Author Interview: Fortune’s Kiss by Amber Clement
As we start to close the doors on the Halloween season, there are still dark and mysterious books releasing to keep the fall vibes alive. Like, Fortune’s Kiss by Amber Clement is a Mexican-inspired fantasy where a magical gambling house is wrapped in a mystery and two girls try to solve the game and make it out alive! This mysterious and dark story will have you memorized! Check out a few questions we asked the debut author, and put this book on your radar for the November 12th release!
Fortune's Kiss
by Amber ClementPublished by: Union Square and Co
on November 12, 2024
Genres: Fantasy, Mystery, Thriller, Young Adult
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Are you willing to risk everything for a chance to be kissed by fortune?
Drink and let your soul be measured.
Welcome to Fortune's Kiss, where you can attain your wildest dreams, but the price of admission . . . may be your life.The legendary Fortune’s Kiss has returned to Ciudad Milagro for the first time in ten years. The magical gambling house shows up twice a year in a new city during the solstices to lure those worthy enough to wager their souls for wealth, the realization of their greatest desires, and, even, immortality.
Known by many names throughout the years, it returns to Milagro as El Beso de la Fortuna . . . and the game is Lotería. And best friends Mayté Robles and Lorena (Lo) de León are determined to change their lives, escape the dangerous men who threaten them, and gain riches.
Mayté, the sole daughter of the disgraced Robles family, wishes to leave her family and become a successful painter, while Lo suffers at the hands of her powerful and abusive father and seeks to find her mother, who escaped to Fortune’s Kiss years ago but never returned.
When Fortune’s Kiss finally returns to their city, the pair follow on their childhood blood pact to enter the gaming salon. But once inside, Mayté and Lo quickly realize that beneath the marvelous glamour, the salon is hiding dangerous secrets and the house always wins. And the game of Lotería is not the children’s game they grew up playing—it is a deadly lottery of chance.
With the help of a young, handsome croupier, the girls embark on a mission to unravel the mystery of the salon’s magic, find Lo’s mother, and try to win a nearly impossible game as their friendship is put under the greatest of tests.
Author Interview: Amber Clement
- Tell us about Mayté and Lo. What keeps their friendship going?
I have always enjoyed reading and writing multi-POV books, and friendship has been a big theme in many of my ideas, so I knew I wanted to focus on two best friends with the strongest of bonds risking their lives together.
Mayté is ambitious and knows what she wants: to become a world-famous artist. Unfortunately, her family’s wealth and status as nobles have been ripped away thanks to her father’s mistakes, leaving them struggling. Mayté is constantly overlooked as she juggles the thankless job of looking after her family and trying to complete painting commissions to get her name out there. Despite this, she refuses to let anyone stamp out the flame of her dream and clings to it with everything inside her.
Lo, on the other hand, doesn’t have such big goals. Unlike Mayté, she doesn’t know what kind of person she wants to be. Her life looks perfect as a beautiful heiress with a slew of suitors vying for her hand. However, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Lo knows how to put on a show, and that’s because she has to protect herself and her sisters from their abusive father, who wants nothing more than to control their lives. Lo’s mother ran away to Fortune’s Kiss many years ago and never returned. If Lo could have one wish granted, it would be to get her mother back.
Mayté and Lo grew up in the same social circles, so naturally, they became friends, even making a pact to enter Fortune’s Kiss together one day. After Mayté ’s family fell from grace, Lo still treated her the same while everyone else in their circle snubbed her. Likewise, Mayté is the only person Lo trusts with the truth about her father’s abuse and where her mother fled. They see each other in their suffering and have become closer than sisters. Their desperate wishes bind them even closer as they enter Fortune’s Kiss, but the house will do anything to tear them apart.
- What, if anything, could entice you to wager your soul?
The boring short answer is I absolutely would never wager my soul. I’m too much of a scaredy cat for that. I’m the kind of person who doesn’t even like taking big risks in video games that have gambling elements. It’s pretty ironic that someone like me wrote a book about gambling!
In a world where I was more daring, I would wager my soul for a chance to become a successful author who could live off writing without having to worry about anything else. That’s something I have in common with Mayté and her dream.
- How did you develop the magic system used in Fortune’s Kiss?
As a child, whenever I would visit my Grandma Teresa’s house, I always found something to be fascinated by: the garlic clove on the front door frame, a whiff of incense in the air, the many images of Our Lady of Guadalupe, colorful prayer candles, and most of all her Lotería set. There was something magical about it, and I wanted to inject that magic as a baseline in Milagro. My goal was to make a world where there was tangible truth to superstitions, potions, and incantations. I also wanted to create a Catholic-inspired religion where Dios and Los Santos fit in with the magic.
As for the magic inside the gambling house itself, I cranked all of that up to eleven. I wanted even Mayté and Lo, who had grown up with magic, to be shocked at the splendor of it all. Thinking about the game and stakes also helped me deepen the magic system. Admittedly, Lotería isn’t exactly the most compelling of games to watch, though it is fun to play! To ramp up the stakes, I gave each card events and challenges that would occur when drawn. To further add to this, my amazing editors, Laura Schreiber and Stefanie Chin helped me expand the house’s magic by making it a living, breathing entity that could be used to one’s advantage…but at a price.
