The Legend of the Swamp Witch

Book excerpt: 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.