Interview & Giveaway: Compulsion (Martina Boone)

Hardback, 320 pages
Expected publication: October 28th 2014 by Simon Pulse

Three plantations. Two wishes. One ancient curse.
When loss is all you know, how do you find true love?
Beautiful Creatures meets The Body Finder in this spellbinding new trilogy.

All her life, Barrie Watson has been a virtual prisoner in the house where she lived with her shut-in mother. When her mother dies, Barrie promises to put some mileage on her stiletto heels. But she finds a new kind of prison at her aunt’s South Carolina plantation instead--a prison guarded by an ancient spirit who long ago cursed one of the three founding families of Watson Island and gave the others magical gifts that became compulsions.
Stuck with the ghosts of a generations-old feud and hunted by forces she cannot see, Barrie must find a way to break free of the family legacy. With the help of sun-kissed Eight Beaufort, who knows what Barrie wants before she knows herself, the last Watson heir starts to unravel her family's twisted secrets. What she finds is dangerous: a love she never expected, a river that turns to fire at midnight, a gorgeous cousin who isn’t what she seems, and very real enemies who want both Eight and Barrie dead.

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Martina Boone was born in Prague and spoke several languages before learning English. Her first teacher in the U.S. made fun of her for not pronouncing the "wh" sound right, so she set out to master "all the words”—she's still working on that! In the meantime she’s writing contemporary fantasy set in the kinds of magical places she'd love to visit. 
If you like romance dripping with mystery, mayhem, Spanish moss, and a bit of magic, she hopes you'll look forward to meeting Barrie, Eight, Cassie, Pru, Seven and the other characters of Watson Island.

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What gave you the inspiration to write this book?

I wrote a short story for an anthology that ended up having some characters and history that I couldn’t stop thinking about, but it wasn't until I dreamed about a ball of fire drifting through the woods and setting a river aflame that I had the anchoring visual for the book. The rest all came from asking why the river was on fire and who was doing it, which involved a lot of research and brainstorming, and some twists that I’m still discovering. The history of Watson’s Landing is truly the history of the Charleston, SC area, and the real parts are no less amazing to me than the mythology I’ve stretched and bent to create the story. 

Who is your favorite character in the book?

Truthfully, I love them all for their good parts and their failings. I love Barrie’s naive first steps beyond her sheltered existence, and I love the strength she eventually finds in herself. I love Eight because, well, he’s Eight. I love Cassie because she’s got so much below the surface, and Pru because she has so much she has yet to discover about herself. Mark, though, was the character who came out of left field for me. He was supposed to have a small part, but he ended up sticking his size fourteen Louboutins in half the chapters. I love him immeasurably.

Which came first, the title or the novel?

A: The book has had three titles, and I love them all. My working title was FIRE CARRIER, and the reason for that is clear when you read the book. My brilliant acquiring editor, Annette Pollert, who edited the book all the way up to copyedits, came up with BEHOLDEN, which everyone loved, and that also suits the book perfectly. But COMPULSION fits several themes in the book and also conveys a sense of energy that I hope I've achieved in the plot. It's by far my favorite, and it carries through into the rest of the series.

What scene in the book are you most proud of, and why?

I have a lot of favorite scenes, but I love the first beach scene with the turtle nests and that first big jump in the romance between Eight and Barrie. That's followed closely by the fountain scene. And the sandbar scene where Barrie first gets a hint of her strength. And Mark. Any scene with Mark is my favorite. I have a few that I wish I could have put in the book. I may write them someday, just for fun.

Thinking way back to the beginning, what’s the most important thing you’ve learned as a writer from then to now?

I have two things. 

First, think bigger. My first manuscript was a rewrite of books I had read before done my way. But what I needed to write was a story that was wholly mine, and that came from always asking how could I do something differently, unexpectedly, and on a grander scale. 

Second, make your protagonist active. My first attempts at writing were based on things happening to the main character and her reacting to those things. In Compulsion, things happened, but I tried to make her decisions to those events active decisions. Right or wrong, she’s pushing the action instead of letting the action push her.

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