RIVER WOMAN RIVER DEMON WEAVES A SPELLBINDING TALE

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Reviewed by Pennell Paugh

August 11, 2022 (San Diego) - River Woman River Demon by San Diego author Jennifer Givhan weaves together the threads of folk magick, with personal and cultural empowerment in a first-person spellbinding psychological thriller. (The term `magick’ is used by spiritual believers in in supernatural powers, to differentiate from `magic,’ or staged magicians’ tricks.)

Eva Santos Moon is a Chicana artist who practices the ancient, spiritual ways of brujería and curanderisma, but she’s at one of her lowest points—suffering from disorienting blackouts, creative stagnation, and a feeling of disconnect from her magickal roots. 

When her husband, a beloved university professor and the glue that holds their family together, is taken into custody for the shocking murder of their friend, Eva doesn’t know who to trust—least of all, herself. She soon falls under suspicion as a potential suspect, and her past rises to the surface, dredging up the truth about an eerily similar death from her childhood.

 

Struggling with fragmented memories and self-doubt, an increasingly terrified Eva fears that she might have been involved in both murders. But why doesn’t she remember? 

 

Only the dead women know for sure, and they’re coming for her with a haunting vengeance.

 

As she fights to keep her family out of danger, Eva usesher magickpracticing what she calls Hoodoo, to protect herself and her loved ones, while confronting her own dark history.

 

Author Jennifer Givhan, a National Endowment for the Arts and PEN/Rosenthal Emerging Voices fellow, is a Chicana and indigenous novelist, poet, and transformational coach. She is the author of Jubilee, which received an honorable mention for the 2021 Rudolfo Anaya Best Latino-Focused Fiction Book Award and Trinity Sight, winner of the 2020 Southwest Book Award. She has also published four full-length poetry collections and her honors include the Frost Place Latinx Scholarship and the Joy Harjo Poetry Prize. She lives in San Diegoand is a member of the San Diego Writers and Editors Guild.


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