My name is Julia Grace Lynn, and I spend my days living in a dead woman’s house.

That probably sounds grim. It isn’t. Or at least, most days it isn’t.

I’m a doctoral candidate in history, currently in Galveston, Texas on a Historic Preservation Research Fellowship. My home for the foreseeable future is the Whitmore house, a Victorian-era property in the East End Historic District that needs love, patience, and a frankly alarming amount of wallpaper paste. In exchange for restoring it and documenting its history, I get to live here rent-free while I finish my dissertation on the 1900 Galveston Storm. It’s a good deal. It’s also, I’ve learned, haunted.

My mornings start early. I’m a coffee-first, questions-later kind of person, and I’ve learned to drink mine on the back porch while the Gulf breeze is still cool enough to be pleasant. It’s also the quietest part of the day, before the house decides to remind me I’m not alone. Old houses make noise. I know this. I’m a historian. I just didn’t expect the noises to be quite so… purposeful.

By mid-morning, I’m usually at the Rosenberg Library, one of the most beautiful research spaces I’ve ever set foot in. That’s where I’ve been piecing together the life of Beatrice Whitmore, the woman who lived in this house before the storm. I didn’t expect to become so attached to her. You don’t, usually, with historical subjects. But Beatrice was twenty-eight years old when the hurricane struck, the same age I was when my mother died. And the more I dig into her records, the more I understand that she was carrying something heavy long before the storm clouds gathered.

Her days looked nothing like mine on the surface. She managed a household, attended ladies’ luncheons, performed contentment among Galveston’s society wives. But in her personal accounting ledgers, in letters to her father, in the small gaps between what’s recorded and what isn’t, I can see a woman paying very close attention to things she wasn’t supposed to question. She was smart. Careful. Braver than anyone gave her credit for.

Afternoons, I’m back at the house, working with my hands. Sanding, patching, painting. There’s something grounding about it. My best friend Paige thinks I’ve gone feral, trading academic conferences for plaster dust, but I don’t mind. The house feels different when I’m taking care of it. Calmer.

And late at night, when Peanut, my newly adopted stray, has claimed the foot of my bed and the whole island has gone quiet, I think about Beatrice. About the life she lived inside these walls. About the truth she carried, alone, to her grave.

She deserved better. I’m determined to make sure the world knows it.

THE DROWNED TRUTH
Series: A Texas Haunting Mystery, Book 1
Genre: Traditional Mystery
Release: April 2026
Format: Print, Digital
Purchase Link

Galveston, 1900. Beatrice Whitmore knows her husband’s secrets: his gambling debts, his mistress, his lies. When she threatens to expose him, he silences her forever. Hours later, the deadliest hurricane in American history erases all evidence of his crime.

Galveston, present day. Doctoral student Julia Lynn moves into the historic Whitmore house, expecting to research the Great Storm. Instead, she encounters a ghost desperate to be heard, a woman with bruises on her throat and a story that refuses to stay buried.

As Julia uncovers the truth hidden in the walls, she realizes some secrets survive even the worst disasters. And some women refuse to be silenced, even by death.

The storm buried his crime. It couldn’t bury her truth.

About the author
Erica Whelton lives in Texas with her husband and a house full of crazy pets. She has three grown children plus three beautiful grandsons. They are all the light of her life.

Her love of books, words, and all things reading started at a young age for two reasons. One being the number of hours she’d spend in the library. Her mother made sure she and her brothers always had books. The second reason was as a child, she had trouble sleeping. Her parents told her to think of nice things before bed, to tell herself stories. They pointed to her posters of sweet animals on her bedroom walls and told her to think of stories involving the animals. She still uses this technique even today when she struggles to shut her brain off.

She also enjoys the process of making tea, animals, the color pink, and basically anything awesome. Connect with Erica at www.ejwheltonwrites.com.