GRAVE INTENT: Novel

In all their years at the funeral home, Janet and Michael Savoy had never seen anything like the viewing for nineteen-year-old Thalia Stevenson. That's because they had never seen a Gypsy funeral before, complete with rituals, incantations, and a very special gold coin placed beneath the dead girl's hand . . .When the coin is stolen, a horror is unleashed. If the Savoys dont find the coin and return it to Thalia's grave before the rising of the second sun, someone in their family--perhaps their little daughter--will die a merciless death. The ticking away of each hour brings the Savoy family closer to a gruesome, inescapable nightmare. Only one thing is certain--Gypsies always have their revenge . . . even the dead ones.

From Publishers Weekly

While emerging novelist LeBlanc's second chiller returns to south-central Louisiana (her own stomping ground and the setting for 2003's Family Inheritance), the story is flavored this time not by the author's familiarity with Cajun culture but by another aspect of her personal background: funeral management consultation. During a chaotic gypsy burial service at the funeral parlor of Michael and Janet Savoy, a ritual gold coin is stolen from the corpse of the teenage daughter of an egomaniacal Roma gypsy chief. The theft unleashes a curse on the Savoys, unwitting unbelievers who come to realize their own five-year-old child is doomed to a gruesome death if they can't unravel a foreign culture's arcane mysteries in time to return the coin "before rising of second sun [sic]." Funeral industry scenes that are vividly detailed down to the last drop of embalming fluid make the plot's unreal supernatural situations seem equally believable. But regrettably, except in a moody but brief prologue, the Roma characters (and their culture) remain undeveloped. The curse, therefore, is less compelling than merely creepy—and confusing: a mysteriously unmotivated, if unrelenting, barrage of monsters and walking dead. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Deborah LeBlanc is an award-winning, bestselling author and business owner from Lafayette, Louisiana. She is also a licensed death scene investigator, a private investigator, and has been a paranormal investigator for over twenty years. She is currently the house clairsendium for the upcoming paranormal investigation television show, Through the Veil. She has previously served four years as president of the Horror Writers Association, eight years as the president of the Writers' Guild of Acadiana, and two years as president of Mystery writers of America's Southwest Chapter. In 2007 Deborah founded Literacy Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to fighting illiteracy in America's teens. Deborah also takes her passion for literacy and a powerful ability to motivate, meeting teens at high schools around the country. For more information, please visit www.deborahleblanc.com and www.literacyinc.com.

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