Black Heart Loa: The Review

“An eye for an eye is never enough.”


Kallie Rivière, 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 an unnatural 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.


Goodreads

I hope you have all seen the amazing giveaway and guest post from the wonderful Adrian Phoenix. In addition to the giveaway post, I wanted to do a review of Adrian's latest Hoodoo book, Black Heart Loa. Of the two books in the series, this one was my favorite. 

What I liked:

The world that Adrian has created is so believable you can almost feel the Cajun spirit invading your own. The dialect she uses is right on. So are the explanations of hoodoo terms that I had never heard before. Kallie and Layne are two main characters that you can't help but care about as they continue their adventure from the first book, Black Dust Mambo. The sexual tension is palpable and the sparks fly constantly.

The adventure is never ending and totally unpredictable, so you won't ever be bored with the story. As magical systems go in fiction, Hoodoo is relatively untapped, so the series has a unique flavor that I have definitely acquired a taste for. The addition of the werewolf characters in this book made it even more interesting.

What I didn't:

At the beginning of the first book I did find myself lost before I understood that it wasn't just one POV. The story switches between characters. By mid-way through the first book I was used to it and by the second, I hardly noticed it at all. 

Overall:

5/5 

I love the originality of this series and can't wait for the next installment. Adrian Phoenix has crafted a world rich with characters and personality that is saturated with culture and depth.