Poe Meets Austen in Ash Krafton Fantasy Novel

Schuylkill County author Ash Krafton announces the upcoming release of The Heartbeat Thief by AJ Krafton, a “New Adult” gothic fantasy novel that will be available in print and all ebook formats on September 18, 2015.

The Heartbeat Thief tells the story of Senza Fyne, a young Victorian woman living in 1860s Surrey, England. Haunted by her loved ones’ deaths and the threat of an arranged marriage, Senza discovers a way to escape it all—a magic spell that allows her to remain young and beautiful forever. Eternal youth, however, comes at a high price: she must give up her life to attain it and steal the heartbeats of others to keep it.

It was Krafton’s self-described “cheerfully morbid” obsession with Edgar Allan Poe and her love of Jane Austen novels that inspired her to write the dark fantasy. “Women in the 19th century faced tremendous obstacles in society as well as in their own families and homes,” says Krafton. “I wanted to tell a story that went beyond a typical Victorian woman facing a pre-determined future. Creating a Poe-esque atmosphere allowed the character to go to a new kind of extreme to conquer her destiny.”

The Heartbeat Thief continues Krafton’s tradition of mixing magic with reality. “No matter how hard I try to keep my stories anchored in mainstream reality,” she says, “the elements of fantasy and the paranormal always manage to sneak in.” Her previous novel Words that Bind is the story of a social worker whose newest client is a genie, while The Books of the Demimonde trilogy follows the saga of an advice columnist-turned-oracle who finds herself in a world of demivampires, werewolves and witches.

The Heartbeat Thief will be released for the Amazon Kindle format on June 12, 2015 and is currently available for pre-order. A worldwide release for print and other ebook formats will follow in September.

Ash Krafton is a speculative fiction author from Schuylkill County, PA. The Pushcart Prize nominee is the author of poetry, short stories and novel-length fantasy and romance. She also writes New Adult speculative fiction under the name AJ Krafton.