Compulsion (The
Heirs of Watson Island #1)
Release Date: 10/28/14
ISBN: 1481411225
Simon Pulse, Simon Teen
448 pages
Summary from Goodreads:
Three plantations. Two wishes. One ancient
curse.
All her life, Barrie Watson has been a virtual prisoner in the house where she lives 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.
All her life, Barrie Watson has been a virtual prisoner in the house where she lives 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.
Buy Links:
Compulsion is available anywhere
books are sold. Signed copies are available from One More Page Books. You can also
order with the special "I have a Compulsion for reading" bookplate from Eight Cousins.
Interview Questions About Compulsion:
Q: Who is your favorite character in COMPULSION?
A: This is such a mean question-and yes, I know I ask this of other writers when we do interviews for YASeriesInsiders.com. But it is mean. Choosing between characters is like choosing between your children. I'm also going to make a distinction between who is my favorite character and who is my favorite character to write. I think Barrie is my favorite character, because I know things about her that no one else knows yet-things she doesn't even know herself. But it's a close call, because Eight is an amazing guy-I'm half in love with him as I write him. And then Mark, and Pru, and Lula, and Cassie. Oh, Cassie. Sigh.
Q: Which character in COMPULSION is the most fun to write?
That one is super easy. Mark. He was meant to be a tiny part of the story-really, he was originally a ficelle, a character who is really just there to deliver information. But his personality took over my heart.
Q: If you could hang out with one of the characters from COMPULSION, who would you pick?
A: Well, I'm married. And I'm old. Er. Older. So I shouldn't say Eight, right? Okay, yeah. Definitely not Eight. And if we take Eight out of the picture, then I'd have to say Mark, because anyone would have a blast hanging out with Mark.
Q. How would you describe Barrie?
A. Sheltered, feisty, stubborn, compassionate, and courageous. Imagine growing up with a mother who never went outside and was scared and jealous every time that you were able to leave. The main loving influence in Barrie's life was her godfather Mark, the ex-drag queen who stepped in to take care of her when she was a baby, and he loved her so much that he stayed to take care of her ever since. But at the beginning of the book, both of those people are yanked away, and Barrie discovers she has a family she never knew about on the other side of the country. She's been so sheltered she doesn't know how to read people, and she longs for connection so badly that she's prone to making a lot of mistakes about whom to trust. Especially with regard to using the family gift for finding lost things, trusting the wrong people can be deadly.
Q. Where does the name Eight come from? Is that anything like Four?
A. Nope. Not at all. Family and tradition are big in the South, and that's even more true on Watson Island where the family histories go back three hundred years and the gift is passed down to the oldest child. Eight is short for Charles Robert Beaufort, VIII. His father is Seven, Charles Robert Beaufort, VII. And obviously, that tradition goes back a few years. : ) Eight is tired of feeling more like a number than a person, so when we first meet him, he can't wait to get away from Watson Island. That becomes a big problem once Barrie arrives, because it turns out she literally won't be able to ever leave the island.
Q: What is your favorite thing about Eight?
A: Apart from the fact that he's sexy, swoony, and sweet? It's that he's got a little edge of badass, but he's intensely kind and treats Barrie well-he may call her out once in a while when she does something reckless, but he lets her make her own mistakes and supports her through them. I'm all about alpha males as long as the relationship is equal. Eight makes Barrie stronger and helps her see herself through his eyes, helping her to realize that she is more than she ever thought she could be.
Q: I've heard that readers, especially men, are fascinated by Cassie. Why?
A: Well, Cassie's kind of Scarlett O'Hara-ish, so I can see that. But I didn't realize just how intrigued men would be by the bad girl edge she has to her. I'm curious to see what people think after Book Two.
Q. How would you describe Watson Island?
Watson Island is the sort of sleepy, close-knit, gossipy town that most people who have visited the South will recognize, with a bit of a difference. The town is well aware of the magic that surrounds the three founding families, and particularly the plantation at Watson's Landing. They keep the secret. In that way, the book begins like magical realism, but the magic is part of the mystery that Barrie Watson has to uncover when she arrives.
The truly magical place is Watson's Landing. There, the spirit of a Cherokee witch sets the river surrounding the property on fire each night at midnight in a ceremony he has performed for longer than anyone remembers in order to keep the land protected and to keep the yunwi, the mischievous and magical little people confined to the island. As Barrie comes to find out, she is bound to this land, both physically and spiritually, and uncovering what that means and why the island exists is part of what I am having a blast exploring in the course of the trilogy.
The gifts (and the curse) that belong to the Watsons, Beauforts, and Colesworths, all tie into this magic, but not necessarily for the reasons the families think.
Q: Who was the hardest character to write?
A: Cassie. Hands down. She's so complicated and influenced by . . . secret, spoilerish things. But I know things that no one else, including Barrie, knows about her. Also we are all seeing Cassie through the filter of Barrie's point of view, so that makes her more elusive and hard to grasp. My original Book Two-the one I put aside when my publisher wanted a series instead of two companion books-was from Cassie's point of view. That was due to a request from beta readers (okay, male beta readers) who needed more Cassie. My original plan had been to write the companion book from the perspective of Cassie's sister Sydney, but hearing the reader responses, I changed my mind and changed the end of Book One to make it possible to keep Cassie around. Writing from her perspective, even for a little while, made me see her completely differently. But she's still a difficult character to bring to the page. I really want to do a novella from her POV at some point.
Q: How did you come up with the idea for COMPULSION?
A: I wrote a short story for an anthology that ended up having some of the same characters in it, and I knew I wasn't done with the place or the characters yet. 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 and doing a lot of research and brainstorming, which did include two separate research trips to the Charleston area.
Q. What is the weirdest piece of research you had to do when writing COMPULSION?
A. I researched a LOT of off the wall things for this book: pirates, shipwrecks, ghosts, witches, voodoo, hoodoo, Cherokee witchcraft, slavery, drug running, lost treasures of the Civil War, Confederate privateering, the Red Sea Gold, indigo production, drag queens/drag shows, secret rooms, furniture with hidden drawers, ball lightning . . . The thing that fascinated me the most on a research level was the various forms of magic that were present in the South with the confluence of belief systems brought there by slaves from different regions and religions intersecting with Native American belief systems. I spent a lot of time Googling specific spells and curses and trying to work out how the interpretation of them might have changed over three hundred years.
A: This is such a mean question-and yes, I know I ask this of other writers when we do interviews for YASeriesInsiders.com. But it is mean. Choosing between characters is like choosing between your children. I'm also going to make a distinction between who is my favorite character and who is my favorite character to write. I think Barrie is my favorite character, because I know things about her that no one else knows yet-things she doesn't even know herself. But it's a close call, because Eight is an amazing guy-I'm half in love with him as I write him. And then Mark, and Pru, and Lula, and Cassie. Oh, Cassie. Sigh.
Q: Which character in COMPULSION is the most fun to write?
That one is super easy. Mark. He was meant to be a tiny part of the story-really, he was originally a ficelle, a character who is really just there to deliver information. But his personality took over my heart.
Q: If you could hang out with one of the characters from COMPULSION, who would you pick?
A: Well, I'm married. And I'm old. Er. Older. So I shouldn't say Eight, right? Okay, yeah. Definitely not Eight. And if we take Eight out of the picture, then I'd have to say Mark, because anyone would have a blast hanging out with Mark.
Q. How would you describe Barrie?
A. Sheltered, feisty, stubborn, compassionate, and courageous. Imagine growing up with a mother who never went outside and was scared and jealous every time that you were able to leave. The main loving influence in Barrie's life was her godfather Mark, the ex-drag queen who stepped in to take care of her when she was a baby, and he loved her so much that he stayed to take care of her ever since. But at the beginning of the book, both of those people are yanked away, and Barrie discovers she has a family she never knew about on the other side of the country. She's been so sheltered she doesn't know how to read people, and she longs for connection so badly that she's prone to making a lot of mistakes about whom to trust. Especially with regard to using the family gift for finding lost things, trusting the wrong people can be deadly.
Q. Where does the name Eight come from? Is that anything like Four?
A. Nope. Not at all. Family and tradition are big in the South, and that's even more true on Watson Island where the family histories go back three hundred years and the gift is passed down to the oldest child. Eight is short for Charles Robert Beaufort, VIII. His father is Seven, Charles Robert Beaufort, VII. And obviously, that tradition goes back a few years. : ) Eight is tired of feeling more like a number than a person, so when we first meet him, he can't wait to get away from Watson Island. That becomes a big problem once Barrie arrives, because it turns out she literally won't be able to ever leave the island.
Q: What is your favorite thing about Eight?
A: Apart from the fact that he's sexy, swoony, and sweet? It's that he's got a little edge of badass, but he's intensely kind and treats Barrie well-he may call her out once in a while when she does something reckless, but he lets her make her own mistakes and supports her through them. I'm all about alpha males as long as the relationship is equal. Eight makes Barrie stronger and helps her see herself through his eyes, helping her to realize that she is more than she ever thought she could be.
Q: I've heard that readers, especially men, are fascinated by Cassie. Why?
A: Well, Cassie's kind of Scarlett O'Hara-ish, so I can see that. But I didn't realize just how intrigued men would be by the bad girl edge she has to her. I'm curious to see what people think after Book Two.
Q. How would you describe Watson Island?
Watson Island is the sort of sleepy, close-knit, gossipy town that most people who have visited the South will recognize, with a bit of a difference. The town is well aware of the magic that surrounds the three founding families, and particularly the plantation at Watson's Landing. They keep the secret. In that way, the book begins like magical realism, but the magic is part of the mystery that Barrie Watson has to uncover when she arrives.
The truly magical place is Watson's Landing. There, the spirit of a Cherokee witch sets the river surrounding the property on fire each night at midnight in a ceremony he has performed for longer than anyone remembers in order to keep the land protected and to keep the yunwi, the mischievous and magical little people confined to the island. As Barrie comes to find out, she is bound to this land, both physically and spiritually, and uncovering what that means and why the island exists is part of what I am having a blast exploring in the course of the trilogy.
The gifts (and the curse) that belong to the Watsons, Beauforts, and Colesworths, all tie into this magic, but not necessarily for the reasons the families think.
Q: Who was the hardest character to write?
A: Cassie. Hands down. She's so complicated and influenced by . . . secret, spoilerish things. But I know things that no one else, including Barrie, knows about her. Also we are all seeing Cassie through the filter of Barrie's point of view, so that makes her more elusive and hard to grasp. My original Book Two-the one I put aside when my publisher wanted a series instead of two companion books-was from Cassie's point of view. That was due to a request from beta readers (okay, male beta readers) who needed more Cassie. My original plan had been to write the companion book from the perspective of Cassie's sister Sydney, but hearing the reader responses, I changed my mind and changed the end of Book One to make it possible to keep Cassie around. Writing from her perspective, even for a little while, made me see her completely differently. But she's still a difficult character to bring to the page. I really want to do a novella from her POV at some point.
Q: How did you come up with the idea for COMPULSION?
A: I wrote a short story for an anthology that ended up having some of the same characters in it, and I knew I wasn't done with the place or the characters yet. 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 and doing a lot of research and brainstorming, which did include two separate research trips to the Charleston area.
Q. What is the weirdest piece of research you had to do when writing COMPULSION?
A. I researched a LOT of off the wall things for this book: pirates, shipwrecks, ghosts, witches, voodoo, hoodoo, Cherokee witchcraft, slavery, drug running, lost treasures of the Civil War, Confederate privateering, the Red Sea Gold, indigo production, drag queens/drag shows, secret rooms, furniture with hidden drawers, ball lightning . . . The thing that fascinated me the most on a research level was the various forms of magic that were present in the South with the confluence of belief systems brought there by slaves from different regions and religions intersecting with Native American belief systems. I spent a lot of time Googling specific spells and curses and trying to work out how the interpretation of them might have changed over three hundred years.
Teasers With Excerpts:
Eight spun her toward him and kissed her, a long, deep kiss, until she thought she was going to pass out from lack of oxygen to the brain. "Now I'm better. You?"
"Yeah. Fan-freaking-tastic."
"Good, because we're going to get out of this. Look at me." He ducked his head so he was eye level with her, and laced the fingers of both hands through hers. He spoke so intently, it was hard not to believe him. Not to believe in him. "We will get out."
Maybe the human brain was hardwired to require faith. Some people believed in God. Others believed in sports teams. Some believed blindly in their own talent or intelligence, regardless of evidence to the contrary, and then there were those who believed in family no matter how often it betrayed them. The people who mattered were the people you chose instead of the people who were yours only by an accident of birth. Real family was heart as much as, if not more than, blood.
"Yeah. Fan-freaking-tastic."
"Good, because we're going to get out of this. Look at me." He ducked his head so he was eye level with her, and laced the fingers of both hands through hers. He spoke so intently, it was hard not to believe him. Not to believe in him. "We will get out."
Maybe the human brain was hardwired to require faith. Some people believed in God. Others believed in sports teams. Some believed blindly in their own talent or intelligence, regardless of evidence to the contrary, and then there were those who believed in family no matter how often it betrayed them. The people who mattered were the people you chose instead of the people who were yours only by an accident of birth. Real family was heart as much as, if not more than, blood.
He took the candle from her and used it to light the lantern. The flame guttered, then steadied. Reflecting in the mirror at the back of the lantern, it gave off a surprising amount of light. Eight blew out the candle, turned off the flashlight, and tucked it into the waistband of his shorts. He reassembled the tinderbox before sliding it into his pocket.
"Ready?" he asked.
With the light and triumph playing across his features, he looked even more beautiful than usual. Things, and people, were always more beautiful when you were afraid to lose them.
"Ready?" he asked.
With the light and triumph playing across his features, he looked even more beautiful than usual. Things, and people, were always more beautiful when you were afraid to lose them.
Drained by the aftereffects of anger and adrenaline, Barrie found herself breathing in Eight's recklessness, swept up in it, and suddenly it didn't matter where they were going or what he planned to do. His moods were contagious, dangerous to her equilibrium.
He stopped at the beach, the same beach where they'd seen the turtle nest. Neither of them said a word while Eight retrieved a musty-smelling towel from his trunk and caught Barrie's hand, lacing their fingers like they were made to fit.
They ran barefoot over the dunes and through a break in the pickets that held back the sea oats. The moon turned the white sand to diamond dust, and Eight laid the towel down above the hide-tide marker of shells and seaweed and damp, dark sand. He sat down and drew her against him, her back against his chest. His arms wrapped around her, and she leaned into the solidness of him. His heartbeat washed through her like the waves, until she didn't know whether the pounding of it was hers or his.
When she sighed and relaxed, he eased her down and leaned over and finally kissed her until she felt like she was going to fall. She reached for him, kissing him more deeply. His lips were scalding on hers, leaving her tingling and whole instead of so, so alone. She wanted the feeling, the moment, to never stop.
He stopped at the beach, the same beach where they'd seen the turtle nest. Neither of them said a word while Eight retrieved a musty-smelling towel from his trunk and caught Barrie's hand, lacing their fingers like they were made to fit.
They ran barefoot over the dunes and through a break in the pickets that held back the sea oats. The moon turned the white sand to diamond dust, and Eight laid the towel down above the hide-tide marker of shells and seaweed and damp, dark sand. He sat down and drew her against him, her back against his chest. His arms wrapped around her, and she leaned into the solidness of him. His heartbeat washed through her like the waves, until she didn't know whether the pounding of it was hers or his.
When she sighed and relaxed, he eased her down and leaned over and finally kissed her until she felt like she was going to fall. She reached for him, kissing him more deeply. His lips were scalding on hers, leaving her tingling and whole instead of so, so alone. She wanted the feeling, the moment, to never stop.
Drained by the aftereffects of anger and adrenaline, Barrie found herself breathing in Eight's recklessness, swept up in it, and suddenly it didn't matter where they were going or what he planned to do. His moods were contagious, dangerous to her equilibrium.
He stopped at the beach, the same beach where they'd seen the turtle nest. Neither of them said a word while Eight retrieved a musty-smelling towel from his trunk and caught Barrie's hand, lacing their fingers like they were made to fit.
They ran barefoot over the dunes and through a break in the pickets that held back the sea oats. The moon turned the white sand to diamond dust, and Eight laid the towel down above the hide-tide marker of shells and seaweed and damp, dark sand. He sat down and drew her against him, her back against his chest. His arms wrapped around her, and she leaned into the solidness of him. His heartbeat washed through her like the waves, until she didn't know whether the pounding of it was hers or his.
When she sighed and relaxed, he eased her down and leaned over and finally kissed her until she felt like she was going to fall. She reached for him, kissing him more deeply. His lips were scalding on hers, leaving her tingling and whole instead of so, so alone. She wanted the feeling, the moment, to never stop.
He stopped at the beach, the same beach where they'd seen the turtle nest. Neither of them said a word while Eight retrieved a musty-smelling towel from his trunk and caught Barrie's hand, lacing their fingers like they were made to fit.
They ran barefoot over the dunes and through a break in the pickets that held back the sea oats. The moon turned the white sand to diamond dust, and Eight laid the towel down above the hide-tide marker of shells and seaweed and damp, dark sand. He sat down and drew her against him, her back against his chest. His arms wrapped around her, and she leaned into the solidness of him. His heartbeat washed through her like the waves, until she didn't know whether the pounding of it was hers or his.
When she sighed and relaxed, he eased her down and leaned over and finally kissed her until she felt like she was going to fall. She reached for him, kissing him more deeply. His lips were scalding on hers, leaving her tingling and whole instead of so, so alone. She wanted the feeling, the moment, to never stop.
The COMPULSION Dream Cast:
Before I get to the human characters, I have to say that setting is very definitely a character in the HEIRS OF WATSON ISLAND trilogy. Watson Island is loosely based on Edisto Island, and I borrowed from actual Charleston area plantation history to create the three plantations that shaped who the three families became. There was tons of material to work with-I mean, pirate treasure, ancient spirit witches, blood feuds, lonely, demented characters, curses, forbidden romance . . . How could I resist?
My dream cast of plantations would include Boone Hall Plantation, with bits of Magnolia Plantation and Drayton Hall thrown in. For the ruins of Colesworth Place, I'd love to use part of the columns that are all that's left of the Windsor Plantation in Port Gibson, Mississippi. There is a Windsor Plantation on Edisto Island, too, but it doesn't have the same level of drama and echoing sadness.
Okay, and now on to the fun part. Human characters.
Barrie.
Barrie first. I'd love to Jennifer Lawrence play Barrie, of course, but basically, I'd like Jennifer Lawrence to play the main character in every movie, so that may not tell you much. I might go with Nicola Peltz.
Eight (Charles Robert Beaufort, VIII)
Liam Helmsworth, I think, although Alex Pettyfer is probably the default here for most readers, and of course I wouldn't turn him down. J
Barrie's cousin Cassie.
Rooney Mara. This one's a no-brainer for me. She could do Scarlett/Vivien Leigh, and I think she'd pull off the various sides of Cassie with the complexity that Cassie needs.
Barrie's godfather Mark.
Idris Elba. I can picture him ROCKING a pink Chanel suit and heels and shaking his booty and singing along with Whoopie Goldberg in Sister Act doing "Hail Holy Queen." I wonder if he'd be willing to shave?
Barrie's Aunt Pru.
Hard to believe that Reese Witherspoon is about the right age, but she is. And she would do a fabulous job.
Eight's father Seven (Charles Robert Beaufort, VII).
If they cast Patrick Dempsey as Seven, then McDreamy might finally get the girl he missed in Sweet Home Alabama. Maybe. Eventually. By the end of the series-if I decide that Seven is truly good enough for Pru.
My dream cast of plantations would include Boone Hall Plantation, with bits of Magnolia Plantation and Drayton Hall thrown in. For the ruins of Colesworth Place, I'd love to use part of the columns that are all that's left of the Windsor Plantation in Port Gibson, Mississippi. There is a Windsor Plantation on Edisto Island, too, but it doesn't have the same level of drama and echoing sadness.
Okay, and now on to the fun part. Human characters.
Barrie.
Barrie first. I'd love to Jennifer Lawrence play Barrie, of course, but basically, I'd like Jennifer Lawrence to play the main character in every movie, so that may not tell you much. I might go with Nicola Peltz.
Eight (Charles Robert Beaufort, VIII)
Liam Helmsworth, I think, although Alex Pettyfer is probably the default here for most readers, and of course I wouldn't turn him down. J
Barrie's cousin Cassie.
Rooney Mara. This one's a no-brainer for me. She could do Scarlett/Vivien Leigh, and I think she'd pull off the various sides of Cassie with the complexity that Cassie needs.
Barrie's godfather Mark.
Idris Elba. I can picture him ROCKING a pink Chanel suit and heels and shaking his booty and singing along with Whoopie Goldberg in Sister Act doing "Hail Holy Queen." I wonder if he'd be willing to shave?
Barrie's Aunt Pru.
Hard to believe that Reese Witherspoon is about the right age, but she is. And she would do a fabulous job.
Eight's father Seven (Charles Robert Beaufort, VII).
If they cast Patrick Dempsey as Seven, then McDreamy might finally get the girl he missed in Sweet Home Alabama. Maybe. Eventually. By the end of the series-if I decide that Seven is truly good enough for Pru.
Waton's Landing Profile Cards:
Beaufort Hall Profile Cards:
Colesworth Place Profile Cards:
About the Author
Martina Boone was born in Prague and spoke several
languages before learning English. She fell in love with words and never
stopped delighting in them.
She's the founder of AdventuresInYAPublishing.com,
a Writer's Digest 101 Best Websites for Writers site, and YASeriesInsiders.com,
a site devoted to encouraging literacy and all this YA Series.
From her home in Virginia, where she lives with her
husband, children, and Auggie the wonder dog, she enjoys writing contemporary
fantasy set in the kinds of magical places she'd love to visit. When she isn't
writing, she's addicted to travel, horses, skiing, chocolate flavored tea, and
anything with Nutella on it.
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