Tuesday's ebook spotlight - Cauchemars!

Today’s spotlight is close to my heart because when I was writing my collection of ghost tales  “Haunted Lafayette, Louisiana,” I learned more about the creepy legend of cauchemars. In Cajun Country, a cauchemar is a spirit that rides on your chest or back during the night.

“In a 1985 article in The Baton Rouge Morning Advocate, the late folklorist Dr. Patricia Rickles of Southwestern Louisiana University (now University of Louisiana at Lafayette), described cauchemar as ‘a nightmare spirit that chokes and suffocates people in their beds,’” I wrote in the book. “Rickles claimed that numerous people she had interviewed over the years believed in them, including one who felt its presence in the university dorms.”

I mentioned cauchemars because a dorm resident at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette had experienced just an occurrence. Talk about scary.

Recently I discovered that Alexandra Grigorescu has written a novel titled “Cauchemar” which intrigued me. I have not yet read this book but wanted to pass along the information because 1. It’s close to Halloween and 2. It’s available for download for $4.99.

Here’s the book description: “Gripping, fast-paced, gorgeously written, and with unforgettable characters, Cauchemar tells the story of 20-year-old Hannah, who finds herself living alone on the edge of a Louisiana swamp after her adopted mother and protector dies. Hannah falls in love with Callum, an easy-going boat captain and part-time musician, but after her mysterious birth mother, outcast as a witch and rumored to commune with the dead, comes back into Hannah’s life, she must confront what she’s been hiding from — the deadly spirits that haunt the swamp, the dark secrets of her past, and the nascent gift she possesses. Like the nightmares that plague Hannah, Cauchemar lingers and haunts.”

If you read the book, please comment on your thoughts. I’m dying (not a good word to use) to know.

And if you’re interested in why I included this creepy legend into “Haunted Lafayette, Louisiana,” my book is available as a download for $9.99 (and is in print, published by The History Press) at bookstores everywhere.

Louisiana Book News is written by journalist Chere Dastugue Coen, who writes Louisiana romances under the pen name of Cherie Claire. The first two books in her award-winning series are free as ebooks! For more information and to sign up for her newsletter visit www.cherieclaire.net.