Victoria, anxious to keep the status quo, goes to the altar hidden in her room. The Montrose women, well versed in Vodou from their New Orleans rearing, turn to those practices after Felix visits. Victoria sees Felix as a threat, someone who could derail Nickie’s career as a top student and lead her to explore her sexuality. The women’s buttoned-down living succeeds until Nickie brings home Felix, a boy she likes and with whom she has classes, to help celebrate her 17th birthday. Victoria hasn’t told Nickie about the curse, not wanting to burden her with it until she’s more mature. The women live careful quiet lives because they fear a curse that means death for any man who loves them. The Montrose women, New Orleans transplants to southern California, include: 40-ish Victoria, a therapist who owns the quaint two-story bungalow where the family lives and where she sees patients her 30-something sister Willow, who works as Victoria’s receptionist and who has helped raise Victoria’s daughter, Nickie, 16 and August, Victoria’s and Willow’s grandmother. The women in “Black Candle Women,” a just-published novel by Diane Marie Brown, find themselves in that predicament. When several generations of women from the same family reside under one roof, it can force old secrets to surface.
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