Tag Archives: voodoo

The Quarter Storm (by Veronica Henry)

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Mystery / Magical Realism

A young woman enlists Reina, a Vodou priestess, to make a love charm for her. When the man who was the target of the charm is murdered and a fellow vodou priestess is charged with his murder, Reina begins to investigate. 

Corruption is rife in the New Orleans police department and her fellow practitioners don’t like the attention Reina is bringing to them as she investigates. But as she delves into the underbelly of New Orleans she learns that everyone involved has secrets and some of them would kill to keep them. 

This is such a great book. Deeply flawed characters who you somehow love anyway carry what is close to a hard-boiled detective story but with a strong vein of magical realism running through it, it’s everything I want. 

There are aspects of the book I didn’t much like, but the good completely blows all of that out of the water. A new name to add to my favorite authors list. 5 Stars.

Once Haunted, Twice Shy (by H.P. Mallory)

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Paranormal Romance

In exorcising a demon from her home, Peyton found herself inadvertently possessed by the ghost of a French speaking New Orleans police officer who died in the early 20th century. Now she can connect to the spirit world and all the ghosts of the city are running scared.

It soon becomes clear that something is very wrong and the demon they exorcised has decided to make the streets of New Orleans run red with blood, starting with Peyton.

There is a lot going on in Once Haunted, Twice Shy. At times it felt like a little too much, like there were too many players. Presumably H.P. Mallory is setting the scene for future books but that busyness didn’t help this story. Added to the mix this book has a love triangle of sorts (do I have to call a four sided love triangle a square?) which is one of those tropes I don’t particularly like.

That said, despite the shaky start, the book ended strongly with a voodoo battle to end all battles. If you like voodoo, ghosts and demons in your pages, this is a pretty good read.

Screen Shot 2014-02-16 at 4.32.33 pmMany thanks to Montlake Romance and Netgalley for providing me with this ARC

Yellow, Orange, Red –– what it means: http://wp.me/P2B7b5-9l

Ghouls Rush In (by H.P. Mallory)

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Paranormal Romance

After escaping her domineering husband, Peyton moves into a rundown antebellum home left to her by a distant aunt. Needing to keep herself busy she decides to restore the home to its former glory and manages to get Ryan, a specialist in restoring homes to take on the job.

She soon discovers the home is haunted by Drake, a policeman who died sometime in the early 20th century, and as he visits her in her sleep a story unfolds about a series of brutal murders which terrorised the people of New Orleans in nearly 100 years earlier. And it’s possible that Peyton has inadvertently invited the spirit of the murderer into her home.

She finds herself caught between a ghost who is protecting her from the malevolence that has entered her home and the contractor who is still mourning the loss of his wife.

Ghouls Rush In is quite a surprising book. It wasn’t till page sixty that the ghosts arrived, until then it felt very much like a renovation romance. Even then it seemed liked a fairly cute and harmless ghost story. But at the half way mark it definitely got creepy. There were things going on in this book that had cold shivers running up and down my spine.

 
It’s really very good, and if books about ghosts, spirits and voodoo sound like your thing, this is definitely one of the better ones I’ve read.

 

Screen Shot 2014-03-17 at 5.42.32 pmMany thanks to Montlake Romance and Netgalley for providing me with this ARC

Yellow / Orange / Red –– What it means. http://wp.me/P2B7b5-9l

 

Villere House (by Leslie Fear and C.D. Hussey)

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Paranormal Romance 

When Lottie travels to New Orleans, she fully expects it to be a few days of drinking and partying.  But almost immediately she starts having vivid flash backs to a drama that unfolded 200 years earlier.

With help from Xavier, the sceptical owner of a shop selling voodoo trinkets to tourists, she needs to unravel the mystery, end a curse, and hopefully be alive at the end.  But the malevolant spirit that cursed her family has other plans.

Disclosure:  Leslie Fear is both a Facebook and Goodreads friend of mine.

Villere House is an old school ghost story.  It’s well paced, well written and entertaining. The romance didn’t entirely work for me, but to be honest that was probably because I kept thinking about the author’s children reading it…it’s hard to get past that. The real highlight for me was the ghost story. It’s rollicking good fun and even managed to creep me out a little.