Sentinels of New Orleans Books In Order

Publication Order of Sentinels of New Orleans Books

Suzanne Johnson spent her early life halfway between Elvis’ birthplace and Bear Bryant Museum. However, she was also a New Orleans resident for a long period of time. As such, she has very high refined senses of the absurd and the ingrained love of cheap Mardi Gras trinket, fried gators on a stick and SEC football. She currently resides in Auburn, Alabama.

Suzanne Johnson generally writes romantic thrillers and sensual paranormal romance stories. She’s the author behind the award-winning series; Penton Legacy. This is series about a different world where a vaccine for human pandemics has rendered the human blood to be poisonous to vampires. This has resulted in chaos and anarchy.

Suzanne is also the writer of the paranormal fantasy series, The Sentinels of New Orleans. This series was published by The Tor Books. It explores the things that happen after Hurricane Katrina had caused the borders of the paranormal world and New
Orleans to crumble. This led to floods of preternatural creatures to the city. As such, there’s a growing power struggles between the large prete group and wizards, whose sentinels have guarded borders between the 2 worlds.

Royal Street

This is the first book in Sentinels of New Orleans by Suzanne Johnson. This is the first novel in a relatively new urban fantasy book series that’s set entirely in New Orleans. One of the city’s wizards is Drusilla Jaco, commonly known as DJ. She is one of the two wizard sentinels in the city. This means that she’s assigned to the job of keeping an eye on the paranormal troubles in town. Gerry, is the other sentinel. Gerry is DJ’s father figure and mentor at the same time. With the Hurricane Katrina on its way, DJ evacuates whereas Gerry decides to stay behind. After the storm passes, Drusilla returns to find a devastated New Orleans only to find her mentor, Gerry, missing. Due to this, new breaches open up between the present world and Beyond.

Johnson’s world-building in this novel is great in regard to both the invented and the real. She takes readers right into the New Orleans immediately before and after Katrina and she gives us a clear idea of what it felt like to be in New Orleans. As for her invented world, there are a few original touches in terms of magic. Suzanne Johnson introduces “historical undead.” These are types of ghosts and they live in the “Old Orleans” unless summoned to the new world or it’s the case in the aftermath of hurricane
Katrina, the barrier separating the worlds has been damaged. Indeed, this is a very creative of incorporating some iconic personalities of New Orleans into the book without having to go to the cliché routes of making all of them vampires.

However, the biggest flaw in this novel was characters themselves. As the whole story continues, it left characters shallow even without any true substance that can really make them to stand out.

The book gives a certain sense of urgency as Drusilla races against time to find out what had actually happened to her mentor/father figure while at the same time trying to keep peace as barriers separating our world from paranormal world collapse. This is an interesting book with lots of mysteries to solve. After reading the first book, I’m certain you’ll be looking out for the next book in the series.

River Road

This is the second book in Sentinels of New Orleans by Suzanne Johnson. The writer continues heating up the whole action set in River Road. This is Suzanne’s second entry in the urban fantasy book series. The book is set in the Post Hurricane era in New
Orleans. The writer has deft touches with dialogue and she has set up a very interesting urban fantasy world that’s centered in modern day as well as the past New Orleans.

Drusilla Jaco is the Green Congress New Orleans wizard who’s the sentinel for this area. Along with Alex Warin, her partner, she patrols the whole of New Orleans so as to protect it from the magical issues.

DJ has managed to attract the amorous attention from a legendary pirate, Jean LaFitte. Jean LaFitte is an undead preternatural doing business in the present day as well as the past New Orleans. The magical universe is inhabited by several otherworldly creatures as well as the undead. Robert Delachaise, LaFitte’s business partner and friend, is a merman. Robert Delachaise is having some territorial disputes with yet another merman clan that is led by Denis Villere. When meeting with both of them to mediate on a truce, Alex and DJ discover another dead wizard in New Orleans, who had been ritually slain. In the process, they learn about the death of yet another wizard. Furthermore, the merman informs DJ that the area’s water has been fouled using some chemicals that are making people ill. Alex and DJ must investigate these deaths as well as the water issue.

DJ later enlists her close friend and fellow New Orleans wizard Tish to aid with the water magic. She gets some aid from a nymph so as to deal well with the merman as well as the issue of water poison. The nymph also has her own magical powers and along with the merman, they supply a lot more to the plot.

However, this book is not just centered about magic and murder. Johnson has kept the plot bopping by fully developing Drusilla as well as the life outside her magic. Drusilla’s life is somehow complicated by continued attention of men in this book. She must deal with Jean LaFitte’s attention when on a date, yet she goes out to a date with Jake, Alex Warin’s cousin. Jake is a very powerful werewolf with the control issues. DJ and Alex are making sparks as well, which bothers Drusilla because he’s her partner
and she doesn’t want to mess their “friendship” as well as the working relationship.

DJ also has to deal with several other Sentinels, who are looking down on her simply because her powers are more ritual magic. She also has to deal with the issue of Elves who wants to confront her about the magic staff that she wields. Drusilla risks a lot more when she invents a crafty solution to figure out the water problems. However, the murderer of wizards claims yet another victim. Alex and DJ must race so as to figure out exactly who’s killing wizards before it becomes too late for other DJ’s friends.

Suzanne Johnson’s series of urban fantasy as she returns to New Orleans is another worthy entry among mystery book series. She is certainly a writer to watch and I’m sure you will look out for book number 3 in the series.