Set in 1865 New Orleans on the fragile edge of emancipation*, Laveau's Garden follows* Esi*, a young enslaved root worker who flees her plantation after betrayal and bloodshed leave her with nothing but her faith in the earth and the spirits that answer her. Haunted by what she has survived and hunted by a world built to cage her, Esi escapes into the French Quarter, where freedom might be promised but never guaranteed.*

n

There she meets Ambrose Duprée*, the mixed-race son of the white governor, a man of wealth and influence whose very existence is viewed as a scandal by the ruling class. To Black New Orleans, Ambrose is powerful, protected, and familiar, yet white society treats him as a stain on his father's legacy. When Ambrose offers Esi shelter, their connection turns into something dangerous and consuming,* a love that threatens the order of both their worlds*.*

n

As Esi builds a life within Ambrose's home, her root work deepens. Gardens grow too fast, herbs respond like they recognize her hands, and unseen forces move through the house like memory*. But peace is brief. Ambrose is drafted into the Civil War and returns gravely wounded, his life slipping away. Pregnant and desperate, Esi commits the one act she swore she never would: she calls on an* ancient goddess for help and offers something in return she does not fully understand.

n

Ambrose survives, changed*. Immortal. Hunger-bound. More powerful than anything their world has names for. And the price of his second life becomes the curse that shapes everything to come.*

n

Laveau's Garden

Comentarios