Perhaps the best written of all the slave narratives, Twelve Years a Slave is a harrowing memoir about one of the darkest periods in American history. It recounts how Solomon Northup, born a free man in New York, was lured to Washington, D.C., in 1841 with the promise of fast money, then drugged and beaten and sold into slavery. He spent the next twelve years of his life in captivity on a Louisiana cotton plantation. After his rescue, Northup published...

Terror stalks the streets of Bayou Breaux, Louisiana. A suspected murderer is free on a technicality, and the cop accused of planting evidence against him is ordered off the case. But Detective Nick Fourcade refuses to walk way. He's stepped over the line before. This case threatens to push him over the ege. He's no the only one. Deputy Annie Broussard found the woman's mutilated body. She still hears the phantom echoes of dying screams. She wants...

Siddalee Walker, a successful New York theater director, takes turns with her family in telling the story of their Louisiana upbringing, their experiences in Our Lady of the Divine Compassion parochial school, and the anguishes and blessings of childhood.

When she learns that her younger brother Danny has committed suicide, Sayre Lynch relents from her vow never to return to Destiny, the small Louisiana town in which she grew up. She plans to leave immediately after the funeral, but instread soon finds herself drawn into the web cast by Huff Hoyle, her controlling and tyrannical father, the man who owns the town's sole industry, an iron foundry, and in effect runs the lives of everyone who lives there....

When Siddalee Walker, oldest daughter of Vivi Abbott Walker, Ya-Ya extraordinaire, is interviewed in the New York Times about a hit play she's directed, her mother gets described as a 'tap-dancing child abuser'. Enraged, Vivi disowns Sidda. Devastated, Sidda begs forgiveness, and postpones her upcoming wedding. All looks bleak until the Ya-Yas step in and convince Vivi to send Sidda a scrapbook of their girlhood mementos, called Divine Secrets of...

When cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse sees a naked man on the side of the road, turns out he doesn't remember who he is. But it's Eric the vampire, who's now a kindler, gentler vampire. He's also scared because whoever took his memory now wants his life.

"The shocking death of a young woman leads Detective Dave Robicheaux into the dark corners of Hollywood, the mafia, and the backwoods of Louisiana in this gripping mystery from "modern master" (Publishers Weekly) James Lee Burke. Detective Dave Robicheaux's world isn't filled with too many happy stories, but Desmond Cormier's rags-to-riches tale is certainly one of them. Robicheaux first met Cormier on the streets of New Orleans, when the young, undersized...

Because her mind-reading ability tends to spook people, most of Sookie's friends are of the not-exactly-human variety. And now that her brother is about to transform into a were-panther for the first time, the supernatural world is suddenly a family affair. When Sookie realizes a deadly sniper is gunning down the local changelings, her feelings turn to full-blown terror. She needs to stop the assassin before the next full moon--if he doesn't get to...

In the sixth Sookie Stackhouse novel, the supernaturally gifted cocktail waitress heads for New Orleans, where she is forced to contend with her own family's dark legacy and a variety of potentially lethal characters.

Pastor and fireman Nick Foster found the body in the inferno engulfing his church. From the bullet wound in the head, it's clear this is no ordinary fire victim. The quiet community of Newpointe, reeling fom the shock of the dead man's identity, struggles with the agonizing question who did it--and why? Paramedic Issie Mattreaux is no icon of virtue, but she cares enough about her teenaged newphew, Jake, to track him down when he turns up missing....