The Testament of Harold's Wife

From award-winning author Lynne Hugo comes a witty, insightful, refreshingly unsentimental novel about one woman’s unconventional path from heartbreak to hope . . .

After losing her husband, Harold, and her beloved grandson, Cody, within the past year, Louisa has two choices. She can fade away on her Indiana family farm, where her companionship comes courtesy of her aging chickens and an argumentative cat. Or, she can concoct A Plan. Louisa, a retired schoolteacher who’s as smart, sassy, and irreverent as ever, isn’t the fading away type.

The drunk driver who killed Cody got off scot-free by lying about a deer on the road. Harold had tried to take matters into his own hands, but was thwarted by Gus, the local sheriff. Now Louisa decides to take up Harold’s cause, though it will mean outsmarting Gus, who’s developed an unwelcome crush on her, and staying ahead of her adult son who’s found solace in a money-draining cult and terrible art.

Louisa's love of life is rekindled as the spring sun warms her cornfields and she goes into action. But even the most Perfect Plans can go awry. A wounded buck, and a teenage boy on the land she treasures help Louisa see that the enduring beauty of the natural world and the mystery of human connection are larger than revenge . . . and so is justice.

“I adored this fun yet poignant book.”
—Diane Chamberlain, New York Times bestselling author of The Stolen Marriage

Lynne Hugo is the author of eight novels. She is a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship recipient who has also received grants from the Ohio Arts Council and the Kentucky Foundation for Women. Where the Trail Grows Faint, about animal‑assisted therapy in a nursing home with a lively Lab, won the Riverteeth Literary Nonfiction Book Prize. Her recent novels were A Matter of Mercy, which received the 2015 Independent Publishers Silver Medal for Best North‑East Fiction, and Remember My Beauties. Born and educated in New England, Lynne and her husband now live in Ohio with Scout, a yellow Lab feared by squirrels in three states. You’re warmly invited to visit LynneHugo.com.