What
inspired the story of The Heartbeat Thief?
It started with a single scene, a conversation between a
young woman and a mysterious stranger who steals up beside her at a funeral. A lot of my stories start out like this, a single scene with
no other context. It’s as if I happen across a conversation between strangers
and only see one tiny snippet of their story. Sometimes, the scenes get written
and tucked away in an “ideas” folder on my hard drive, lying dormant.
Sometimes, a trickle of life stirs within, and a story grows out of that tiny
seed. Sometimes, the seed germinates and grows and blooms into a
novel. That’s what happened with that first passage—it was the seed that grew
into The Heartbeat Thief. I went back to the oldest draft of the story and found that
original seed. Here is the passage as I’d first written it:
That
frightens you, doesn't?
She didn't turn to look at him. His presence was like a
thick fog, tenuous yet flowing, something she felt along her skin. She didn't
need to look at him—she knew right where he was. That sense of nearness,
something she recognized even for all his strangeness.
She knew him. Didn't know why, or how. And she didn't care.
It was simply what was.
She pinched her lips together, watching a woman bent in
grief, clutching a handkerchief to her mouth. “Doesn't it frighten everyone?
Dying--in such a sudden way—“
Ah, it's
not the suddenness, or the surprise, or even the shock. It's the brick wall at
the end of the road of life. You don't like the ending, no matter how it comes.
She tilted her head, just enough that she could capture him
in her periphery. “No. I don't like the ending.”
He drifted closer, hovering just over her shoulder, like an
umbrella. His mouth close to her ear, he chuckled a sonorous tone. Why would you? Your beauty, faded? Your
charms, withered? Your friends and admirers, all gone away? You'll die alone,
bienaimee. Everyone dies alone.
She tugged her shawl tighter about her shoulders. “Don't say
that.”
But it is
truth. Oh, if only there was a way to avoid all that.
“No one lives forever.”
Do they
not?
His voice held such a curious tone, a tease in the words
that caught her attention. “In the afterlife, yes.”
In this life.
She faced him, locking her gaze with his. His dark eyes
glittered and a smile tugged at the corners of him mouth. “Why would you say
things, here?”
Where
better to admit the truth? He stole behind her, trailing his finger along her
shoulders. In this place, life meets
death. They stare each other in the face. The only difference between them is
that the dead no longer care.
He drew back, his sudden withdrawal leaving a cold mist on
her skin. The only question that remains
is…do you still care, bienaimee?
She wrinkled her nose. “Of course, I still care.”
Then, he said,
his voice deepening into a throaty chuckle. Don't
die.
She turned to admonish him for his audacity but, when she
spun around, he was gone.
No way could something like this stay dormant in a dusty old
file. The stranger’s mystery and his shadowy threat and the promise of eternal
life simply held me captive, and I knew it would haunt me until I wrote it.
That was where The
Heartbeat Thief came to life.
Where did
the characters get their names?
One character was named by a fan on Facebook, one name was
inspired by a song, and one simply named himself. Felicity Keating is a close friend of the main character,
and was named in an impromptu contest I held on Facebook. I had a name for her
but I felt like doing something spur-of-the-moment. I loved the suggestion of
Felicity because it was so fitting for the character and what she symbolized.
(The Facebook Friend who suggested the name is mentioned in the
Acknowledgements section of the book.) The main character is Miss Constance Fyne, who prefers her
nickname “Senza”. Her given name, Constance, alludes to the word “constant”.
The suffix con- means with. Senza is
Italian for “without”.
Her last name Fyne is a play on fine, or fin: French for end.
Senza Fyne is a play on the Italian word senzafine, which means “endless”.
Fitting name for a girl who seeks the secret to eternal youth. I love the word senzafine.
I learned it when I heard the Italian metal band Lacuna Coil sing their song of
the same name. It’s my absolutely favorite LC song.
One line of the song, when translated into English, fits
Senza perfectly: I’m standing still in
this moment of pure madness…I don’t know if I wish for good or evil although
perhaps sin will give me more…
Playing opposite to Senza is a tall, mysterious stranger who
teases her with secretive smiles and suggestions of magic. From their first
meeting, he calls her bien-aime,
which is French for “beloved”. When she demands his name, he listens to the
tolling of a nearby church bell before calling himself Mr. Knell. But he has an older name. A much older name. And it will
take Senza a very, very long time before she realizes just who he truly is. The song “Senzafine” fits him, too. One particular verse
fits Senza’s dark seducer perfectly. There
is no life without me. There is no choice without me.
And Senza utterly believes him.
How did the
work of Edgar Allan Poe inspire this story?
I’ve been a Poe fanatic from an early age. There is
something about that tragic man that keeps me captivated: his unwavering stare
into the depths of the shadows that filled his life, his penchant for beautiful,
melodramatic language, his undying devotion to the people he’d loved and lost.
My favorite Poe spots are in Baltimore (where he’d once lived
and is interred) and in Philadelphia (where one of his homes has now become part
of the National Park Service [http://www.nps.gov/edal/index.htm]).
It’s believed that his story “The Black Cat” was inspired by the basement of
that house. (I have a black cat Webkinz that I would love to stick into a hole
in the wall there but the husband says NO THAT’S VANDALISM AND JAIL and other
husband-type warnings. Such a party pooper.)
A few years ago, I had the chance to visit the Rare Books
department at the Philadelphia Free Library, where they had Poe’s work on
display. I could have spent a week in there, with only a thin pane of glass
between my hand and the pages touched by Poe’s very pen. The original
manuscript of Rue Morgue was inches away from my face. I was in complete
thrall. (The husband rolled his eyes and moved me along.)
While my short stories and poetry often pay a small
tribute to him, this is the first full-length work that I’ve devoted to his
style. I let all the wonderful macabre shadows creep in and take over while I
was writing. The Heartbeat Thief also
includes specific references to “The Masque of the Red Death”.
In “The Masque of the Red Death” a wealthy lord turns his
home into a sealed fortress in an effort to protect himself and his close
friends from the Red Death, a plague that was spreading through the country.
One night he threw a party for his guests…but someone unexpected showed up. The
unexpected guest was dressed as a ghoul bathed in blood and everyone fell dead
at its feet. (The End.)
Elements of “Masque” are present throughout The Heartbeat Thief. Excerpts from Poe’s
story are used in the section introductions, setting the tone of the chapters
to follow. The novel’s structure was also loosely based upon the flow of Poe’s
story—Prince Prospero's seven apartments now become the seven major settings of
the story. I used color references and allegorical context to connect
Senza's journey through time to the passage of Poe's ill-fated party goers,
right the very last black room, where Death awaited them all.
Overall, I hope that the theme, the atmosphere, and the
character’s obsession with life and death would do my idol proud. I hope to
visit Baltimore again soon, just to stop into Westminster Burying Ground [http://www.eapoe.org/balt/poegrave.htm] for a
moment to say hello, to offer another bit of thanks for his unending
inspiration, and to leave a few pennies on his gravestone.
Book &
Author Details:
The Heartbeat Thief by A.J. Krafton
Publication date: June 12th 2015
Genres: Fantasy, New Adult
Publication date: June 12th 2015
Genres: Fantasy, New Adult
Synopsis:
Haunted by a crushing fear of death, a young Victorian woman
discovers the secret of eternal youth—she must surrender her life to attain it,
and steal heartbeats to keep it.
In 1860
Surrey, a young woman has only one occupation: to marry. Senza Fyne is beautiful,
intelligent, and lacks neither wealth nor connections. Finding a husband
shouldn’t be difficult, not when she has her entire life before her. But it’s
not life that preoccupies her thoughts. It’s death—and that shadowy spectre
haunts her every step.
So does Mr.
Knell. Heart-thumpingly attractive, obviously eligible—he’d be her perfect
match if only he wasn’t so macabre. All his talk about death, all that teasing
about knowing how to avoid it…
When her
mother arranges a courtship with another man, Senza is desperate for escape
from a dull prescripted destiny. Impulsively, she takes Knell up on his offer.
He casts a spell that frees her from the cruelty of time and the threat of
death—but at a steep price. In order to maintain eternal youth, she must feed
on the heartbeats of others.
It’s a little
bit Jane Austen, a little bit Edgar Allen Poe, and a whole lot of stealing
heartbeats in order to stay young and beautiful forever. From the posh London
season to the back alleys of Whitechapel, across the Channel, across the Pond,
across the seas of Time…
How far will
Senza Fyne go to avoid Death?
Purchase:
(the first
two days of release will be selling at 99cents)
AUTHOR
BIO:
AJ Krafton is the author of New Adult speculative fiction.
Her debut The Heartbeat Thief is due out on Kindle in June 2015.
Forthcoming titles include Taking' It Back & Face of the Enemy.
She's a proud member of the Infinite Ink Authors. AJ also writes
adult spec fic as Ash Krafton. Visit Ash at http://ashkrafton.com
Author links:
Blitz-wide giveaway (INTL)
- Signed copy of The Heartbeat Thief
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