Blood Moon Over Bohemia

Blood Moon Over Bohemia, a historical novel set in the 1920s, written by New York Times Bestselling Author Susan D. Mustafa and District Attorney Charles J. Ballay, is based on the true story of the forced removal of a diverse population of people who once lived and thrived alongside the Mississippi River in lower Plaquemines Parish in southeast Louisiana.

This novel follows the lives of two families-one black, one white-as they struggle to fight corrupt New Orleans politicians who successfully steal their land, as well as the land of hundreds of others, to obtain valuable mineral rights under the pretext that an experimental spillway built fifty miles south of New Orleans could somehow protect the Crescent City from a river that runs north to south.

Through characters Abraham and Hester Jackson, Anna-Marie and Claude Couvillion, and Sanon Estillion Duveillaume (a remedy man who predicts the ominous blood moon that will appear over Bohemia), readers are transported into another time when families and friends of multiple nationalities band together to fight the ravages of Mother Nature, racist attitudes, and the greed of those in positions of power.

The Couvillions and Jacksons, with a friendship that transcends racial biases, together with other landowners in Bohemia, show that even though we are sometimes powerless against political machines, belated victory can still be sweet. Blood Moon Over Bohemia is their story-a story of defeat and triumph, struggle and survival, injustice and justice. Blood Moon Over Bohemia reveals how fragile the lives we build really are when powers greater than ourselves determine to take what rightfully belongs to us.

This saga, which began more than one hundred years ago, is still being adjudicated in courts today.