Yellow Moon

by Jewell Parker Rhodes

A creature rises from the ocean depths, drawn by music to attack victims, draining the blood. With each victim, it becomes more substantial, leaving a trail of bloodless bodies. Police detective, Daniel Parks brings the first victim to Dr. Marie Laveau to examine, hoping to use her special expertise to help him solve the crime. Now she is being follow by a growing string of ghosts begging her for help.

Marie is the descendant of the great voodoo priestess of New Orleans. She is a
modern doctor, a single mother, and a fledgling voodoo priestess. Along with the cop, Daniel Parks, she follows the creature’s trail, learning what it is, a wazimamoto, a vampire of Colonial Africa, and hopefully how to destroy it.

New Orleans, voodoo, music are an exotic mix and should be exciting, but I found it a slow read, maybe too much religion and philosophy. What on the surface should fit into the formula Urban Fantasy, steps outside into the mainstream, a literary vampire story. Perhaps all the deaths bothered me. The author has managed to kill off almost every character that Marie had connections to, her best friends, even her dog, along with the assorted other victims.

YELLOW MOON is the third book in a trilogy, and the only one dealing with a vampire. The series starts with VOODOO DREAMS which tells the story of the historic Marie Laveau, and is followed by VOODOO SEASON, which described the modern Marie Laveau discovering her ancestry and her powers.

Reviewed by Linda Suzane, May 15, 2009, www.midnightblood.com

YELLOW MOON
by Jewell Parker Rhodes

Hardcover: 304 pages
Publisher: Atria (August 19, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1416537104
ISBN-13: 978-1416537106
Vampires, Voodoo, New Orleans