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Marie
Marie Laveau. She was the bewitching, seductive queen of the voodoos, none in New Orleans could escape her spell. She ruled the city of sin. She shone like a jewel in the squalor and splendor of Old New Orleans: Marie Laveau...pagan priestess, daughter of destiny.
Even as a child her special powers threatened the first Queen Marie, her own mother. But neither black magic nor clairvoyance nor voodoo powers alone could have foreseen the tempestuous life she would live, bound heart and soul to that city of sin, though the Civil War into a new century.
By beauty, sex and magic Marie Laveau insinuated her way into Creole society, the businesswoman who ran a brothel that became a hub of wartime espionage...the healer whose very powers destroyed the only love she ever knew...the Voodoo Queen who mourned her enemies as she buried her friends, the irresistible icon of fire and ice whose secrets were more powerful than death itself!
Even as a child her special powers threatened the first Queen Marie, her own mother. But neither black magic nor clairvoyance nor voodoo powers alone could have foreseen the tempestuous life she would live, bound heart and soul to that city of sin, though the Civil War into a new century.
By beauty, sex and magic Marie Laveau insinuated her way into Creole society, the businesswoman who ran a brothel that became a hub of wartime espionage...the healer whose very powers destroyed the only love she ever knew...the Voodoo Queen who mourned her enemies as she buried her friends, the irresistible icon of fire and ice whose secrets were more powerful than death itself!
486 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 1979
About the author
Margot Arnold
31 books11 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
*Marguerite Marie Dominique Monro Arnold (1879-1969), British novelist.
aka
Margot Arnold.
*Petronelle Marguerite Mary Crouch Cook (1925-2016), British-American novelist, author of Penny Spring and Sir Toby Glendower Series
aka
Petronelle Cook and Margot Arnold.
*Marguerite Marie Dominique Monro Arnold (1879-1969), British novelist.
aka
Margot Arnold.
*Petronelle Marguerite Mary Crouch Cook (1925-2016), British-American novelist, author of Penny Spring and Sir Toby Glendower Series
aka
Petronelle Cook and Margot Arnold.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 8, 2017
Full disclosure: I'm not a particular fan of epics that shove an entire life into 500 pages. There are exceptions -- but in general, I'd rather not see multiple years passing outside 'childhood recap' or montage stuff that sets the table for the meat of the book. It annoys me that so much goes on behind the scenes & we're not privy to the details, especially when those happenings impact what's going on when the narrative resumes.
Unfortunately, this book is a good example of why I don't like the time-passing-in-chunks technique.
MARIE is a fictionalized imagining of Marie Laveau's daughter, who may or may not have shared the same name. It follows her life from teenage years up through adulthood, then skips rapidly through the later years & ends with the modern era, during which we're left wondering whether Marie #2 succeeded in her ultimate goal: i.e., to transfer her soul (self? essence?) into younger bodies & attain a degree of immortality.
Despite being the central character, Marie's thought processes remain frustratingly unclear. We're given precious little insight into her underlying motives, let alone her feelings re: voodoo, her mother, her friends, etc. Not only that, but the story slogs down with pointless secondhand details about other characters that Marie is somehow invested in...but who knows why, because we're lacking the proper understanding of what makes her tick. She's not a particularly nice person -- that's about all we know for certain. While I don't mind central characters of the bitchy variety, I need to understand them. I need to identify with them on some level -- but Marie's opaqueness ruins any chance of connection.
Another problem is the lack of detail re: voodoo rites & practices. The author refers to these things as if her audience is familiar with details -- which wouldn't be bad, except she doesn't exchange infodumps for observing the items in use. Point of fact, we rarely see the voodoo at all -- one exception being a bizarre battle between Marie & her mother, which comes out of nowhere & explains ABSOLUTELY NOTHING of what's going on as their powers swoop around & vie for dominance. Marie simply "makes such-and-such" or "does this" or "ensures this will work" with her knowledge...which we don't understand. If there's no background to the process or insight into why or how Marie is doing stuff, WHO CARES? Throwing up your hands & saying "hey, that's voodoo!" doesn't hold water for this reader. I'm a white chick from middle-class southern Ohio. I need help with major cultural differences, see? :P
Other issues: characters flip-flopping from one page to another, the plethora of women named Marie (Marie 1 & 2, Marie-Philome, Marie-Therese, & others), confusing family names (this book really needed a character chart), incidental characters I couldn't keep straight, time gaps, & the insertion of modernity into the last several chapters. I liked the first half well enough, despite its flaws...but Part 2 was pretty dull, the Civil War seemed distant, & the last 150 pages somehow covered Reconstruction through the modern era. Whut? After Marie's nemesis (the delightfully evil St Regis) was killed, things went rapidly downhill. Not even the splatters of WTFery could salvage my enjoyment. One character practically confesses to family orgies in the attic -- c'mon, that should've been fab! But instead it felt like a random attempt to boost my interest when it was flagging. Meh.
3 stars, but only for the scenes & characters I liked (plus the writing itself wasn't bad).
Unfortunately, this book is a good example of why I don't like the time-passing-in-chunks technique.
MARIE is a fictionalized imagining of Marie Laveau's daughter, who may or may not have shared the same name. It follows her life from teenage years up through adulthood, then skips rapidly through the later years & ends with the modern era, during which we're left wondering whether Marie #2 succeeded in her ultimate goal: i.e., to transfer her soul (self? essence?) into younger bodies & attain a degree of immortality.
Despite being the central character, Marie's thought processes remain frustratingly unclear. We're given precious little insight into her underlying motives, let alone her feelings re: voodoo, her mother, her friends, etc. Not only that, but the story slogs down with pointless secondhand details about other characters that Marie is somehow invested in...but who knows why, because we're lacking the proper understanding of what makes her tick. She's not a particularly nice person -- that's about all we know for certain. While I don't mind central characters of the bitchy variety, I need to understand them. I need to identify with them on some level -- but Marie's opaqueness ruins any chance of connection.
Another problem is the lack of detail re: voodoo rites & practices. The author refers to these things as if her audience is familiar with details -- which wouldn't be bad, except she doesn't exchange infodumps for observing the items in use. Point of fact, we rarely see the voodoo at all -- one exception being a bizarre battle between Marie & her mother, which comes out of nowhere & explains ABSOLUTELY NOTHING of what's going on as their powers swoop around & vie for dominance. Marie simply "makes such-and-such" or "does this" or "ensures this will work" with her knowledge...which we don't understand. If there's no background to the process or insight into why or how Marie is doing stuff, WHO CARES? Throwing up your hands & saying "hey, that's voodoo!" doesn't hold water for this reader. I'm a white chick from middle-class southern Ohio. I need help with major cultural differences, see? :P
Other issues: characters flip-flopping from one page to another, the plethora of women named Marie (Marie 1 & 2, Marie-Philome, Marie-Therese, & others), confusing family names (this book really needed a character chart), incidental characters I couldn't keep straight, time gaps, & the insertion of modernity into the last several chapters. I liked the first half well enough, despite its flaws...but Part 2 was pretty dull, the Civil War seemed distant, & the last 150 pages somehow covered Reconstruction through the modern era. Whut? After Marie's nemesis (the delightfully evil St Regis) was killed, things went rapidly downhill. Not even the splatters of WTFery could salvage my enjoyment. One character practically confesses to family orgies in the attic -- c'mon, that should've been fab! But instead it felt like a random attempt to boost my interest when it was flagging. Meh.
3 stars, but only for the scenes & characters I liked (plus the writing itself wasn't bad).
Displaying 1 of 1 review