Qwantu AmaruBesprekingen

Vindictive vodouisants and family curses. Cold burn revenge. Hot and sticky Louisiana heat. Unrequited love and unbridled hate. Grandfather who was a Grand Dragon. Tragic mulattos as strange fruit. Blood on the leaves and a hurricane named Issac.

One Blood by Qwantu Amaru

A prison of families, all tied together whether they want to be or not. This describes One Blood perfectly. The kids from the ‘hood, the rich governor’s family that is nowhere as perfect as they seem to be and an assassination plot to end all plots.

Growing up in foster care isn’t usually pleasant and for Lincoln Baker the only thing saving him was Moses. Moses took him in, raised him and never told him that he was doing it for Lincoln’s mother. He was taken away from her at birth but never left New Orleans. His best friend was Kris Lafitte – the Governor’s son. Was, because Kris was killed and they blamed Lincoln, although innocent.

Randy Lafitte spent his 18th birthday talking to a voodoo woman. Not necessarily unusual unless you consider he wants to kill his father. With all action comes reaction and Randy is a great example: everyone he loves dies around their 18th birthday. His son, Kris and now his daughter, Karen is nearly 18. He is frantic.

A merging of lives, a well written novel with a kidnapping, drugs, a hurricane and confessions bring One Blood to it conclusion. The characters were perfect and the ending satisfying.

I must apologize for the extreme lateness of this review. I had promised it several months ago but health issues intervened.

I was excited to get this book. It was an excellent read. The characters were well written and the story was full of suspense and excitement. I highly recommend this book.

One Blood is a roller-coaster of suspense, mystery, and in and out of the past, present, and future events of where the curse all started. Sometimes, in and out of time, it is hard to keep up with the events taking place, fast-paced but some things need clarification that comes in bits and pieces.

There is some racial tension that Walter and Malcolm discover, but a new Black militia is unleashed and seeking peace from their predecessors which is similar to Nat Turner's revolt from their slave masters. Moses, a past best friend, doesn't want to see his friends in Louisiana's worst bloodied prison like he served a 12 year of 15 year sentence. He made a plea to help Lincoln, Juanita's first son, that may be Randy Latiffe's son--who is he enemy according to past events. Other curses are revealed and will Randy be able to break the curse he started--Voodun can be some creepy crap.

I cannot wait to see how this book plays out...hard to put the Android Trio tablet down.

Note: I received an Advance Reading Copy of this book through the Early Reviewer program of LibraryThing.

This is the story of many characters, all having lives that are intertwined more than they know themselves. There is the white governor of Louisiana and his wife and children. The deceased (murdered?) first black mayor and his wife, now with another man who strives for black power and is into Voodoo. A baby given up for adoption. A psychic who is also into Voodoo and her daughter. And all will find out the ties that bind them when the governor’s daughter is kidnapped. Is this because of the curse that follows the governor’s family around through the ages? And how can it be stopped?

I enjoyed reading the book, although it could have been better. The story keeps jumping in time, to roughly three time-periods, to explain the characters. For me, this made it all a bit confusing, although I understand why the author chose to reveal his story a small step at a time. The two main themes where racial politics and Voodoo, starting with the first and ending with the latter. Both aren’t familiar to me from my own experiences, so all I know is from books and TV. Probably because of this I had to put some extra effort into following the story, and trying to keep track of who was what race and had which goal in mind. The Voodoo I just followed along with, but it could have done with a bit more back story and follow-up.

The ending was pretty chaotic, and like other reviewers have said, I can see it as a movie. As for the book, it was pretty hard to follow in some places, to keep track of who is where and doing what. There are also still many story-lines open (or at least that is how it feels, looking back). All in all an entertaining novel, pretty violent and with supernatural elements, three out of five stars.

I'm so glad I won this book to review and it was well worth the wait as it winged its way to the UK. This is a sweeping tale, set in the deep South. Stories in this setting hold a special appeal to me - I'm not sure why, but family curses, majik and voodoo somehow seem so much more plausible when in this setting. As with some other reviewers, I found the read sometimes violent, but always fast paced and frankly, gripping. I'm glad to have read this and look forward to hearing more from the author.

An excellent book!
The Lafitte family curse has plagued generations and continues to do so. A tale of deception, betrayal and the dark arts of vodun which keeps the reader guessing from start to finish. There does not seem to be any ‘baddies’ or ‘goodies’ in this one – only a disparate cast of characters each with their own agenda which creates a tangled web of intrigue.

The author has done his research into the areas of the plot and the ‘dark arts’ very well. I found this book very easy to read and literally ‘unputdownable’. I think (hope) we will be hearing more from Mr. Amaru.½

An intense mix of voodoo and racial politics in a story that spans generations. Its basis in an event deep in the past which resonates firmly into the present through the members of a few powerful families. The story gradually unfolds through its characters in a fragmentary well-controlled chaos, jumping back and forward through time as the secrets of the past are teased into the light. A satisfying thriller which rarely lets up its pace, one which is hard to put down as the revelations keep coming until the apocalyptic finale.

This ER book does show promise but it is incredibly violent in a sort of detached way. Set in Louisiana and covering around forty years - from the 1960's to 2002 - the story jumps backwards and forwards building to a destructive climax as a hurricane hits the town. Bringing in elements of Voodoo; Black Rights; gang warfare and family dynamics the story itself is reasonably fast moving. As the elements come together the connections between the characters become increasingly intertwined, in sometimes unexpected ways.

Qwantu Amaru spent ten years writing and editing this book and the result is, on the whole, successful but there were some things that just didn't ring true. Unfortunately to say what they were would be spoilers and other people might have a different reaction. I am pleased to have read this and the author has left the ending open enough to allow us to revisit these characters though it is a complete story in itself. Not a bad debut novel and I hope it doesn't take as long for him to write another novel.½

There is something about the deep South, or at least the literary deep South, that makes the mind turn to magic, and religion, and violence. Family secrets. They can keep a secret in New England, and it might still kill you, but if it does, you'll die quietly, or if you don't, any resulting mess will be quickly hushed up. People in the Midwest don't die. If you live in Ohio, Nebraska, Indiana, you're pretty safe. Apparently, secrets only result in violence if you live on the edges of the country, and not in the middle. It isn't because Midwesterners don't HAVE secrets. I'm from Ohio. I know. But those Midwestern secrets won't kill you. I wonder why that is.

One Blood takes place in Louisiana, back firmly in the land where secrets always mean death, and not a quiet, hushed-up, New England death, but a florid, Gothic, take-no-prisoners bloodbath, where half the cast might come to a bad end, rooted in the sins of a previous generation, but not before finding out that they are related to each other in ways that they hadn't suspected. It's that sort of book.

I wanted to like the book, and I didn't outright dislike it, but something about it didn't really sit right with me. Voodoo is an interesting topic, but as someone who is relatively unfamiliar with the practice, I would've liked to see more background information about the practice, about Danto and Ezili and the other loa; or at least about what it meant to the characters within the book. The book felt rushed, with too many disparate threads - and the way that all of those threads did eventually come together felt forced, overly gothic. I think that if you're looking for a good voodoo/santeria story, though not violent, Jorge Amado is the way to go.

Amaru's work, though fast-paced and quite violent, was also oddly disconnected from the violence, so that some parts of the book which should have been intense were mentioned almost in passing, so that they didn't really have a chance to move you the way that they should. This might someday make an excellent screenplay, as the way that the action, rather than the characterization, is so strongly at the forefront, would be an asset in filming. It reminds me of perhaps, Candyman mixed with Traffic. I would be one of the first in line to buy a ticket to that movie, but as a book, it didn't really do it for me.

"One Blood" copyright 2011by Qwantu Amaru is a horror/suspense novel. "One Blood is about how a man named Randy Lafitte resurrects a family curse from slavery to get what he wants in life. The curse initially works for Randy, but the problem with curses is that they just don't go away. Everyone Randy Lafitte has ever hurt will get together and throw the curse right back in his face! Randy's family, especially his children Karen and Kristopher will suffer.The reactions of revenge, black serendipity, dark fate will explode and The state of Louisiana and Governor Randy Lafitte will never be the same again. Once the dust settles, if the dust ever settles. "For every action...... There is an equal and opposite reaction..... Too bad for anyone else caught in the middle"
I enjoyed this book and the tapestry of revenge and manipulation that runs through it. I loved reading about the voodoo curse that was carried down from slavery. I found it amazing when the curse came back on Randy Lafitte and he had to pick up the pieces of his life. The ending was shocking! The ending was about taking responsibility for your actions and atonement. I agree with the quote in the book "If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance" George Bernard Shaw. Truer words were never spoken!

About 100 pages in and I can't put it down.