Black Candle Women

Four generations of Montrose women live together in a Long Beach, California bungalow, isolated from the outside world. Victoria Montrose, a therapist who runs her practice from the home, has spent 17 years raising her daughter Nickie with the help of her sister Willow and their grandmother Augusta Montrose, called Nanagusta, who lost the ability to speak after two strokes. The family keeps to itself, bound by secrets Victoria has never shared with Nickie: The women practice Voodoo, a spiritual tradition centered on intermediary spirits called loa, and they carry a curse that kills anyone a Montrose woman truly loves.

On Nickie's 17th birthday, the household's equilibrium shatters when Nickie invites Felix, a boy from her summer photography class, to dinner. Victoria grows agitated and retreats to her closet altar, where she performs a seven-hour ritual petitioning the Marassa, divine twin spirits, to quash Felix's affections. She knows she must tell Nickie about the curse, placed by Augusta's former Voodoo mentor, a woman named Bela Nova, but she is not ready. Instead, she confiscates Nickie's camera, sets her phone to airplane mode, restricts her internet access, and puts her to work at the reception desk.

The novel interweaves present-day events with Augusta's memories. As a teenager in New Orleans, Augusta left home to apprentice with Bela Nova, a practitioner of Voodoo and hoodoo, a tradition of folk magic. Bela Nova recognized Augusta as a descendant of Lanora, a legendary ancestor whose gift for perceiving people's emotions passed through the bloodline one blessed daughter per generation. Under Bela Nova's instruction, Augusta transcribed the Song of Lanora, a ballad honoring the ancestor, into Bela Nova's spell book.

Augusta fell in love with Dudley Lee, Bela Nova's son, who was engaged to a wealthy young woman. Using a love oil from the spell book, Augusta drew out his true feelings, and they married in secret the day before his scheduled wedding. Dudley Lee stole his mother's book so Augusta could start her own practice. Bela Nova confronted Augusta and spoke the "True Love Always Dies" curse, targeting Augusta and all her descendants. Dudley Lee died months later.

In the present, Willow secretly casts a "Thursday's Attraction Spell" from the book, writing Nickie's name alongside Felix's: "For Nickie, irresistible to Felix" (61). Though Augusta identified Victoria as the bearer of Lanora's gift, Willow has always believed she is the truly gifted one and has been providing hoodoo services to Victoria's therapy clients without her sister's knowledge. Nickie discovers the spell book beneath the reception desk and photographs the page bearing her name.

Willow also secretly arranges for their estranged mother, Madelyn Montrose, to visit from New Orleans, believing another person might ease the growing tension between Victoria and Nickie. Madelyn, who abandoned her daughters years ago due to addiction, arrives with a garbage bag of belongings. Victoria reluctantly grants her two weeks. Madelyn bonds with Nickie and casually reveals the existence of the curse. When Nickie confronts her mother, asking, "Does this have something to do with that stupid curse?" (178), Victoria leaves the room without answering.

Willow begins dating a man named January and brings him to a family brunch, where Victoria warns him that loving a Montrose woman means death. He is unfazed: "I mean, people die, right?" (148). The sisters argue bitterly. Victoria also recalls her own doomed romance with Jimmie Wilkes, originally one of Willow's boyfriends. Victoria fell in love with Jimmie and became pregnant with Nickie, but a drunk driver killed Jimmie while he was picking up food for her. She has carried the guilt ever since, believing the curse responsible.

Late at night, Willow teaches Nickie spells from the book, including a "Bend Over" spell that prompts Felix to kiss Nickie and ask her to be his girlfriend. Nickie starts secretly dating him. When Victoria finds the photograph of the attraction spell on Nickie's confiscated phone, she confronts Willow. Their argument escalates until Willow urges Victoria to move past Jimmie's death, a remark she instantly regrets. Victoria orders Willow out of the house, and Willow moves in with January.

Victoria later discovers that January has a wife and children in Thousand Oaks. She drives there with Madelyn and confronts him. On the drive home, Madelyn notes that Victoria called her Mom for the first time.

Nickie's relationship with Felix collapses when she meets him at a motel for an intimate afternoon and he leaves to buy condoms but never returns. She takes a taxi home, devastated, leaving behind the necklace her mother gave her, a gold talisman depicting the loa Ayida Wedo.

Searching Willow's room, Nickie discovers a torn-out page from the spell book: the "Bring Back a Lover" elixir. Among the names listed is "W. Decuir for J. Wilkes" (269), her aunt and her father. The spell notes that omitting the magnetic sand transforms the elixir into "an insufferable revenge oil" (269). When Willow returns after January goes back to his wife, Nickie confronts her. Willow admits that, heartbroken when Jimmie left her for Victoria, she mixed the revenge oil as a teenager, intending only to ruin his luck. Two days later, he was killed. Willow has carried this secret for 17 years, insisting her own spell, not the curse, killed Jimmie.

Meanwhile, Augusta has typed a long letter confessing everything: how she provoked the curse by stealing Dudley Lee from Bela Nova, and how she lied about the death of Willow's father, Harlowe Decuir. Harlowe was alive; Augusta paid him to relocate and told Madelyn he was dead, hoping the fabricated proof would frighten Madelyn into sobriety. Nickie is caught stealing sulfur from her school's chemistry lab, an ingredient for the elixir she plans to use on Felix. Overwhelmed by the accumulated secrets, her collapsed relationship, and her mother's control, she boards the Sunset Limited train to New Orleans, hoping to find pages Madelyn once tore from the spell book, believing they might contain a reversal of the curse.

Victoria discovers Nickie is gone. Willow reads Augusta's letter aloud, and its revelations shake the family. Victoria books four plane tickets.

The women find Nickie outside the old shop, now a rare bookstore. Victoria takes her hand and apologizes. Inside, Bela Nova herself is there, 102 years old. She tells Augusta she regrets the curse and reveals that the reversal has been in the book all along: The Song of Lanora must be sung aloud with closed eyes by a blessed descendant. Victoria prepares to sing but cannot remember the words. Nickie steps forward and recites the song from memory, eyes shut, her voice steady. Bela Nova confirms the curse is broken. Victoria tears out the pages containing the song, then returns the rest of the book to Delilah, its original owner.

At the hotel, Nickie discovers online that Benjamin Montrose, Augusta's second love, is alive and working as a film producer in Calabasas. Augusta is overcome, realizing the curse had not claimed him. Nickie calls Felix, who apologizes for abandoning her, admitting he panicked after hearing about the curse. Willow resolves to accept that the curse, not her spell, was responsible for Jimmie's death and plans to confess to Victoria one day.

In the epilogue, Victoria takes the family on a spring-break cruise, vowing not to live as if the curse still clings to them. She sits on the ship's balcony braiding Augusta's hair, soothed by music from Nickie's earphones that sounds like DeBarge, an R&B group Jimmie once loved.