AN INTRIGUING, WITH ASTONISHING TWISTS - HISTORICAL MURDER MYSTERY - SHADOW'S WAY- BY BARBARA FRANCIS

Her timing was perfect. As she rounded the corner, daily Mass had ended, and the Archbishop was standing outside the ornately carved doors of St. Paul’s Cathedral.
His followers were tiered below him on the steps. He turned and allowed his eyes to trace the contours of her body and she felt the thrill of power. A sheer white muslin shift clung to her black swim suit, still wet from morning exercise at the community pool. Despite the heat and the humidity from the Gulf of Mexico, she strolled by as if it were a cool spring day in Vermont.
 
Elaine Chauvier was a stately woman, aware of her long legs and enticing figure. Some said she was a snob and she would have agreed with them. After all, she was from aristocracy. Her great grandfather and General Robert E. Lee had been close friends, and her family had owned sections of plantation land and nearly a hundred slaves. No one could give this woman a passing glance without being momentarily transfixed. Soft black hair, always a bit ruffled to give a false impression of casualness, framed a face of classic perfection. Piercing dark eyes conveyed the superiority she felt over everyone.
 
Archbishop Andre Figurant gave hardly a thought to the man who knelt to kiss his ring or the mother holding up her baby for a blessing. His focus was across the street, beyond the wrought-iron fence surrounding the Cathedral’s property. The gliding presence hypnotized as well as beguiled him.

Lee Broom
 
5.0 out of 5 starsSouthern suspense at its finest!
June 18, 2019
Format: Kindle Edition
Very intense book! Shadow's Way is a suspenseful, amazing story that centers around an antebellum home on the Gulf Coast that is the life's blood of Elaine Chauvier, a woman of aristocracy that boasts of ties to Robert E. Lee. It's a multi-layered story that seems to be a history of the house and its inhabitants, who have many secrets and obsessions. It turns it to be a horror story of a crazy woman who is out to kill anyone who gets in her way or who tries to take her precious home, Shadow's Way. It's a story of ghosts and sordid pasts, and a shameful history of the local catholic church. The people in the town who are related to Elaine or acquaintances are unaware at first of all the twisted plans and goings-on of the main lady of the house, but they soon find out when unexpected things start happening. It's a vivid, startling tale that I highly recommend, because I just couldn't stop reading this one until the very last word. 

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