Eighteen-year-old Leah Sullivan lost both her brother and her betrothed on the same Civil War battlefield. Left a spinster, she dutifully cares for her parents, eking out survival on their farm in Georgia after the South’s surrender. When handsome veteran Marcus Quinn comes calling to deliver her brother’s last words, sparks fly between the mysterious soldier and lonely young woman. To Leah’s delight, Marcus accepts her father’s offer to remain as a hired hand.
Leah does not share with Marcus what haunts her—she sought a fertility conjuring for her mother from the evil Kali Despierre. Will the babe be born cursed? Her fears seem realized when Elijah is born “behind the veil,” a caulbearer who will be looked upon with suspicion.
Hearing of Elijah’s strange birth, Kali believes she conjured a special voodoo babe and kidnaps him. She heads to New Orleans, certain the Queen of Voodoo, Marie Laveau, will pay gold for him. The Queen is said to sacrifice infants to the voodoo gods on the Day of the Dead, only weeks away.
Determined not to lose her brother to the voodoo underworld, Leah sets out to rescue him with Marcus at her side. Their risky journey deepens their attraction while sleeping under the stars inches apart, surrounded by peril. Through a cruel twist of fate, Leah discovers the devastating secret Marcus has been hiding about his past. Is their love strong enough to overcome the dangerous conjurings of both Marcus’s revelation and Kali’s evil?
Or will their love die, along with Elijah?
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