Just a Little Gris-Gris: Based on a True Story of Hoodoo, Heartbreak, and a Pact with Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Queen

Just a Little Gris-Gris is a riveting, memoir-inspired novel based on a true story of hoodoo, heartbreak, and a secret pact with Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans.

In the desperate days of the 1980s Louisiana oil bust, Orme Estelle Ballard—known to clients as Miz Chollie—struggles to keep her family afloat as a freelance graphic designer. With two children to feed and an unemployed husband who spends his days smoking on the back porch, reliving his glory days as a TV anchor, and avoiding work, money is critically tight. To complicate matters, her husband is also stealing from her. What begins as reluctant Tarot readings from her dining room table soon evolves into full-fledged gris-gris: rootwork, candle burning, and curse-breaking rituals performed in a ramshackle backyard shed. Orme, a sharp-eyed skeptic at heart, becomes a pragmatic “worker” of hoodoo, helping desperate clients while quietly questioning her own path.

When her sister introduces her to Dominique, a flamboyant Wiccan who claims descent from Marie Laveau, Orme’s life takes a fateful turn. Dominique performs a powerful ritual and reveals that Orme must travel to St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 and perform a secret rite at the Voodoo Queen’s tomb—using a prayer passed down through her family that has never beenshared with anyone outside the bloodline. In exchange for aid, Orme agrees to create Marie Laveau’s portrait.

Life changes dramatically after the pact. Orme and her family move to Houston, where she lands a stable position as an art director at a major aerospace firm. Hoodoo is left behind. Yet the supernatural current continues to pull her forward. Talked into reading Tarot at a charity fundraiser, she meets a mysterious woman whose connections lead Orme into an extraordinary new role: working as a remote viewer for a government operative conducting sensitive operations in Latin America.

Orme finally completes the long-promised portrait of Marie Laveau in the form of a promotional poster by a printing company—only to be plunged into a terrifying new crisis. She uncovers a deadly voodoo spell being prepared by a Nigerian killer on parole, aimed at an INS prosecutor who stands in his way. What began as one woman’s desperate bid for survival has drawn her deep into a world where ancestral pacts, modern danger, and raw human resilience collide.

Blending Southern Gothic atmosphere, authentic Louisiana hoodoo details, childhood encounters with the spirit world (including a chilling meeting with Baron Samedi), and unflinching honesty about poverty, marriage, and motherhood, Just a Little Gris-Gris is a story of quiet strength and the thin veil between the ordinary and the extraordinary. With vivid prose that captures the humid streets of Baton Rouge, the shadowed tombs of New Orleans, and the unexpected paths of a Texas career, this debut delivers suspense, heart, and cultural richness.

Perfect for fans of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, true tales of resilience, and stories where magic and real life intertwine, Just a Little Gris-Gris proves that sometimes one small gris-gris can change everything.