The Bewitching Grace — Patricia Maxwell

A young girl has been murdered, her body in perpetual slumber among the surrounding trees. The act seems random and unexplainable. Explain the dead lizard impaled on her pillow as a warning. Anne Tarrington is an up and coming hotshot journalist who's never seen anything like it. Not yet. She's about to see more than she bargained for, more than even her inquiring mind can fathom. Hot on the trail of the killer, she follows a path of Voodoo mysticism and witchery to a solemn Louisiana plantation where suddenly all hell breaks loose. Someone is channeling the forces of evil, but who? Could it be Nico, the obtuse Greek poet? Maybe Lena, with her expertise in the ways of Voodoo? Even Miranda, Anne's old friend who has had her soul mangled by a horrendous past? Perhaps it's Steven with his dark evil eyes that seem to will Anne into forbidden acts? Just when the forces of darkness seem ready to overtake Anne in her quest for the truth, the mysterious ritual of Indian Mound enables her to find the answers, but only by confronting the heart of Evil itself!