Excerpt From ‘The Quarter Queen’
New debut historical fiction retells the story of Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau just in time for her 225th birthday.
All are welcome to see the Quarter Queen in her forbidden court … at your own peril. In 1843 New Orleans, Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau is feared by all. Her rebellious daughter Ree defies her mother at every turn, until she finds Marie comatose under a wicked curse cast by exiled Voodoo king Jon the Conjurer—Marie’s former teacher, lover and greatest enemy. As Ree uncovers dark secrets and faces dangerous enemies, including her childhood friend turned witch hunter, she must confront her mother’s past and her own destiny—or die trying. Told in alternating timelines between Ree in the present and Marie’s rise to power 25 years earlier, The Quarter Queen is an intimate yet epic tale of love, family, power and the deadly cost of correcting the sins of the past.
Black folklore scholar of Louisiana Creole descent, Kayla Hardy brings Marie Laveau to life in her debut historical fiction. Named a “Most Anticipated Book of 2026” by Essence, this genre-bending novel set in 1800s New Orleans is perfect for folks who yearn for a story that captures the essence of New Orleans’ culture and heritage.
September marked Marie Laveau’s 225th birthday, and the beloved herbalist, midwife, hairdresser and practicer of Voodoo lives on in the city today. A free black woman, she helped many enslaved people use gris gris against their masters. People still leave offerings at her grave, former residence and place of work, asking for her guidance and help. Read an excerpt from The Quarter Queen below.
She crawled across the floor to the little brass bed. She was halfway there when another contraction started. She screamed against the willow bark, the noise muffled against its edges. The agony was unending. Move, Marie, she thought. Move now.
She forced herself to the bed, where, blessedly, she managed to haul herself up onto its sheets. The rest became a fevered blur—wave after wave of blistering agony that made her want to crawl out of her own skin; bucking and writhing against the dampened sheets, sticky from her sweat and tears.
The candlelight flickered. Marie’s vision blurred. She froze, eyes pinned on the wall across the room, where two little black girls, slaves perhaps, stood watching, hand in hand. They put their fingers to their lips. Shhh. And then they vanished.
In her fevered haze, other things appeared to her. Tricks of the mind. Old Sanite, gray and smiling, rocking on her chair, eyes the white of northern snow. Her grand-mère, tsking her tongue at Marie’s folly. Her mother, turning away again, even now. One face grew into another, then another. The spirits were having their fun. Monsters and devils, the lot of them. Marie prayed. She cursed. But none of it seemed to do a lick of good, not when her body seemed determined to tear itself asunder.
Marie bit down so hard on the bark that she cracked it in half. But none of it mattered. Her daughter must live. The thought burned like fire in her mind, her kindred element. She let it give her life, keep her conscious long enough to finish the labor. She pushed and pushed until at last a wailing cry broke the silence.
Marie reached down and pulled her baby to her breast. All thoughts of spirits and suffering vanished. Because in that moment, staring at her daughter’s perfect face, she had found her purpose at last, the reason for it all. The reason she would gladly suffer again, if it came to it.
She was tiny and pale, but her skin held some color, which Marie knew would deepen beautifully in time. Her eyes were dark and filmy, her head mostly absent of hair apart from a few dark curls. She was wild, even then. She was beautiful. Her daughter at last. Hers.
Despite her happiness, Marie found herself thinking of her mother again. Although Marguerite Darcantrel had taken off running down that long road to freedom without a look back, sometimes Marie replayed the moment again in her dreams, watching her mother walk backward down that road, back toward her outstretched hand. As a child she wondered what might have come from that moment. What kind of mother she might have had, what kind of mother might have protected her. She would never know. Because she was a mother now, her entire destiny reshaped itself into a single word more powerful than the oldest magic she knew. Freedom was here with her own daughter. Freedom was this.
“Marie Laveau, I make this promise to you,” Marie cooed to her daughter. “I will never, ever leave nor forsake you. And you will know only freedom. The kind that will allow you to live beautifully and fully until you are an old, old woman who will pass peacefully in her own bed, in her own house, in her own time, because she lived free.”
Marie pressed a kiss to her head, sealed the vow into her flesh. A little copper star glowed at the center of her forehead, where Ma- rie’s lips had brushed, then vanished. It was the mark of her magic.
It was a promise.
