Ash Tuesday - Ariadne Blayde

n nIn New Orleans, the dead talk and the living listen. n nGiving ghost tours on the decaying streets of the French Quarter isn't exactly a high-profile career, but the guides at Spirits of Yore Haunted Tours are too strange and troubled to do anything else. They call themselves Quarter Rats, a group of outcasts and dreamers and goths who gather in hole-in-the-wall bars to bicker, spin yarns, and search for belonging in the wee hours of the night after the tourists have staggered home.

n n n nThrough the ghost stories they tell, their own haunted lives come into focus. Like the city they call home, these tour guides are messy with contradiction: they suffer joyfully, live morbidly, and sin to find salvation. n n n nWeaving together real New Orleans folklore with the lives of eleven unforgettably vibrant characters, Ash Tuesday is a love letter to America's last true bohemia and the people, both dead and living, who keep its heart beating.

With her debut, Blayde has carved out a deep and uber-readable interpretation of what it means to live, love, and grieve in New Orleans.n n nn nThere's something about New Orleans. Maybe you can trace it to Latin America or the Caribbean or maybe not, maybe you can't define it at all. The divine?

The diabolical? I don't know what to call it. But there's magic, here.

n