Blood Offerings

by Robert D. San Souci

Deity of Death.

Driven by despair, she has become the instrument of a dark and vengeful god. She carries within herself the power to annihilate the man who has destroyed her life, the power of the great god Shango.

But before she can exercise that power, the god requires a sacrifice of blood, the blood of one whom she dearly loves. In obedience to the demon deity she serves, she must kill and kill again, until at last she comes face to face with the object of her intense hatred, and offers the final hideous blood-price on the altar of revenge.

Genres: Horror

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Robert Daniel San Souci (October 10, 1946 – December 19, 2014) was a multiple award-winning children's book author, who resided in San Francisco, California. He often worked with his brother, Daniel San Souci, a children's book illustrator. He was a consultant to Disney Studios and was instrumental in the production of the film Mulan, for which he wrote the story. He studied folklore in graduate school. He died after suffering a head injury while falling from a high height in San Francisco in December 2014. He was only 68 years old.

Reviews

[Phil · Rating 3 out of 5]

San Souci made a career writing children's books, but before that, he wrote a handful of horror novels. Blood Offerings had a lot of potential, and with a good editor and copyeditor, this would have rated higher. From the cover and the back blurb, you know this will feature some voodoo action and the god Shango. Our main protagonist, Suzanne, starts the novel on a bus heading for Oakland, California, returning home after almost two decades in NYC. Her parents and grandma have all passed away, leaving just her sister and her son left in the old homestead.

Why is Suzanne returning? She has been estranged from her sister since she left. She had been close to her grandma, who hailed from New Orleans and was a mambo of Shango. San Souci creates a fictional nation in West Africa where Suzanne's family originated before being brought over as slaves in the 18th century. Many people from that nation ended up around New Orleans and kept their beliefs in their gods, which was mingled to a degree with voodoo. Shango gives people power, but needs blood for the gift. Suzanne's grandma always told her she had the gift, but only now has she really come into her own beliefs about Shango.

The plot gradually reveals itself amid many info dumps and flashbacks. The fictional West African nation elected a progressive government a few years back, but that threatened the lucrative contracts with a multinational corporation (Palmerco) run by David Palmer. David, via his corporate minions and dollars, is funding a right wing counter revolution. Suzanne, who once dated David in NYC, now has a mission via Shango to destroy him and his family to save the fictional nation. Let the voodoo fireworks begin!!

The story unfolds in fits and starts and San Souci keeps going back in time to explore the lives of David and Suzanne; it takes a deft touch to really pull this off nicely which is were a good editor would have really helped. I lost count of the typos-- really sloppy copyediting from Leisure! I also found it annoying how many times the author keep referring to Suzanne as having café au lait colored skin-- we get it! Still, a nice revenge story spiked with voodoo; you could do much worse. 3.5 Shangos!!

[Austin Smith · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF @ Page 180.

I absolutely love San Souci's Dare to Be Scared and Short And Shivery series, but adult horror is not his strong point.