Pop-Up with Terresa Cooper Haskew

A novel of 1960s Southern suspense in which two life insurance agents unknowingly carry similar secrets about the same dead man–one leak and each could lose everything. NEVER TELL A SOUL. In the fall of 1961, while deer hunting in a North Florida pine forest, Winston Taylor stumbles upon a young colored man lying dead in the dirt, Winston, who is white, is a well-respected life insurance agent from the small town of Pineville. Since the man appears to be the victim of a hunting accident, Winston resolves to do the right thing and take the body to the Sheriff’s Department. He can’t just leave it for the already-circling buzzards. Once he discovers the dead man’s identity, however, he realizes that the deceased has the ability to incriminate him in his own unethical and illegal insurance practices. In the horror of the moment, insanity ensues and Winston dumps the corpse into a wet sinkhole, vowing to clean up his transgressions and keep the whole event a lifelong secret. Two years later, Winston unwittingly hires a new insurance agent with the power to blow that sinkhole secret straight out of the water.

A native of the South, Terresa and her husband, Ben, have lived at Lake Murray in the Midlands of South Carolina since retiring in 2016. They have three children and five grandchildren, who all enjoy swimming, boating, and fishing on the lake. Terresa Cooper Haskew’s award-winning poems, short stories, and book reviews have appeared in over 50 printed journal and anthology issues including American Journal of Nursing; Archive: South Carolina Poetry Since 2005; Atlanta Review; Press 53 Open Awards Anthology; Pearl; and The Main Street Rag. Her story, “Living the Dream,” premiered in 2013 as a short film produced by Ron Hagell and Shirley Smith. Haskew’s poetry chapbook, BREAKING COMMANDMENTS, was published in 2014 by Main Street Rag Publishing Company. WINSTON’S BOOK OF SOULS is her first novel. She is a member of the Poetry Society of South Carolina; the Ruminators poetry writing group (17 years); the South Carolina Writers Association—Chapin fiction writers’ chapter; and is a past Board Member of the Emrys Foundation, Greenville, SC’s association for writers.