What the River Washed Away — Muriel MacLeod

'I ain't know nothing except he's a bad man Mambo.'

Inspired by real-life events, this is the remarkable and uncompromising story of one young woman's refusal to accept her fate in 1920s Louisiana

Jobs and Jesus from the big town don't ever seem to make it out here. Not down through the hackberry woods to the shack where I live with my Mambo. Not now Pappy's gone. No, here's where the old ways squat, where devil's work heals and some say harms.

That don't mean the big town don't visit though â€" white folks with their shirt sleeves, liquor stink, and nasty ways. More dark in them than even Mambo can hold off.

But I got me a friend now, fierce and vengeful, and we got a powerful secret that's gonna change everything.