Deja Voodoo (A Cajun Magic Novel) (Entangled Suspense)
“The novel is well written [but] . . . can't make up for a lack of depth and character development.”
Deja VooDoo takes place in the fictional town of Bayou Miste, Louisiana, and centers around Alex Boyette, the oldest daughter of 19 children, and Ed Marceau, a police officer who works with one of Alex's brothers and is undercover in Bayou Miste to protect a witness in a high-profile mob case.
Alex is single, owns a business, and is doing well on her own, but her mother is determined to marry her off because apparently no woman can be truly happy without a man. Enter Ed, who is instantaneously attracted to Alex and vice versa. They almost immediately begin a sexual relationship, which turns into love in a matter of what feels like hours. And therein lies the problem.
Alex and Ed are underdeveloped characters who fall in love for no other apparent reason than they're both single and they have good sex. We're told Alex likes structure, but we're never shown this. We're told Ed s a confirmed bachelor, but at no point are we shown or even told why Alex is different from his ex-wife, who left him due to the long hours he worked.
Chemistry is one thing, but these characters have very little interaction outside the bedroom, and there is little to no build up to the declarations of love that come way too soon to be believable.
The secondary characters, including a dog who is turned into a man with voodoo magic, are as underdeveloped as the main characters. Calliope, Alex's best fried, walks in on what appears to be Alex's rape and doesn't help her. Instead, she opines about how hot the would-be rapist is. That the potential rapist turned out to be Alex's dog-turned-man and he was innocent of any crime doesn't mitigate the fact that neither Calliope nor Alex knew that at the time and they both thought he was a stranger who was naked in Alex's house.
'"That man is guilty of breaking and entering, and you're ready to jump his bones?" Alex slammed the door and turned to face her friend. "Are you that desperate?"
"Yes, oh yes. Did you see those muscles, sinews, and organs? Ah yes, organs . . ."'
That's not cute or quirky. It's disturbing.
The witness Ed is protecting has no redeeming qualities and is such a cliché it's difficult to believe she was written by a woman. The town of Bayou Miste itself seems to be filled with Boyettes and barely literate stereotypes.
The novel is well written and has some high-points, such as Gran LeBieu and, oddly, the character of Sport, the dog-turned-man.
Unfortunately, these kind of quirky, somewhat interesting characters can't make up for a lack of depth and character development.