DREAMWalker Group
Where creativity and spirit converge

 

 

 
To assist you in finding books you enjoy reading, you can search this site for authors or artists and look at their profile pages:
 

By first name

By last name

By subjects

 

 

SPONSORS

A bridge supporting dialog

 

Michael Walker's Blog
(Awakened Man's World)

Our DREAMTeam

Email Us

 

 

Affiliates

 

Works by
Jim Duggins
(Writer)

jimdugg at aol dot com
(Please fix this email address before you use it.
We're trying to reduce spam! )
http://JimDuggins.com
Profile created January 31, 2009
  • The Power: A Novel of Voodoo (2008) -- Nominated finalist Indie Book Awards for Best Historical Novel and Best Multi-Cultural Fiction Book
    The year is 1832, a cotton plantation in George where Reyna, an eight-year-old slave girl, is forever changed by the sight of her mother’s public lashing for practicing voodoo. Her mother tells her that she is descended from voodoo royalty. Later, when her mother is sold, Reyna is taken to the Big House to serve the sadistic Mistress Suzanne. Fearing that her mistress will kill her one day, Reyna performs her first voodoo ritual. Her master and mistress are killed in a carriage accident which confirms her mother’s prophecy.

    The plantation is sold and Reyna is bought by Joseph Hamber, a traveling merchant who takes Reyna, then thirteen, to a house of prostitution outside New Orleans where he rapes her and leaves her on consignment. There, the women treat her cruelly and Reyna throws herself wholeheartedly into the worship of voodoo, believing that only the religion of her ancestors can protect her.

    After a narrow escape from slave hunters, Reyna studies voodoo with the legendary voodooenne Marie Laveau, and as her mystic skills grow, she can’t help herself as her spiritual force thrusts itself to the surface in New Orleans’ Congo Square. As a vassal to Laveau she lives with another young slave, Caroline, who, because of her disobedience, is murdered at a voodoo ritual organized by Laveau. Having taken a lover without Laveau’s approval, Reyna knows she will also suffer Laveau’s wrath and is unsurprised when she must flee to San Francisco because Laveau has identified her to slave catchers.

    Although she considers San Francisco, the rat-ridden seaport entrance to the gold fields, her Devil’s Island, she vows, “By Vodu! Someday I’ll be queen of this Godforsaken town.” With that promise, Reyna begins a new life, passing as a widowed white woman who becomes a landowner, a businesswoman, a stock market investor, and the queen of San Francisco voodoo. In order to find work for runaway slaves, she creates businesses, a livery stable, a saloon, a trio of laundries, all of them staffed by runaway slaves. Incredibly, Reyna makes a fortune operating a station in the underground railway.

    Because black people cannot testify in court, she takes on a white man as a partner, one who can testify if she is discovered to be a runaway. Unbeknownst to her, however, her partner, Robert MacGill, is a closeted homosexual. Just as she covers her past with a respectable white stockbroker, he uses his beautiful and wealthy partner to hide his sexual orientation. Stalking both of them is Coalman Rocker, Chief Detective of the San Francisco Police. In addition to his police work, Rocker operates a lucrative sideline, blackmailing wealthy San Franciscans whose private lives he can spy upon using his city authority. When he has the evidence he needs, Rocker blackmails MacGill to “protect” his sexual secret. Ultimately, MacGill must steal from Reyna’s account to pay his blackmailer. Reyna overhears MacGill talking to his lawyers as he plans to swindle her and go to South America to escape the continual threat of Rocker. When the lawyers leave, an enraged Reyna attacks MacGill, pushing him over a balcony and fatally breaking his neck. Although she has punished the man who has stolen her fortune, there remains the problem of the lecherous Coalman Rocker. In the final scenes, Reyna arranges an exotic Caribbean religious ritual with the detective as her special guest. Afterwards she is left with the delicious knowledge that when he wakes up from his drunken revelry, he will find that he has been shanghaied onto a ship headed for China.

(We need your help! 
Let us know if you have updated information for this page!
Write us at
dreamwalkergroup@me.com)
 

Related Topics

Click any of the following links for more information on similar topics of interest in relation to this page.

Jim Duggins
Is Listed As A Favorite Of
(Alphabetical Order
By First Name)

TO BE DETERMINED

Jim's Favorite
Authors/Books
(Alphabetical Order
By First Name)
[As of February 5, 2009]

  • Erik Larson
    The Devil in White City
  • Geoffrey Edwards
    Fire Bell in the Night
  • Karl Ignemma
    The Expeditions
  • Karl Philbrick
    Mayflower
  • Kevin Baker
    Paradise Alley
  • Lawrence Goldstore
    The Anatomy of Deception
  • Lawrence Hill
    Someone Knows My Name
  • Lenore Hart
    Becky: The Life and Times of Becky Thatcher

"Night's on my Bedstand"
(Alphabetical Order
By First Name)
[As of February 6, 2009]

  • Kathleen Kent
    The Heretic's Daughter
  • Simon Schama
    Rough Crossing
  • Susan Straight
    A Million Nightingales
  • Tess Gerritsen
    The Bone Garden
  • Thomas Maltman
    Night Birds
DREAMWaker Group is not incorporated as a non-profit organization.

Your donations help defray the cost of running this site but are not tax-deductible
as charitable expenses
.  See your tax consultant for more information.

Site Design and
Copyright © 2002-21 by
DREAMWalker Group
Email Us

Proprietor - Michael Walker  

Editorial - Catherine Groves  Michael Walker 

Layout & Design Michael Walker