John Everson’s new book is another treasure to read that fits within the universe of his other works but is slightly different from his horror output.  This does not make the book any less pleasurable but it does show the diversity in the amazing style of Everson’s work.

The characters are very well constructed and interesting from the small cameo to the main characters.  Lawrence Ribald, the main character, tells the story in the first person and he finds himself in the middle of an investigation that has horrifying aspects that starts our hero down a rabbit hole that may not bring him back to reality.  He has his faults and they work very well within the confines of the story and make him extremely human which is an asset to this detective thriller novel.

The subsidiary characters are very well defined and helps the readers enter the voodoo world in New Orleans.  Some of them become victims and there is an emotional strength when this happens that it makes you yearn for Ribald to solve the crimes.  All characters play a part in the overall mystery and they do help push the plot forward.

The plot is well constructed which makes this a real page turner with very little room for the reader to catch a breath.  The setting and pacing are above par and drives the reader to its ultimate conclusion.  There are some very interesting voodoo rituals and I am not versed in voodoo rituals but these are quite the head turning.

This is an exciting read and as a horror novel probably will not be for the hard-core but as a mystery thriller novel it does exceed.  Everson’s novel always turns the normal tropes on their heads to give the reader a very unique experience with the confines of each genre that he tackles.  This is an exceptional novel and one that I thorough enjoyed and highly recommend.

::SPOILERS::
I am very torn on how to rate this book!! There are some excellent qualities, and I definitely got what I came for when choosing this title. However, there were a few things that bothered me to the point of almost ruining this for me. 

First, a quick read of the description was enough to get me excited. A detective in New Orleans dealing with killings related to voodoo? YES, please. And this doesn't disappoint. Our main character is like one of the old time noir private eyes, taking on the city by himself (more on that in a bit). We have priestesses, sacrifices, midnight rituals, and everything else you would expect in a voodoo tale. 

I also enjoyed the story here. The curse and the methods used in the killings are unique and descriptive. There are plenty of surprising events that will keep you entertained! It is a fun, quick read.

On to the bad qualities. 

The killings all happen on the night of the full moon. We focus on it so much that the author titles his chapters with phases of the moon. However, come full moon night, our lead detective on the case is NOT even working. He's off in bars and hooking up with people and wandering through the woods. At one point he even says something like "Oh, is that tonight? I forgot there was a full moon." Dude, your whole case is based on this. I think you would know, or at least show up at work that night. .

Our main character kicks off the story by telling us he lost his wife in one of the first voodoo killings, which kicks off the investigation. True, she was cheating on him, but he seems to not show an ounce of sadness or remorse over his wife. Even though he wants to solve the case, she seems to have little to do with his motivation. And he certainly doesn't let his new widow status get in the way of his very successful love life.

Which brings us to his choice in women. I'm not a prude, and maybe we don't all ask for a history from our perspective partners, but this guy takes unsafe sex to the next level. He witnesses a woman having sex with a demon in a coven's group ritual. The next time he sees her, they have sex. Then he witnesses another woman having sex with a snake during a group ritual. The next time he sees her, they have sex. I think these rituals would give some men pause? He acts like it is nothing at all. Don't all women do this? Or is this just his type? We won't even get into the incident with the voodoo priestess. Let's just not.

Poor relationship skills aside, for a detective, this man has NO regard for police procedure. I know authors are not always versed in that kind of thing, but if your main is a detective, you should at least try. He shows up at crime scenes, touches everything, takes things with him, loses evidence, goes to most interviews and follows leads completely alone, and more. My breaking point was (SPOILERS here) when he found a mutilated body on an alter, AND multiple bodies in the trees at the same site, AND two policemen he is with go missing. His response? He goes home and goes to bed, then goes to work in the morning. Like it was nothing!! We never talk about any of that again. WHAT??? I'm mad just typing this. When I think of only this one element, I want to give the book a one-star.

Ok, that last one really gets me. BUT, I still can't give it less than a three, because god help me, this still has all the fun elements I wanted it to have: voodoo, curses, rituals, killings, New Orleans, voodoo, and voodoo. I mean, how can that be less than a three, right??

This was an entertaining read.  I was able to learn more about Voodoo through the eyes of the main character and that was a great benefit.  There were some scenes that made no sense as he is a detective and should have known better.  It wasn't as scary as I was led to believe and would be good for those dabbling into horror.  Trigger warnings include: graphic sex and violence as well as sex with non humans.  Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced copy. 

I will blog this book closer to publication date.

With a title like "Voodoo Heart," perhaps it is inevitable that this book reads extremely similarly to "Falling Angel" by William Hjortsberg, famously adapted into the film "Angel Heart" starring Mickey O'Rourke and Robert De Niro. There is no Lucifer-like entity at play in Everson's novel. Instead, he introduces us to jaded veteran detective, Lawrence Ribaud, whose friends call him Cork. He knows most people think voodoo is just a fun tourist trap and a fun part of the New Orleans experience. Although he is nowhere near a true believer, let alone a practitioner of the religion, he has some experience with it. Specifically, he starts to learn it may be at play with the very odd string of missing bodies whose count goes up as the book progresses. 

I don't normally like police procedurals (or at least, they take a look to keep my attention), but "Voodoo Heart" kept me turning the pages and had compelling elements.  

Ribaud's wife was recently murdered, and infidelity may have been involved (that's all I will say otherwise I will be ruining the plot). 

I found it a bit obnoxious that Ribaud starts to consider voodoo as a possibility only after hearing an unidentified Black woman blame the murders and abductions on a pattern that fits with voodoo and the full moon. The other aspect that bothered me about this is--having established he doesn't have much connection to the world of voodoo and is a skeptic, he conveniently just so happens to know a mambo--a voodoo priestess--who operates a shop in the French Quarter that caters to tourists and pays the bills while she does "the real stuff" for a select group of clients. Along with this, the author's "let me show you the research I've done" irked me because there's a way to do this in which it feels organic to the plot. It was a bit clumsily handled here. 

I wasn't expecting the author to do anything new or original, but there's always that feeling of disappointment for me when there are the typical voodoo "scares." In particular, some readers may not enjoy the author's look at voodoo through a very white lens. I did not like the author's reliance on sensationalized images from Hollywood films of naked sex rituals involving snakes to depict voodoo. As well, the higher beings prayed to were not the names of the loa in the Louisiana voodoo, Haitian vodou, or West African vodun traditions. He uses names such as Antimons and Herodeus, which seem made up and vaguely Greek/Roman. It's fine to have that as a plot element--but I felt it would have benefitted the author not to conflate this with voodoo. 

Nonetheless, some elements were interesting, and I did enjoy reading much of the novel. It is compulsively readable and is a great Halloween read.

Review Copy

I love voodoo, mysteries, murder and all of these set in modern day New Orleans. I also love, love, love John Everson. He's the kind of guy I wish I had met,oh, say in high school. What fun that would have been!

I enjoyed VOODOO HEART as I do all of John's books. It was well written, was fun, horror filled, and noir-detective. It just missed out on getting five stars from me because the main character was just a little too unbelievable in his wishy-washyness regarding his love for his wife. Is that how a "guy" acts? It could be. I dunno. Either way, this woman reviewer is going to knock a star off that guy for that! But, that star notwithstanding, John Everson remains one of my go to authors. If you like sex voodoo magic, blood, horror and sex read VOODOO HEART. Set aside your real world inhibitions and escape.

Set in New Orleans, this is a hard boiled detective novel mixed with the culture of Voodoo.  Detective Lawrence Ribaud finds himself investigating a series of disappearances where people go missing in the middle of the night and only their ripped out hearts are found in their beds in the morning.  Ribaud suspects Voodoo is at play and although a non believer he begins to realise there may be more to it than shops selling charms and potions to tourists.

If you are looking for a procedural read then this isn't the book for you.  However, if you want an entertaining crime/horror with lots of Voodoo then this is the read for you. Easy to read that keeps you turning the page to the end.

Voodoo Heart takes a deep-dive into the occult world of New Orleans and its famous, yet also infamous, voodoo culture. While the author makes it clear that voodoo is often mistaken for being considered bad juju and something that immediately has a negative association, the thorough research made on the topic also brings to light that there are as many positive things about voodoo as well.

Mainstream society unfortunately only clings to the bad shit because happy endings don’t really sell, do they?

As great a detective novel as any other, I will admit that after finishing Voodoo Heart, this book will hold a special place in my digital shelf of favorites. Obviously, it’s because of voodoo and New Orleans, but also because Everson has written a novel full of acute observations about the place (the kind of people who live there and their beliefs) that he has created an enthralling world of its own not many people are aware of. Heck, some of us can’t help but to associate New Orleans with voodoo because it’s such an integral part of that specific society (myself included).

Detective Lawrence Ribaud is thankfully not a close-minded individual and it’s a relief to read a detective story that breaks away from this mindset. Initially he is dismissive about all the voodoo nonsense in the beginning as any believable person would be, but gradually opens up to consider every angle, doing what he can to ultimately ‘solve the case’. In this regard (don’t worry, you’re not getting any spoilers) Everson did a great job about his character’s development and for that I applause him. Ribaud uses what he knows and proves to be a quick thinker, therefore making him as good as any of the other well-known detectives that exist in fiction today, especially when handling supernatural cases.

The portrayal of the detective in Voodoo Heart is somewhat stereotypical. He drinks too much, he has unprotected sex with married women, his co-workers are grumpy, he's perpetually hungover. But, there is voodoo involved, which is a stereotype of New Orleans. So, what to think of this? It depends on what you're looking for. Some people love the noir style of detective writing. This certainly fits the kind of hard-boiled detective of the old film noir and dark mystery novels of the past, plus voodoo.

The stereotypical detective is okay if that's what you're looking for. I don't mind that too much, all though the huge amount of alcohol consumed by him and his dates started to make me feel hungover. That man's liver must look like a Brillo pad. 

It was adventurous and a romp I quickly sped through. He did seem to comment on women's bodies a lot. He'd be an inch away from becoming a human sacrifice with his heart ripped out, and he'd be commenting on women's public hair and breasts and getting an erection. Who gets an erection when they're scared to death? Men were described as either skinny or fat. Women were described in graphic detail.

But, like I said, if you read this book expecting the old-fashioned hardboiled detective, plus voodoo, you won't be disappointed. You have to realize that's what you're getting with Voodoo Heart.

Graphic sex including sex with inanimate objects, a snake, and supernatural beings, copious consumption of alcohol, graphic violence and off-page domestic violence. Plus voodoo.

Thank you Netgalley and Flame Tree press for this ARC.

Maaaan, I really wanted to love this! Voodoo - good! New Orleans - good! Witches and demons and spells and snakes! - good!!! But it just didn’t come to together well for me. 
My main issues, without spoiling anything; Cork had woken up a few months ago to find his wife missing, her side of the bed soaked in blood, and a human heart in the middle, but while he SAID he was heartbroken and would have her back in flash, he’s pretty quick to move on and doesn’t seem overly traumatised by this event! AND the police are treating the cases as missing persons not murder because there’s no body. Can they not DNA test the hearts??? Pretty sure if my heart is on my bed and I am not, then I am dead and I didn’t do it to myself..... 
It wasn’t a bad book, just a meh book. Three stars is probably generous, it’s more of a 2.5. I just needed to believe in Cork more and he just felt like a bit of a randy jerk instead of a grieving widow Detective.

Well, what can I say about Voodoo Heart? I wanted to read it because the story takes place in New Orleans one of my favorite places in the world. There should be a classification of a book like this referring to male readers like a guy version of chicklit. It's got snakes and tattoos and sex and booze and Voodoo Queen porn. What it did not have was a properly appreciative audience in me.

I like the mystery of the storyline. I loved the setting and the Voodoo aspects. I visited New Orleans in the past so that was cool to imagine where this story was taking place. I did struggle with a few things. I didn’t connect with the MC and felt like I had a hard time understanding some of his motivations. There was also something about the writing that didn’t sit well. It was bad at all it just land well - not sure if that makes sense.