Review of Black Heart Loa by Adrian Phoenix

“An eye for an eye is never enough.”

Kallie Riviere, a Cajun hoodoo apprentice with a bent for trouble, learned the meaning of those ominous words when hoodoo bogeyman Doctor Heron targeted her family for revenge. Now, while searching for her still-missing bayou pirate cousin, Kallie finds out the hard way that someone is undoing powerful gris gris, which means that working magic has become as unpredictable as rolling a handful of dice.
The wards woven to protect the Gulf coast are unraveling, leaving New Orleans and the surrounding bayous vulnerable just as a storm–the deadliest in a century–is born.

As the hurricane powers toward the heart of all she loves, Kallie desperately searches for the cause of the disturbing randomness, only to learn a deeply unsettling truth: the culprit may be herself.

To protect her family and friends, including the sexy nomad Layne Valin, Kallie steps into the jaws of danger . . . and finds a loup-garou designed to steal her heart–literally.

Read the first 2 chapters here.

My Review:

Better than the first book in the series, Black Heart Loa rocked. Hoodoo, voodoo and a little romance all rolled in with magic and mystery to create one hell of an urban fantasy book.

By the time I was done reading I was thoroughly hooked on this series even more so than after reading the first book, Black Dust Mambo, and I had the insane urge to walk around speaking Cajun style. LOL

This second book in the series was filled with more drama, twists, and turns in what is becoming a fangtastic urban fantasy series.

The main character has a mystery about her- like where is her soul and who is the loa inside her? Why did her mom do this to her and who helped her mom? And why did her mom kill her dad?

The characters are intertwining and developing adding more whys, hows, twists and turns into this series. New characters are popping up that are sure to be major players in future books- like the loup garou (werewolf) that's out for Kallie's heart. Whether he means to tear it out or make her his love interest remains to be seen in future books.

All in Black Heart Loa was an amazing book that I devoured in two nights. Complex characters, a story line filled with enough roller coaster drama that you'll crave more from the first page to the last and in the end you'll still be hooked, wanting more books in this series.

I love the hoodoo and voodoo in this book and the addition of the loup-garou myths from the Louisiana bayou.

Everything sounds very authentic to me, making it an excellent read set in my favorite areas to read about- New Orleans and the surrounding areas of Louisiana. This part of the country is just so filled with myths and magic that it makes an excellent backdrop for this kind of book/series. Take existing myths and folklore, add characters and a dash of fictional creativity and you have a book readers will love.