Voodoo Season: A Marie Laveau Mystery

Great book to understand Voodoo Religions, the good side and bad side. Read in 2 days. Page Turner and didnt want it to end. I had a little trouble discerning between all the "Maries" was my only difficulty with this book. Cant wait to read the rest of the series.

Excellent author and very gripping tales. I recommend the whole series if you can find the books!!!!

I've read Voodoo Dreams and fell in love witht this author and she is becoming one of my favorites well my favorite at the moment because I seem interested only in the topics she writes on. :) I really enjoyed this book I couldn't put it down, up late nights and on the train every day deeply into the lives of those in this book. A great read.

This book is a great continuation from her first one, Voodoo Dreams. It is also a very easy read. It only took my 4 days to finish it. I think that anyone would enjoy this book and I can't wait until she publishes Voodoo Jazz!!!! :)

Marie Levant relocates from Chicago to begin a medial residency at the New Orleans' Charity Hospital. However, upon returning to the hometown of her ancestors, Marie begins to have strange violent dreams about her heritage. That is followed by ritual serial killings that force Marie to look into her past as the direct descendent of Voodoo Priestess Marie Laveau and two subsequent Maries who were bathed in blood. Marie learns that young females are being abducted to serve as prostitutes at reenactment galas of nineteenth century quadroon balls; the unfortunate innocents are used and abused before being converted into slave zombies. New Orleans Police Detective Reneaux struggles to save the girls and uncover the monster behind this hideous practice, but only Marie by claiming her heritage can hope to stop the evil that engulfs the young of the city. VOODOO SEASON is a terrific paranormal police procedural that will make believers of readers that there are strange unexplained essences and inexplicable powers out there. The story line is action-packed as Marie slowly accepts her ancestry "gifts" while Reneaux struggles with a nasty case and how Marie fits in the middle of the maelstrom. Fans of fast-paced exciting supernatural mysteries will want to read this jewel of a thriller. Harriet Klausner

There is a legend that the infamous New Orleans native and Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau never died, that, in fact, her spirit lives on in selected female descendents, each a namesake, and Laveau's faithful are awaiting her return. Jewell Parker Rhodes (Voodoo Dreams, Douglass's Women, Magic City) births a modern day Marie in the second book of the Marie Laveau/Voodoo trilogy, Voodoo Season: a Marie Laveau Mystery. The novel centers on first year medical resident, Marie Levant, a cum laude graduate from the school of hard knocks. As a child living in Chicago, she discovered her mother's lifeless body on the kitchen floor and was whisked away only to be abused in the foster care system. She defies the odds by excelling academically and winning scholarships to medical school, which she views as a natural progression to her inherent life-long healing abilities. She is an animal lover, empathetic to her patients, and acts rather impulsively on her rather sensuous nature. The novel opens with her relocating to New Orleans, after being drawn there by unknown forces. She battles disturbing dreams that contain vivid images of ritual ceremonies, childbirth, and a woman being persecuted. The tale is largely told from Levant's perspective and uses flashbacks/memories to show her immediate past as a forlorn child and haunting dreams to reveal her spiritual past as Laveau, the Voodoo Queen. As you can guess, Levant is the chosen one, and it seems everyone knows it but her. Rhodes sprinkles elements of suspense and foreboding in lines such as, "Summer. Sin season. Fever season. Anything could happen. Even the undead," and emphasizes Levant's confusion and struggles as she comes into her "season" or her reckoning with her destiny. She initially rejects her increasing power of healing, insight and intuition and balks at the awareness of herself as a Marie Laveau reincarnate; a powerful Voodooienne. However, along the way, she begrudgingly embraces her fate as she discovers painful family secrets and the truth behind her mother's death and its eerie similarity with the murders of the young, unclaimed girls who keep showing up in her wake. Although not a strong mystery (more so filled with anticipation), the book does a wonderful job clarifying and dispelling misconceptions about the Vodun religion and the origin of Voodoo as the merging of African beliefs and Christianity. One character explains, "Religions from the African Diaspora all value the snake as knowledge, all-knowing, an infinity and fertility symbol. White Christians bemoan that a snake tempted Eve in the Garden. But in voodoo, the same myth is a cause for celebration. Snakes represent knowledge. `Knowing is what keeps you safe, strong.' What good is Eden with ignorance?" Going a step further, she parallels spiritual icons. In one example, Legba is akin to St. Peter and serves as a gatekeeper. Rhodes masterfully blends in the historical decadence of the New Orleans of old