M.R. Sellars, All Acts of Pleasure

All Acts of Pleasure

M.R. Sellars

Willow Tree Press, Oct 2006, $14.95, 335 pp

ISBN: 0967822130

Rowan Gant is a Wiccan, a witch who practices magic but he is also a medium who channels the dead and it is in that capacity he helps the St. Louis police department in solving homicide cases. When a prominent judge is killed, Rowan's wife freelance photographer Felicity, is called on to take pictures of the crime scene. Voodoo symbols are found in the motel room and there is evidence that S&M sex was going on before the judge was killed.

A second victim, a police office is murdered in a similar manner with the same voodoo symbols in the room with the body. Felicity starts acting strangely and starts calling herself Miranda and her husband realizes she is possessed by a Lwa, an ancestral spirit. Now Rowen and Felicity are shut out of the investigation until his best friend arrests Felicity for the two murders based on DNA evidence. Since she suffered from blackouts when the Lwa committed the murders, Felicity isn't sure her body did the ritualistic killing. Before Rowen can act, the police let her go because the DNA was not a perfect match but close enough to be a female sibling which Felicity doesn't have. When the Lwa possess felicity once again, Rowen realizes that he must find the Lwa Miranda and battle her on the etheric plane.

M.R. Sellars writes a fantastic mystery with a beautiful romantic sub-plot. This page turner is full of action yet the characters of Rowen and Felicity and their relationship is explored in great depth. Explosive secrets are finally revealed that gives answers but no solutions to getting rid of Miranda. Readers will root for Felicity to make it through her ordeal without psychological damage and hope Rowen finds the answers but alas, readers won't find out the answers to these questions until the next book in this great series which comes out in 2007.

Harriet Klausner