Royal
Street
Sentinels of New
Orleans Book One
Suzanne Johnson
Book
Description:
As the junior wizard sentinel for New
Orleans, Drusilla Jaco's job involves a lot more potion-mixing and
pixie-retrieval than sniffing out supernatural bad guys like rogue vampires and
lethal were-creatures. DJ's boss and mentor, Gerald St. Simon, is the wizard
tasked with protecting the city from anyone or anything that might slip over
from the preternatural beyond.
Then Hurricane Katrina hammers New
Orleans' fragile levees, unleashing more than just dangerous flood waters.
While winds howled and Lake Pontchartrain surged, the borders between the
modern city and the Otherworld crumbled. Now the undead and the restless are
roaming the Big Easy, and a serial killer with ties to voodoo is murdering
soldiers sent to help the city recover.
To make it worse, Gerald St. Simon has
gone missing, the wizards' Elders have assigned a grenade-toting assassin as
DJ's new partner, and undead pirate Jean Lafitte wants to make her walk his
plank. The search for Gerry and the killer turns personal when DJ learns the
hard way that loyalty requires sacrifice, allies come from the unlikeliest
places, and duty mixed with love creates one bitter roux.
Excerpt:
A secluded Louisiana
bayou. A sexy pirate. Seduction and deceit. My Friday afternoon had the makings
of a great romantic adventure, at least in theory.
In practice, angry mosquitoes were using me for target practice,
humidity had ruined any prayer of a good hair day, and the pirate in question―the
infamous Jean Lafitte―was two-hundred years old, armed, and
carrying a six-pack of Paradise condoms in
assorted fruit flavors.
I wasn’t sure what unnerved me more—the fact that the historical undead had discovered erotic
accessories, or that Lafitte felt the need to practice safe sex.
Nothing
about the pirate looked safe. Tall and broad-shouldered, he had dark blue eyes
and a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth as he watched me set two
glasses and a bottle of dark rum on a rickety wooden table. A tanned, muscular
chest peeked from his open-collared shirt, and shaggy dark hair framed a
clean-shaven face. A jagged scar across his jaw reminded me the so-called
gentleman pirate also had his ruthless side.
He’d
arrived by way of a stolen boat at this isolated cabin near Delacroix, a
half-hour outside New Orleans,
to pursue two of the world’s most timeless pleasures: sex and money. I’d met
him here to play the role of a gullible young wizard falling under the spell of
the legendary pirate, at least for a while. Then I’d do my duty as deputy
sentinel and send his swashbuckling hide back to the Beyond, where he could rub
shoulders with other undead legends and preternatural creatures unfit for
polite human company.
My
hand shook as I poured the rum, sloshing a few drops of amber liquid over the
side of the glass. I’d finally been given a serious assignment, and I needed it
to go without a hitch.
Lafitte’s
fingers brushed mine as he took the drink, sending an unexpected rush of energy
up my arm. “Merci, Mademoiselle Jaco—or
may I call you Drusilla?”
Actually, I’d
prefer he didn’t call me anything. Despite his obvious hopes for the evening,
this wasn’t a date. “Most people call me DJ.”
“Bah,” he said,
taking a sip of rum. “Those are alphabet letters, not a name.”
From beneath the
red sash that accented his waist, Lafitte pulled a modern semiautomatic handgun
and set it on the table next to the rum bottle. I knew how he’d gotten it—he’d
rolled the Tulane student that summoned him, lifted the kid’s wallet and iPod,
rode the streetcar to Canal Street,
and made a trade for the gun. Enterprising guy, Lafitte.
I pondered the
odd spike of energy I’d gotten from his hand. Touching increases the emotional
crap I absorb from people as an empath, but Lafitte was technically a dead guy.
Still, I’d like to say if he touched me again, I’d demand double pay from the
wizards’ Congress of Elders. Triple if it involved lips.
But who was I
kidding? My bargaining position was nonexistent. My boss Gerry only sent me on
this run because he had something else to do and knew Lafitte might respond to
my questionable seduction skills.
I’d pulled my
unruly blonde hair out of its usual ponytail for the occasion, loaded on some
makeup to play up my teal eyes, and poured myself into a little black skirt,
short enough to show off my legs while not offending Lafitte’s
nineteenth-century sensibilities.
It must have
worked, because the pirate was giving me that head-to-toe appraisal guys do on
instinct, like they’re assessing a juicy slab of beef and deciding whether they
want it rare, medium, or well-done.
“You really are
lovely, Drusilla.” The timbre of Lafitte’s voice shivered down my spine, and I
fought the urge to check out the biceps underneath that linen shirt.
Holy crap. This
was just wrong. I
should not be absorbing his lust.
River
Road
Sentinels of New Orleans, Book 2
Suzanne Johnson
Book Description:
Hurricane
Katrina is long gone, but the preternatural storm rages on in New Orleans. New
species from the Beyond moved into Louisiana after the hurricane destroyed the
borders between worlds, and it falls to wizard sentinel Drusilla Jaco and her
partner, Alex Warin, to keep the preternaturals peaceful and the humans
unaware. But a war is brewing between two clans of Cajun merpeople in
Plaquemines Parish, and down in the swamp, DJ learns, there’s more stirring
than angry mermen and the threat of a were-gator.
Wizards
are dying, and something—or someone—from the Beyond is poisoning the waters of
the mighty Mississippi, threatening the humans who live and work along the
river. DJ and Alex must figure out what unearthly source is contaminating the
water and who—or what—is killing the wizards. Is it a malcontented merman, the
naughty nymph, or some other critter altogether? After all, DJ’s undead suitor,
the pirate Jean Lafitte, knows his way around a body or two.
It’s
anything but smooth sailing on the bayou as the Sentinels of New Orleans series
continues.
Excerpt:
The
minute hand of the ornate grandfather clock crept like a
gator stuck in swamp mud. I’d been watching it for half an hour, nursing a
fizzy cocktail from my perch inside the Hotel Monteleone.
The plaque on the enormous clock claimed it had
been hand- carved of mahogany in 1909, about 130 years after
the birth of the undead pirate waiting for me upstairs.
They were both quite handsome, but
the clock was a lot safer.
The infamous Jean Lafitte had
expected me at seven. He’d summoned me to his French Quarter hotel suite by
courier like I was one of his early nineteenth-century wenches, and I hated to
destroy his pirate-king delusions, but the historical undead don’t summon
wizards. We summon them.
I’d have blown him off if my boss on
the Congress of Elders hadn’t ordered me to comply and my co-sentinel, Alex,
hadn’t claimed a prior engagement.
At seven thirty, I abandoned my
drink, took a deep breath, and marched through the lobby toward the bank of
elevators.
On the long dead-man-walking stroll
down the carpeted hallway, I imagined all the horrible requests Jean might
make. He’d saved my life a few years ago, after Hurricane Katrina sent the city
into freefall, and I hadn’t seen him since. I’d been desperate at the time. I
might have promised him unfettered access to modern New Orleans in exchange for
his assistance. I might have promised him a place to live. I might have
promised him things I don’t even remember. In other words, I might be totally
screwed.
I reached the door of the Eudora
Welty Suite and knocked, reflecting that Jean Lafitte probably had no idea who
Eudora Welty was, and wouldn’t like her if he did. Ms. Welty had been a modern
sort of woman who wouldn’t hop to attention when summoned by a scoundrel.
He didn’t answer immediately. I’d
made him wait, after all, and Jean lived in a tit- for- tat world. I paused a
few breaths and knocked harder. Finally, he flung open the door, waving me
inside to a suite plush with tapestries of peach and royal blue, thick carpet
that swallowed the narrow heels of my pumps, and a plasma TV he couldn’t
possibly know how to operate. What a waste.
“You have many assets, Drusilla, but
apparently a respect for time is not among them.” Deep, disapproving voice,
French accent, broad shoulders encased in a red linen shirt, long dark hair
pulled back into a tail, eyes such a cobalt blue they bordered on navy. And
technically speaking, dead.
He was as sexy as ever.
“Sorry.” I slipped my hand in my
skirt pocket, fingering the small pouch of magic-infused herbs I carried at all
times. My mojo bag wouldn’t help with my own perverse attraction to the man,
but it would keep my empathic abilities in check. If he still had a perverse
attraction to me, I didn’t want to feel it.
He eased his six-foot-two frame into
a sturdy blue chair and slung one long leg over the arm as he gave me a
thorough eyeraking, a ghost of a smile on his face.
I perched on the edge of the
adjacent sofa, easing back against a pair of plump throw pillows, and looked at
him expectantly. I hoped what ever he wanted wouldn’t jeopardize my life, my
job, or my meager bank account.
“You are as lovely as ever, Jolie,”
Jean said, trotting out his pet name for me that sounded deceptively intimate
and brought back a lot of memories, most of them bad. “I will forgive your
tardiness— perhaps you were late because you were selecting clothing that I
would like.” His gaze lingered on my legs. “You chose beautifully.”
I’d picked a conservative black
skirt and simple white blouse with the aim of looking professional for a
business meeting, part of my ongoing attempt to prove to the Elders I was a
mature wizard worthy of a pay raise. But this was Jean Lafitte, so I should
have worn coveralls. I’d forgotten what a letch he could be.
“I have a date after our meeting,” I
lied. He didn’t need to know said date involved a round carton with the words
Blue Bell Ice Cream printed on front. “Why did you want to see me?”
There, that hadn’t been so
difficult—just a simple request. No drama. No threats. No double- entendre.
Straight to business.
“Does a man need a reason to see a
beautiful woman? Especially one who is indebted to him, and who has made him
many promises?” A slow smile spread across his face, drawing my eyes to his
full lips and the ragged scar that trailed his jawline.
I might be the empath in the room,
but he knew very well that, in some undead kind of way, I thought he was hot.
I felt my face warming to the shade
of a trailer- trash bridesmaid’s dress, one whose color had a name like raging
rouge. I’d had a similar reaction when I first met Jean in 2005, two days
before a mean hurricane with a sissy name turned her malevolent eye toward the
Gulf Coast. I blamed my whole predicament on Katrina, the bitch.
Her winds had driven the waters of
Lake Pontchartrain into the canals that crisscrossed the city, collapsing
levees and filling the low, concave metro area like a gigantic soup bowl.
But NBC Nightly News and Anderson
Cooper had missed the biggest story of all: how, after the storm, a mob of old
gods, historical undead, and other preternatural victims of the scientific age
flooded New Orleans. As a wizard, I’d had a ringside seat. Now, three years
later, the wizards had finally reached accords with the major preternatural
ruling bodies, and the borders were down, as of two days ago. Jean hadn’t wasted
any time.
About
the Author:
Suzanne
Johnson writes urban fantasy and paranormal romance from Auburn, Alabama, after
a career in educational publishing that has spanned five states and six
universities. She grew up halfway between the Bear Bryant Museum and
Elvis' birthplace and lived in New Orleans for fifteen years, so she has a
highly refined sense of the absurd and an ingrained love of SEC football and
fried gator on a stick.
Happy Reading!
Cana
