The Heartbeat Thief by A.J. Krafton
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?
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?
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Three
Questions With AJ Krafton, author of The Heartbeat Thief
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.
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:
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