The old woman feels her world slipping away from her minute by minute; like a drowning victim, her entire life is spinning past her. A life of pain and sorrow. Amelia Monroe knew that hers had been an unenviable and tortured life. Not the extraordinary wealth, prominence of her New Orleans heritage, nor good deeds kept her safe from the malevolent forces surrounding her; not even the brink of madness could shelter her. She had accepted long ago that no faith in a higher power, or knowledge of any kind, could protect her against the strange and horrific events orchestrated and played out by the spirit of Minette Dupre. A young mulatto girl, who, in life, found no happiness and, in death, took that angst into an inescapable place. Unable to make peace with Anubis and go through death’s door, Minette, like a trapped animal, lashed out in bitterness to terrorize the family she loathed and cursed before her death. And now, with each familial generation Minette haunts, the intensity of her evil powers hold no bounds. Not heaven or hell could contain this angry entity. Now, as the matriarch, and last of her family’s bloodline, lies dying, Amelia finally faces her ghostly adversary and all of the demonic forces brought with it.
Noelle Nevils Lanier makes her home in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, with her husband, Roger.