The Music of WILD MAN’S CURSE with Susannah Sandlin

Ask a resident of South Louisiana which is most important—music or food—and chances are good he or she would say “both.” In Terrebonne Parish, the second-largest and most rural of the state’s “counties,” the food is a rich mix of the Acadian (aka “Cajun”), Creole and Native American cultures. It relies heavily on what can be caught or grown locally, from shrimp and redfish to alligator.

            The music is likewise a blend of cultures, with fiddle and accordion the signature sounds.

            In WILD MAN’S CURSE, the heroine, Celestine Savoie, is a good cook—but her goal is to make her living through music. The hero, Gentry Broussard, is a native of Terrebonne Parish, and loves the raw, wild beauty of this fragile land that’s too quickly disappearing into the Gulf of Mexico.

            The book kicks of a new Wilds of the Bayou series, which follows a team of state wildlife enforcement agents assigned to Terrebonne Parish. Gentry is a senior agent—but don’t make the mistake of writing these guys off as the old-fashioned “game warden”—they receive paramilitary-style training and can arrest you for speeding just as easily as a state trooper!

            With two parish natives as the h/h, it makes sense that I definitely have a playlist for this series, and there’s definitely a lot of Cajun music to be heard.

            Here are the top five songs on my Wilds of the Bayou playlist:

“Heart of My Own,” by Basia Bulat. This is not a Cajun song in the least; the artist is Canadian. But the lyrics are what make this Celestine’s song. Ceelie, you see, can do some of the voodoo and Native American mysticism rituals of her ancestors like throwing the bones, so this song’s references to shadows and returning home, the uncertainty of the future, “the empty bones,” and casting of charms make it perfect for her. It’s how I imagine Celestine’s own music might sound.

“Ugly Truth,” by Lucinda Williams. This is Gentry’s song, because he has been running from the ghosts of his memories, trying to ignore them—until he’s forced to confront them.

“Zydeco Gris-Gris,” by Beausoleil with Michael Doucet. Because you simply can’t have a book set in Cajun Louisiana without a few Beausoleil tracks. This is one of my favorites, and I like to think that when things settle down for them, Gentry and Ceelie will be able to go to a Beausoleil concert and hear this in person. (And if you listen carefully, you can hear references to voodoo and, about the 5:30 point, the loup-garou, the Cajun version of the werewolf.)  

“Sunset on Louisiane,” by Zachary Richard. Ditto Zack—can’t have a Louisiana Cajun story without his music. I love everything he’s recorded (which is a lot), but I chose this song because it’s the story of Celestine’s father, in many ways. South Louisiana is a poor area, and when “the industry come to town,”—i.e., when the oil and gas industry moved in—everyone saw it as their salvation. Until people began dying of cancer (they now call the area between New Orleans and Baton Rouge “cancer alley”), as Ceelie’s father did. And I love that he segues into an old Cajun song, “My French Blues/Madame Sosthene,” at the end.

“Laissez Le Vent Souffler (Let the Winds Blow),” by Zachary Richard. This is a song about the resilience of the South Louisiana people despite repeated hurricanes and attempts to get them to leave their lands, from hurricanes Camille to Hilda to Katrina. The love of the people for their culture and their land is one of the things that make this such a wonderful place to write about! (If you want to read the lyrics in English, you can find them here: http://zacharyrichard.com/lyrics/laisseleventsouffler_en.html)

And that’s just a small part of my growing Wilds of the Bayou playlist. Have you been to South Louisiana? Doesn’t its exoticness make you just a wee bit curious?

Wild Man’s Curse

Wilds of the Bayou Series

Book One

Susannah Sandlin

Genre: Romantic Suspense

Publisher: Montlake Romance

Date of Publication: April 5, 2016

ISBN: 978-1503934740

ASIN: B017IKQWAG

Number of pages: 284

Word Count: approx. 86,000

Cover Artist: Michael Rehder

Book Description:

The bones said death was comin’, and the bones never lied.

While on an early morning patrol in the swamps of Whiskey Bayou, Louisiana wildlife agent Gentry Broussard spots a man leaving the home of voodoo priestess Eva Savoie—a man who bears a startling resemblance to his brother, whom Gentry thought he had killed during a drug raid three years earlier. Shaken, the agent enters Eva’s cabin and makes a bloody discovery: the old woman has been brutally murdered.

With no jurisdiction over the case, he’s forced to leave the investigation to the local sheriff, until Eva’s beautiful heir, Celestine, receives a series of gruesome threats. As Gentry’s involvement deepens and more victims turn up, can he untangle the secrets behind Eva’s murder and protect Celestine from the same fate?

Or will an old family curse finally have its way?

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Excerpt:

CHAPTER 1

The bones said death was comin’, and the bones never lied.

Eva Savoie leaned back in the rocking chair and pushed it into motion on the uneven wide-plank floor of the one-room cabin. Her grandpere Julien had built the place more than a century ago, pulling heavy cypress logs from the bayou and sawing them, one by one, into the thick planks she still walked across every day.

She had never known Julien Savoie, but she knew of him. The curse that had stalked her family for three generations had started with her grandfather and what he’d done all those years ago.

What he’d brought with him to Whiskey Bayou with blood on his hands.

What had driven her daddy to shoot her mama, and then himself, before either turned forty-five.

What had led Eva’s brother Antoine to drown in the bayou only a half-mile from this cabin, leaving a wife and infant son behind.

What stalked Eva now.

The bones said death was coming and, once Eva was gone, the curse should go with her. No one else knew the secrets of Julien Savoie and this cabin and that box full of sin he’d dug out of the bayou mud back in Isle de Jean Charles.

Might take a while, but sin catches up with you. Always had. Always would. And the curse had driven Eva to sin. Oh yes, she had sinned.

She’d known her reckoning would catch up with her, although it had taken a good long time. She’d turned seventy-eight yesterday, or was it eighty? She couldn’t remember for sure, and the bones said it didn’t matter now.

On the scarred wooden table before Eva sat three burning candles that filled the room with the soft, soothing glow of melting tallow. She’d made them herself, infusing them with the oil of the fragrant lilies that every spring spread a bright green carpet over the lazy, brown water of the bayou. The tools of her ritual sat on an ancient square of tanned hide passed down through generations of holy ones, of those blessed by the gods with the ability to throw the bones.

A small mound of delicate chicken bones, yellowed and fragile from age, lay inside the circle of light cast by the candles. Daylight would come in an hour or so, but Eva didn’t expect to last that long. Death was even now making his way toward her.

She leaned forward, wincing at the stab of pain in her lower back. Since the first throw of the bones had whispered her fate two days ago, she’d been cleaning. Scrubbed the floor, worn smooth by decades of bare feet. Washed the linens, folding them in neat piles in a drawer at the bottom of the old pie safe. Discarded most of the food in the little refrigerator that sat in the corner. Dragged the bag of trash down the long, overgrown drive past LeRoy’s old 1970 Chevy pickup that she still drove up to Houma for groceries and such once a month. Left the white bag at the side of the parish road for the weekly trash collection.

She’d spit on LeRoy’s truck as she passed it because she couldn’t spit on the man who bought it. He was long gone.

Now the cleaning had been finished. Whoever discovered her raggedy old body wouldn’t find a mess, not in Eva Savoie’s house.

A few minutes ago, with the old cabin as clean as she was capable of making it, she’d thrown the bones one last time. Part of her hoped they’d read different, hoped she’d be granted a few more days of grace.

But the bones still whispered death. Eva accepted it, and she sat, and she waited. At least the girl, Celestine, would inherit a cleaned-up house. The girl, Antoine’s granddaughter, knew nothing of the secrets, nothing of the curse. Eva had made sure of that….

Eva waited for her heart to fail—that seemed to be her most likely way to go. As she rocked she noted each steady beat, biding her time for the instant when the thump-thump-thump would falter and her breath would catch, then stop. She reckoned it would hurt a little, but what if it did? The curse had doled out worse ends to those who came before her.

She’d doled out worse herself.

The buzz of a boat’s motor sounded from outside the cabin, faint but growing louder. Wardens on patrol already, most likely.

The boat’s engine grew louder, finally coming to an abrupt stop so near, it had to be right outside her door. Silence filled the room once again, until through her bones she felt the thud of someone jumping onto the porch that wrapped around the cabin. The porch formed the platform on which the house sat, linking it to the spit of land behind it when the water was normal. When storms blew through, it provided an island on which the cabin could sit or, if need be, float.

As heavy footfalls crossed the porch, Eva struggled to her feet. Every pop and crackle of her joints knifed streaks of pain through her limbs as they protested the cleaning they’d done, followed by the sitting.

Prob’ly a game warden, checkin’ on her. Too bad he hadn’t stopped a little later, after she was gone. She didn’t like to think of her body having to bake in the hot cabin for days before anyone found her.

But the curse was what it was, and the bones said what they said.

The knock, when it came, was soft, and Eva reached the door with the help of a sturdy cane she’d carved herself. Opening the door, she squinted into the glare of a flashlight that seemed almost blinding after the soft light of the candles. She peered up at a young man with eyes that gleamed from beneath the hood of a jacket. He was not a game warden, and it was too hot for a jacket.

“Who are you?” Her voice cracked. She knew who he was. He was Death.

“The devil come to pay you a visit, Eva.” The man’s voice was smooth as silk, smooth as a lie, smooth as death itself. “And you know what the devil wants.”

She knew what he wanted, and she knew the only way to end the curse was to deny him.

She’d been granted no easy passing by the Savoie curse after all, but she would die today.

The bones never lied.

About the Author:

Susannah Sandlin is the author of the award-winning Penton Vampire Legacy paranormal romance series, including the 2013 Holt Medallion Award-winning Absolution and Omega and Allegiance, which were nominated for the RT Book Reviews Reviewers Choice Award in 2014 and 2015, respectively. She also writers The Collectors romantic suspense series, including Lovely, Dark, and Deep, 2015 Holt Medallion winner and 2015 Booksellers Best Award winner. Her new series Wilds of the Bayou starts in 2016 with the April 5 release of Wild Man’s Curse. Writing as Suzanne Johnson, Susannah is the author of the award-winning Sentinels of New Orleans urban fantasy series. A displaced New Orleanian, she currently lives in Auburn, Alabama. Susannah loves SEC football, fried gator on a stick, all things Cajun, and redneck reality TV.

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