I'm happy to have Catherine Stine here today to talk about her latest book Witch of the Cards and its setting, the beach town of Asbury Park, New Jersey. She's also hosting a great giveaway to go with her release tour, so be sure to check out the rafflecopter at the bottom of this post. Welcome. Catherine!
The allure of creepy, ramshackle beach towns as settings for dark fantasy
What is it exactly that makes edgy beach towns the perfect
setting for sinister fantasy and historical suspense? I’ve always been
attracted to the dark side, and particularly to strange beach towns. So far,
I’ve set two of my novels in them.
When I first moved to New York City after college and a
stint out west, you couldn’t tear me away from the nefarious boardwalks of
Coney Island. This was back before the arcade was renovated, back when the
sideshow by the sea with its sword swallower and human pincushion were on full display.
It was when a hungry, dirty capybara was caged in a box that read: Only $1 To See the Biggest Rat in the World!
This poor critter was a plot point in Dorianna, my paranormal twist on
Dorian Grey. And no surprise, I set Dorianna in Coney Island, and installed my
sexiest villain ever, Wilson Warren, an agent of the devil disguised as a
videographer who prowled the beaches, making girls into Internet sensations.
Fast-forward to my new novel Witch of the Cards, set in
1932, about Fiera, a sea witch who has a special talent with Tarot (and not
just reading the cards). Of course, I set it in a shady beach town, in this
case, Asbury Park, NJ. You see, I’ve been coming to this gentrifying beach town
for years and know it well—in its sunny moods but also in its spooky, moody
shades.
Around the turn of the century, and up until 1940, Asbury Park
used to be the stomping grounds of the glitterati. There were grand concerts in
the art deco Convention Center, and people dressed to the nines would stroll on
the boardwalk at night. Then came the race riots of the 1960s and the economic
crash, and the place fell into major disrepair. Its only remaining claim to
fame was The Stone Pony, where Bruce Springsteen rocked into the limelight.
When I first ventured into the convention center,
there was a hole in its roof that seagulls flew in and out of, and only one
lonely saltwater taffy store on the boardwalk run by an ancient lady who seemed
to have stepped out of a Stephen King novel. Of course in Witch of the Cards I
made her into a fabulous, dangerous witch, who sold magical taffy. And I turned
the paranormal museum on Cookwell Avenue, the main shopping lane, into a place
to hold séances that often went horribly wrong. I installed an illegal
speakeasy in the taffy store basement. In my novel, Witch of the Cards, even
the ocean hides terrible secrets.
There’s something about the scent of saltwater and hotdogs,
the splintered, salt-dried boardwalk and the scream of people hurtling down on
the arcade rides that gets my blood charging and my imagination firing. What
about you?
Here’s a snippet of a scene when Fiera and her date Peter
went down to the basement speakeasy in the taffy store:
“Perhaps
I was far too gone, but I didn’t care. Peter and I danced and danced. The room
filled with the overflow from the convention hall dance—young lovers, bootlegger
types with wide ties and cigars, older women with twinkling earrings and heavy
bosoms, even a prostitute or two. I thought so anyway, because they wore way
too much rouge and came alone to sit brazenly up at the bar with the gin
rummies.
This
time I couldn’t say whether or not I stepped on Mr. Dune’s polished wingtips.
This time, he probably couldn’t be sure if he knocked his bony legs into mine.
We had many more nips of absinthe, and I wolfed down another green-swirl taffy
and before I knew it, I was leaning provocatively against Peter and laughing
like a wild banshee.
I
remember gaping up at him to see his black hair all disheveled and him mumbling
indistinctly. And I, thinking that he was the most gorgeous human being I’d
ever seen. I remember Dulcie grabbing one of my arms, and Peter grasping the
other. I remember all of us howling at the crescent moon over the ocean, and
the shocked sideways glance of the hotel proprietor as we all stumbled in.
I
recall pulling out the Tarot he’d given me, and laying them out on the bedroom
rug. I recall babbling at him—about a witch and a swindler and a boat—not
necessarily in that order. I can still picture his expression of shocked
surprise but not at what.
And
I remember Peter’s lips branding my forehead—how could I ever forget that—while
shocks of his lush black hair dangled deliciously on my burning cheeks. The
last thing I recall before things went dark was kicking off my shoes.”
Book
Description:
Fiera
was born a sea witch with no inkling of her power. And now it might be too
late.
Witch of the Cards is historical,
supernatural romantic suspense set in 1932 on the Jersey shore. Twenty-two
year-old Fiera has recently left the Brooklyn orphanage where she was raised,
and works in Manhattan as a nanny. She gets a lucky break when her boss pays
for her short vacation in Asbury Park. One evening, Fiera and her new friend
Dulcie wander down the boardwalk and into Peter Dune’s Tarot & Séance, where
they attend a card reading.
Fiera has always had an unsettling
ability to know things before they happen and sense people’s hidden agendas.
She longs to either find out the origin of her powers or else banish them
because as is, they make her feel crazy. When, during the reading, her energies
somehow bond with Peter Dune’s and form an undeniable ethereal force, a chain
of revelations and dangerous events begin to unspool. For one, Fiera finds out
she is a witch from a powerful sea clan, but that someone is out to stop her
blossoming power forever. And though she is falling in love with Peter, he also
has a secret side. He’s no card reader, but a private detective working to
expose mediums. Despite this terrible betrayal, Fiera must make the choice to save
Peter from a tragic Morro Cruise boat fire, or let him perish with his fellow
investigators. Told in alternating viewpoints, we hear Fiera and Peter each
struggle against their deep attraction. Secrets, lies, even murder, lace this
dark fantasy.
Buy links:
Amazon
US: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01COACFVU
B&N/Nook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/witch-of-the-cards-catherine-stine/1123499606?ean=2940152837797
Giveaway:
a Rafflecopter giveaway
