Available online and in bookstores everywhere! FALL 2012 !

Are you living the life you know you're meant to live? Dr. Carolle Jean-Murat wasn’t, until a national disaster called her home—both physically and spiritually. Voodoo in My Blood is the intriguing story of a shaman who takes us inside the secret world of voodoo as a healing practice. Not only does her journey shed light on why voodoo remains such a mystery as a healing art, but it also serves as wake-up call to anyone who is questioning her own life’s journey. If you've ever been conflicted about the life you are living, this book will light your fire as to why you must reclaim your inner truths and “live close to the bones of who you really are.”

ABOUT THE BOOK

Born and raised in Haiti to a family of healers, Dr. Carolle Jean-Murat completed her medical training in the US and settled in San Diego in 1982. She soon was regarded as one of the best gynecologic surgeons around—tall and regal, a lone black female among the elite. But her success harbored a secret: when a patient entered her office, Dr. Jean-Murat could quickly and intuitively see the root cause of her patient's illness, often times knowing she could help the patient without having to put her under the knife. Carolle knew she dare not make these claims aloud. Struggling to fit in with the Western medical paradigm, her intuition and vision were best left unmentioned.

Harboring secrets wasn’t new to Carolle, who grew up in Papa Doc Duvalier's Haiti where the threat of being snatched by the Tontons Macoutes was a daily fear. Her own father, after being tortured, miraculously escaped death and was forced to leave the country in the middle of the night, ending up as an illegal immigrant in New York City.

In Carolle’s society, everything had a dire price—including admitting openly to the practice of voodoo. This, too, would shape her life. A mere four-year old, Carolle was taken from her family home, and sent to live with her paternal grandmother and aunt because her own mother was a voodoo practitioner. Nevertheless, fate would find a way of returning Carolle to her.

As a teenager Carolle became gravely ill; even the doctors had given up on her. With no other recourse, she was taken to her maternal grandfather where she stayed in his healing room in his voodoo temple. There, he and Carolle's mother exposed her to voodoo healing, mixing a potent potion she had to drink. They proclaimed her healed—and indeed, she was. Though she returned to live with her paternal grandmother, where once again she was told to never tell that she had been exposed to voodoo, her mother and grandfather had told her differently: “You can run, but you can’t hide from what you know. Voodoo, is in your blood.” Thus began Carolle's hidden and tumultuous relationship with this African-based paradigm of healing.

For years Carolle struggled inwardly to reconcile her family’s healing heritage; even outwardly she was forced to pass up many opportunities, in order to keep her family a secret. Once immersed in Western medical practice, Carolle constantly struggled with bringing her intuition to the forefront—healing through the spirit and not just the surgeon's knife. And this fact ate away at her. But fate would intervene again: when the devastating earthquake hit Haiti in January 2010, Carolle was one of the first to respond to her people. It was this experience—returning to the country where she first was forced to hide her true heart—that enabled her to stop denying her inherited gift, and to acknowledge the shaman she had become.

This mesmerizing story takes us inside the secret world of voodoo as a healing practice, and sheds light on why it remains a mystery to most and shunned by many. Readers will sympathize with Carolle’s frustrations with denying her true calling while leading the life of a respected Western medicine practitioner and surgeon. The book’s resounding message is that a purpose lies within each of us and that finding and living our truths is our highest calling.

REVIEWS

This beautiful memoir sheds light on the importance of asking yourself, "Have I created for myself the life I've meant to live?"—Christiane Northrup, MD

Simply a beautiful book. —Adrienne Belafonte–Bisemeyer

A deeply moving memoir. —Gary Chafetz, co-author of The Morphine Dream

If you've ever been conflicted about the life you are living, this book will put to rest that must reclaim your inner truths. —Aura Imbarus, author, Out of the Transylvania Night

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Born and raised in Haiti, educated in Haiti, Mexico, Jamaica, and the U.S., Dr. Carolle Jean-Murat is a board-certified gynecologist, a senior fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, a medical intuitive, and award-winning author of three books published in seventeen languages. Fluent in five languages, for nearly three decades, she has provided free medical care to the people of Haiti and underserved clinics in San Diego and around the world. She is the founder of the Health Through Communications Foundation, a nonprofit organization, and is the director of its Angels for Haiti Project, and the founder and medical director of the Dr. Carolle's Wellness and Retreat Center in San Diego, California which integrates preventative, holistic, and intuitive healing.