Edwina Frost, popular writer of horror fiction, dies a lonely death in her farmhouse cellar. Her politician nephew asks poet Maria Pell to write Edwina’s biography, but hints there are episodes in her life requiring sensitive treatment. At the same time, a tiler digs up a child’s bones on the Frost farmland. Maria intuits a connection between the child and Edwina, whose soul has not gone on to a sweet reward but roams the earth as a troubled spirit. As Maria closes in on the child’s identity, Edwina’s spirit threatens to claim her. Maria fights a fierce battle for her sanity. 

Excerpt:  

“I had become Edwina. Lurching upstairs, I was a wind chime gone mad, clanging out a hellish dirge. A monster sat on my brain, digging her fingernails into my parietal lobe…I slammed around the room, back and forth, arms waving, knees bucking. Then the horrible music stopped…”

Praise for The Untold Story of Edwina

“Lynne Handy has packed a steamer trunk of action and intrigue into this slim volume, which is equal parts mystery, romance, thriller, and parable. The lively adventures of Maria Pell in the North Carolina backwater are punctuated by poetry that is sometimes achingly lovely and often just plain ingenious.” (ER)

“A poet writing a posthumous biography of a horror- novelist colleague gets caught up in an investigation of bones found buried on the author’s property in Handy’s thriller. A mystery novel with a sympathetic protagonist whose apparent descent into madness makes her no less riveting.” (Kirkus)