Can love, the very thing Braeden wants no part of, be the one force greater than any adversary - even a hoodoo curse?
After her almost-wedding to a bigamist, successful children's author Braeden McKay has given up on love. She's content to live vicariously through her imaginary heroine, Platypus Pearl, and a gaggle of adventurous, web-footed cohorts - until a working vacation in New Orleans shakes up her quiet, structured world. Had she known that souvenir nickel stolen from the grave of a hoodoo woman would catapult her into a nightmare of betrayal and murder, she would have insisted her friend put it back. Cursed nickel or unfortunate happenstance? Sanderson Montgomery isn't one to discount the supernatural beliefs of others. This is the Big Easy, after all, Mecca to the spiritual and the superstitious. As a veteran detective, neither does he ignore cold, hard fact. And the fact is, someone or something is bent on harming Braeden McKay, and it's up to him to protect her while keeping his heart out of the mix. Can love, the very thing Braeden wants no part of, be the one force greater than any adversary - even a hoodoo curse?
Excerpt
Hidden by a uniform row of tombs, he watched and waited, canvas shopping bag on the ground near his feet. Unaccustomed to contact lenses, he blinked several times, then squinted as he raised his camera.
He smiled. Today his eyes were umber, the color of shadow, how appropriate. Beneath the Orioles baseball cap his thick sandalwood hair, a new shade and slightly grayed at the temples, added bogus years to his clever disguise.
Through the camera's view finder, he studied the somber tableau stretched out before him. A mortician's Valhalla, the rows of tombs seemed endless. Path upon narrow path, they formed a macabre latticework of dead-end streets and snaking avenues, permanent addresses to poets and pirates, paupers and pompous politicians.
He panned his camera left. Many of the burial chambers were large and ostentatious, with friezes sculpted into their deep sides and elaborate statuary embellishing their rooftops. The relentless sun bleached their white marble doors, and half-dead grass breached the stone paths leading up to them.
They reminded him of poorly kept yards and poorly kept lives - of long kept secrets at risk of being unraveled.
He tracked the camera forward, where the crypts appeared as shrunken, windowless replicas of local banks and civic buildings, the Garden District's grand mansions. Others resembled the gallant Bastille, surrounded by garish cast iron grillwork, rust staining their concrete foundations. Still others, low rent efficiencies and walk-ups of handmade brick, crumbled with age, corners jutted out as if to snag the attention of the next passerby.
Panning the camera right, he zoomed in until Simone Dubois' grave and the two women filling the viewfinder. Killing the arrogant journalist, Dalrymple, had been easy, even pleasurable. But he had never killed a woman.
The prospect of doing so left him both excited and nauseous.
Professional Reviews
A one-day, can't-set-it-down, page turner . . .
Love, culture, setting and a brilliantly crafted mystery plot make this a one-day, can't-set-it-down, page turner. With heroes to die for and evil lurking from all corners of New Orleans and Galveston, Hoodoo Money contains all the ingredients for a summer beach read or a cozy day in front of a fire. Either way, you won't put it down until the last page. I've read it, I own it, and I don't intend to let someone borrow it for fear I won't get it back. ~ C. Hope Clark, author of Lowcountry Bride, Tidewater Murder, and owner of www.FundsforWriters.com
Hoodoo Money was like ice cream . . .
Hoodoo Money was like ice cream. I just couldn't put it down! Every time I looked up from my Kindle I couldn't fathom why I wasn't in New Orleans, or Galveston. I could feel the heat, taste the mugginess. AND your mouthwatering descriptions of all those foods! OMG! Could I get a kitchen, please? I absolutely ate up the ending - and then it was gone. ~ Jody, Goodreads.com
A twisitng and turning tale of murder . . .
Braeden and Angeline are in New Orleans on a working vacation when Angeline takes a souvenir nickel from the grave of a hoodoo gypsy. What follows next is a twisting and turning tale of murder and love. This will keep you turning pages to get to the end, I sat up late to finish this one. ~ Theresa N, Goodreads.com
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