Corina’s Way

The Reverend Corina Youngblood, minister of the African Spiritual Church of Mercy, is a woman powered by Jesus and the santos. Her corner store, which caters to the eclectic religious and spiritual needs of New Orleans, is threatened by her Cuban ex-lover and mentor Elroy Delgago’s plans to open a Walmart-like Superbotanica nearby. Gus Houston, a displaced former army officer now ersatz chaplain at an exclusive girl’s school, discovers her mesmerizing powers and strikes up a profitable and prophetic relationship, sending Corina his troubled students for consultation.

When Gus hits on the idea of entering the white girls into the gospel singing competition during the Jazzfest, he triggers a series of events that has all sides evoking the spirits for good and ill. Rod Davis combines religion, voodoo, New Age philosophy, and good old-fashioned capitalism, greed, envy, and a host of other unsavory motives in his entertaining first novel.

＂Rod Davis understands that hidden Southern space where the ancient currents of African spirituality still linger in the American soul. Corina’s Way is a stunning fictional debut from an author who has already brought us what is arguably the finest account of voudou in America.＂

- Wade Davis, author of The Serpent and the Rainbow

＂Make room on that crammed New Orleans shelf for Corina’s Way, a multi-layered tale of suspense about our mysterious underbelly and its all-seeing navel.＂ - Andrei Codrescu, author of Messiah