Moon

The second installment of a trilogy that began with "Season" (originally "Voodoo Season") finds the doctor granddaughter of a legendary voodoo queen struggling with an increasing number of violence victims in her New Orleans hospital, a situation that is complicated by her nightmares about an African vampire.

When Marie Levant, the great-great-granddaughter of Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau, sleeps, she dreams of rising waters. She knows better than anyone about New Orleans’ brutal past, its legacy of slavery, poverty, racism and sexism. As a doctor at Charity Hospital’s ER, she treats its current victims. But she cannot cure her own terrifying dreams. When a jazzman, a wharf worker and a prostitute all turn up murdered, their blood drained, Marie sees their ghosts and embarks on an adventure to uncover their dark connection. Meanwhile, in her dreams, the waters around New Orleans are rising and the yellow moon warns of an ancient evil, an African vampire called wazimamoto, intent on destroying Marie and all the Laveau descendants. Summoning her ancestral powers, Marie fights to protect her daughter, lover and herself from the wazimamoto’s seductive assault on both body and spirit. Echoing with the heartache and triumph of the African-American experience and the horrors of racial oppression, "Moon" gives readers an unforgettable heroine in the sexy, vulnerable and mysterious Marie Levant, while it powerfully evokes a city on the brink of catastrophe.

(Note: This book was originally published as "Yellow Moon" in 2008.) Read about the trilogy's third installment.