. As he and his wife Liza clash with the relentless Shadow, they cling to hope when blessed with a child, John Marcin Anderwald.
But the curse of the Anderwalds is unyielding. John Marcin grows up amidst murder trials, haunting executions, and the ever-present Shadow that seeks to destroy his family. His love for the troubled singer Anna Schulte leads to further heartache, and his sons, Luke and Junior, inherit a legacy of sorrow and secrets that could tear them apart.
As the Anderwald legacy unfolds, each generation faces its own harrowing ordeal, where love and sacrifice are pitted against an unrelenting evil. Will they break free from the Shadow’s curse, or will they remain forever wretched and undone?
Advance Praise
"A rattlesnake falls from the church rafters, and from there, J. E. Weiner unwinds a scorching Southern gothic tale across the Texas Hill Country in The Wretched and Undone. Her generation-by-generation saga of the Anderwald family across the tumult of the late nineteenth century is told with true authenticity of voice and place. Her characters are so well crafted they crawl off the page. The novel's dark edges are absolutely gripping. A finer piece of historical fiction I cannot recall."
–Adam Van Winkle, editor-in-chief at Cowboy Jamboree Press and author of Dylan Quick is a Dairy Queen Don Quixote
“J. E. Weiner has written a compelling, slow-burning horror story of a cursed family of Polish immigrants to the Texas Hill Country, haunted across the generations. The author takes her time, slowly building the suspense with an Old Testament sense of inevitable damnation while masterfully pulling from the rich and violent history of Texas and its immigrant settlers, fleeing the conflicts of Europe and drawn by the false promise of a new land at the dawn of the Civil War.”
–Jim Nesbitt, author of the award-winning Ed Earl Burch hard-boiled Texas crime thrillers.
“A fabulous read. J. E. Weiner writes in the finest traditions of Southern Gothic horror, exposing the sharp strata of class behind the genteel veneer. Somewhere between the gentry and the hard-scrabble and destitute, lie the outsider and outcast pitted in perpetual struggle.”
– WB Henley, author of Inescapable, A Novel
“A genre bending thrill ride through Old Texas. Once in a while a book catches you off guard with its depth, innovation, and storytelling. This is that book.”
– CJ Howell, author of The Salt Cutter
“J. E.Weiner has composed an absolutely marvelous debut novel in THE WRETCHED AND UNDONE, written with a confident, sure-handed elegance, evocative prose, and a particularly well-tuned ear for dialogue. Rich with sense-of-place and time, the sights, sounds and smells of the 1860s come wonderfully alive in this story of the human spirit, both temporal and other-worldly, that weaves corporeal and metaphysical narrative threads with a deft and clever hand. I am reluctant to reveal too much about the plot other than to say it is one of the most enjoyable slow-burn suspense thrillers I have read in quite some time. I highly recommend this book.”
– Baron Birtcher, Bestselling and Award Winning author of Knife River and Reckoning
J. E. Weiner is a writer and novelist based in Northern California. Her debut novel, The Wretched and Undone, a Southern Gothic tale set in the Texas Hill Country and inspired by real people and actual events, is forthcoming from HTF Publishing in March 2025. Her previous work has appeared in the literary journals Madcap Review, Five Minutes, and HerStry, as well as the recent grit lit anthology Red-Headed Writing (Cowboy Jamboree Press, 2024). 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.
