ROYAL STREET & RIVER ROAD (Sentinels of New Orleans #1 & #2)
RELEASE DATE: 27th Sept 2012 | 22nd Nov 2012
PUBLISHER: Headline Publishing
GENRE: Urban Fantasy
ARTIST: Unknown
ROYAL STREET: As the junior wizard sentinel for New Orleans, Drusilla Jaco spends more of her time mixing potions and retrieving pixies than she does sniffing out supernatural bad guys that slip over from the preternatural beyond. It is DJ’s eccentric boss and mentor, Gerald St. Simon, who is tasked with protecting the city. But when Hurricane Katrina hammers the city’s fragile levees, it unleashes more than just flood waters. As the winds howl and Lake Pontchartrain surges, the borders between the modern city and the Otherworld start to crumble away …
Now the dead and the restless are roaming the Big Easy, and a serial killer with ties to voodoo is murdering soldiers sent to help the city recover. To make it worse, Gerald St. Simon has gone missing, the wizards’ Elders have assigned a grenade-toting asshat as DJ’s new partner, and the pirate Jean Lafitte – who has an impressive libido for a 200-year-old – wants her to walk his plank. If she is going to survive, DJ will have to learn that loyalty requires sacrifice, allies can be found in unlikely places … and that duty mixed with love creates one bitter gumbo.
RIVER ROAD: The hurricane may have passed, but in New Orleans the storm rages on. With the borders between the city and the Otherworld destroyed, new and dangerous species have swarmed into the waterways. There is talk of war between rival clans in the darkest depths of Louisiana’s swamps and it falls to wizard sentinel Drusilla Jaco and her partner, Alex Warin, to keep the peace.
When wizards start dying and it become apparent that the waters of the mighty Mississippi itself have been poisoned, DJ will have to really focus if she is to find out who – or what – is responsible. And with an undead suitor, the amorous pirate Jean Lafitte, on her back, that isn’t going to be easy… It’s anything but smooth sailing on the bayou as the Sentinels of New Orleans series continues.
CAROLYN’S THOUGHTS
I LOVE these covers. These are the new UK covers from Headline who have bought the UK rights to ROYAL STREET and RIVER ROAD, and hopefully the rest of the series. I love everything about them: the title font is fantastic, the author font works really well, the colours are great and the image in the background makes each cover distinctive and intriguing. The only thing I have to say that is slightly negative would be that I prefer the pose of the model in RIVER ROAD, she looks confident, whereas the model in ROYAL STREET looks a little grumpy and hunched. But that’s just a small trivial aspect to what are in fact two great covers. I hope Suzanne Johnson is pleased. I would definitely buy these books on the covers alone, and you know what… I probably will 
LAURA’S THOUGHTS
Ooh! These are so much nicer than the US covers! Like Carolyn I love them. The fonts are awesome. I like how each cover has its own colour, the model is much better and like Carolyn I prefer the pose in RIVER ROAD she looks more confident and sexy. The storm in the background of ROYAL STREET and the moon in RIVER ROAD are also nice touches. Really great covers!
SUZANNE JOHNSON ONLINE
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6 Comments
I like the UK covers better. They are more UF looking than the US ones and fit in with the genre better. Huh! Another series where I like the UK covers better than the US! Go figure?
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I like the UK covers better too. Although I really like the US editions, they do look more fantasy than urban fantasy, and having already read Royal Street, the series is definitely UF.
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Yep the UK covers are definitely better and fit the series more. I really like them
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When I first lsaw these, I was a bit meh… but actually REALLY looking at them and they’re really awesome! I love the font and the cool skulls mashed up in there. I think the second book is my fave, I love the darker colours, the moon and the swamp.
I haven’t picked the first book up as I’d heard mixed things but the new covers are soooo cool, I can’t resist!
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I think when you look at them you start to notice the small details. I hadn’t even noticed the skulls until you pointed them out.
Laura and I have read/reviewed the first book and Laura LOVED it giving it 4/5 and I liked it giving it 3/5 – both of us will be reviewing the second book together when it’s released.
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I’d missed the skulls too! The second books cover is also my favourite, I think it’s the model’s pose that really makes a bigger difference.
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