Sweet Olive Tree

Charlene Touby writes about sex as you don't expect a 76-year-old grandmother to do. She has produced her life's literary work in this condensed version of her 300,000-word epic about two places she knows so well: New Orleans and Miami.
The latter, where she raised her family as a divorced mother, the former where she spent many years afterward and which is the focus of Sweet Olive Tree.
In this carefully condensed version editor Josephine Lee incorporates much of the New Orleans history Charlene so accurately and creatively describes and thoughtfully weaves into her narrative.
She has an astute observer and researcher's handle on arcane subjects, including Voodoo which lies smoldering deep in the New Orleans psyche.
It is a bodice-ripper of a novel with shocking twists and unexpected paths, rich in detail and thoroughly understood interpretations of human emotion, of murder and betrayal.