By turns comedic and gothic, L’Immortalite: Madame Lalaurie and the Voodoo Queen, is an irreverent horror story drenched in the excess of its nineteenth century southern Louisiana landscape.

It is based on the real life events of New Orleans’ Lalaurie mansion, involving an elite society woman and the barbaric treatment of her slaves.

Tell us more.
This novelization begins in the city’s St. Louis Cathedral where lay sacristan Philippe Bertrand has become a recluse after the loss of his mother and wife. Yet a mysterious force will upend his life and lead him to the gothic mansion of Delphine Lalaurie where he will encounter voodoo and poetry, exorcisms, and zombies.

Zombies? Poetry? What genre is this?
L’immortalite: Madame Lalaurie and the Voodoo Queen is historical fiction/horror.

Fiction? You’ve said it’s based on real life events. Tell us about the fictional aspects of your story.
Philippe Bertrand, one of the few fictional characters in the book, is a reclusive sacristan at New Orleans’ St. Louis Cathedral. After the loss of his wife and mother, he is afraid to care about people. “It always leads to pain,” he says. When Elise, a runaway slave from the Lalaurie Mansion, turns to Philippe for help, Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau leads Philippe on a journey that enables him to break the chains of his own conflicted spirituality and learn the power of compassion.

Tell us about the society woman, Delphine, and how she mistreats her slaves.
When Marie reveals to Philippe a secret about zombies, the once reluctant sacristan is determined to find out what really goes on at the Lalaurie mansion. To his horror, he will discover that Delphine and her physician husband carry out repugnant medical experiments on their slaves, even as they put on a refined social facade during their well-attended society balls.

Makes us think of the movie Django – with voodoo!
I conceived the idea for the novel while taking a walking tour of New Orleans and hearing the varied stories about the haunted Lalaurie mansion. While some factual, non-fiction books about the place exist, nothing had treated the topic like a film or novel would.

I want readers to feel that they have been on a fast-paced journey into the tastes, smell, feel and passions of the French Quarter in the 1830’s.

Tell us a bit about yourself.
I developed a love for history when I attended Marquette University. I am an experienced traveler who is enchanted by New Orleans. I am retired after a long career in investment banking where I specialized in the airline and motion picture industries. I now live in Tucson with my wife and two cats, and spend my time writing and caring for orphaned and homeless children at an orphanage that I helped to establish in Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico. I am a member of the Arizona Authors Association.

Have you got a website?
My website is http://www.l-immortalite-madame-lalaurie-and-the-voodoo-queen.com.

What about social media?
Follow me on Twitter at @AuthorTRHeinan and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/T.R.Heinan?ref=hl

What’s next?
I have a work in draft form, also historical fiction set in New Orleans, about the War of 1812 and Delphine Lalaurie’s second husband.

There’s more to be told about Delphine?
To this day, Marie Laveau is well known as the New Orleans voodoo queen, and Delphine Lalaurie has a cult following. Many city residents and the steady stream of tourists who flock to the Crescent City know the legend of the slaves tortured in the attic of the Lalaurie mansion.