Beauty in the Blood - by Charlotte Carter (Paperback)

About the Book

"A riveting, eerie novel about two families caught up in a centuries-old curse. Sarah Toomey is afraid she's losing her mind. Ever since her mother's death, she's found herself acting upon strange urges, losing track of time, and coming to in odd places. There's a dark force that seems to be haunting her, and leaving death in its wake. Yvonne Howard has reinvented herself. After years of unhappiness as a guard in a women's prison she's finally pursuing her passion for cooking. But when an ex-inmate reaches out and asks her to investigate the inmate's brother's death, then ends up killed herself, Yvonne is pulled into the same dangerous world Sarah is inhabiting-a world of chaos, death, and a curse that dates back to the Civil War"--

Book Synopsis

A curse rolls out over centuries, murky and unknowable as swamp waters, shaping and destroying lives.

"Carter delivers. . . . [A] fusion of detective fiction and horror that is impossible to look away from." --The New York Times Book Review

Sarah Toomey is a successful young black lawyer, lovely but straitlaced- and afraid that she is losing her mind. Since the death of her mother, a force she can neither understand nor control is manipulating her memory and driving her to unexplained acts of violence and destruction. At the same time, Sarah is swept up in a highly charged relationship with a work colleague that portends a danger of its own. As she moves through her privileged life in New York, Sarah comes to learn how her past--her haunted history--is intertwined with America's.

Yvonne Howard was born into the working class. Now, after years as a prison guard, she has reinvented herself. Her passion for cooking has landed her a position at a trendy soul food restaurant, and she is looking forward to a glamorous career. Then an ex-inmate named Bitty appears, demanding Yvonne's help investigating her brother's shocking death. Before long, Bitty too is dead, and Yvonne is pulled back into a world of ugly violence. Smart but unschooled, Yvonne finds herself in the unlikely role of detective: it is she who must unravel the dark and blood-soaked history that not only doomed Bitty and her brother, but also determined beautiful Sarah Toomey's fate.

Review Quotes

"Carter delivers, though the book is markedly different from her earlier novels. Yes, there's a mystery to solve ... But Carter is after larger narrative game here, linking the violent death to America's original sin of slavery, and a generations-spanning curse dooming women to act out the worst kind of revenge fantasies. The result is a fusion of detective fiction and horror that is impossible to look away from."
--The New York Times Book Review

"Beauty in the Blood begins in the last year of the Civil War, as blacks flee ruined plantations, murderous Confederates, and treacherous Unionists. It takes us to New York in the year 2000, where successful black women find their lives threatened with a violence that implicates them in America's harshest racial crimes. None of us is exempt from history's torments, and none of those torments is simple. This is a riveting and wise novel."
--Margo Jefferson, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of Negroland and Constructing a Nervous System

About the Author

CHARLOTTE CARTER is the acclaimed author of the Nanette Hayes mystery series. Her short fiction has appeared in a number of American and British anthologies. Charlotte Carter has lived in the American Midwest, North Africa, and France. She currently resides in New York City.