Raquel Clairvoux is forced to take a hard look at the origins of her family and her distant aunt the Legendary Swamp Witch Angelique Clairvoux, a mulatto girl born in the swamps of southern Louisiana and raised by her grandmother in the ways of Voodoo that she learned on the island of Martinique. She sees the history of the region and culture of the original Creole people of Louisiana. When slave catchers came into St Martinsville to collect undocumented people of color Angelique was attacked and mortally wounded flees into the swamp with her life savings she calls on the Spirits to guard her and her savings. Raquel learns about the men who over the next century and a half try to find Angelique's treasure and how they trigger the curse that finally brings them down. Raquel is taken through the history and evolution of a unique culture and historic area of the country and must decide where she and her family fit into it. While this is a story of pure fiction the author did exhaustive research of the area covering the years between 1712 and the present. The town of St Martinsville is an actual town in St Martin Parish, Louisiana and the Bayou Tesche is located there. St Martinsville was a town open to free people of color during the time of slavery and is considered to be the Creole capital of the United States. This book is a work of fiction that mixes historic fact and culture to transport the reader through decades of drama in an evolving southern Louisiana.
About the Author: Lori Bradley was born and grew up in southern Illinois but has traveled extensively throughout the southern US. She has spent her life studying history and reading. She finished her education late in life with a degree in marketing from Glendale Community College in Glendale, AZ. She owned and operated two successful costuming businesses catering to both Renaissance and Medieval reenactors. She has been reading and writing since grade school and has always had a special love of history. In high school she wrote a history of the very small town, Akin, in southern Illinois where she and her family lived. Her history teacher was so impressed with her piece that she had it recorded at the local Historical Society. She is currently working on a series of novels set in the Old West called The Soiled Dove Sagas, dealing with prostitution in the 19th century West. She is now a retired grandmother who makes her home in Glendale, AZ.