Love Magic

The idea of using Voodoo and hoodoo magic to affect matters of the heart forms the crux of the ethical dilemma in Black Candle Women. Each of the women in the novel uses hoodoo to affect her love life, yet Brown shows how meddling in love starts the Montrose women’s tragedies. Augusta, the family matriarch, uses magic to steal Dudley Lee, another woman’s finance, in New Orleans, beginning the family's saga of doomed love affairs. Augusta’s mentor, Bela Nova, speaks the family curse against Augusta because she stole and married Dudley Lee, who was also Bela Nova’s son. Bela Nova claims using love medicine to steal a man is the greatest sin. “You brought this on, my sweetheart,” she says (113). “Using magic to steal a man. Working your own hex. That’s the lowest of sins.” Marrying Dudley caused a string...