“Don’t anger the Guardian, Leonora. Nobody will be able to save you.” — Leonora McGuire had been the happiest of brides…until her husband’s cruel betrayal. Desperate to escape her Natchez home -- and its haunting memories -- she journeyed down the fogbound Mississippi River to her Aunt Octavia’s neglected sugar plantation. Hidden deep within the mist-shrouded Louisiana swamps, Black Bayou seemed a welcome refuge…a place where no one could find her.

But Leonora was not alone at Black Bayou. In the dark, brooding shadows of the old plantation house lurked a mysterious voodoo priestess known only as the Guardian. Midnight specters roamed the secluded grounds, and the ghostly presence of Black Bayou’s first master haunted the final pages of his forbidden diaries. Caught in a web of danger and deceit from which there was no escape, no one -- not even the man she still loved -- could save Leonora from the madness that would soon engulf her in the deadliest peril of all…