THE AMALFI CURSE : A Bewitching Tale of Sunken Treasure,
Forbidden Love, and Ancient Magic on the Amalfi Coast
Author: Sarah Penner
Publication Date: April 29, 2025
ISBN: 9780778308003
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Harlequin Trade
Publishing / Park Row
Price $30.00
A nautical archaeologist searching for sunken treasure in Positano
unearths a centuries-old curse, powerful witchcraft, and perilous love on the
high seas in this spellbinding new novel from the New York Times bestselling
author of The Lost Apothecary—perfect
for fans of The Familiar and The Cloisters.
Haven Ambrose, a trailblazing nautical archaeologist, has come to the
sun-soaked village of Positano to investigate the mysterious shipwrecks along
the Amalfi Coast. But Haven is hoping to find more than old artifacts beneath
the azure waters; she is secretly on a quest to locate a trove of priceless
gemstones her late father spotted on his final dive. Upon Haven’s arrival,
strange maelstroms and misfortunes start plaguing the town. Is it nature, or
something more sinister at work?
In 1821, Mari DeLuca and the women of her village practice the legendary
art of stregheria, a magical ability
to harness the power of the ocean. As their leader, Mari protects Positano with
her witchcraft, but she has been plotting to run away with her lover, Holmes –
a sailor aboard a merchant ship owned by the nefarious Mazza brothers, known
for their greed and brutality. When the Mazzas learn about the women of
Positano, they devise a plan to kidnap several of Mari’s friends. With her
fellow witches and her village in danger – and Holmes’s life threatened by his
connection to the most feared woman in Positano – Mari is forced to choose
between the safety of her people and the man she loves.
As Haven searches for her father’s sunken treasure, she begins to
unearth a tale of perilous love and powerful sorcery. Can she unravel the
Amalfi Curse before the region is destroyed forever? Against the dazzling
backdrop of the Amalfi Coast, this bewitching novel shimmers with mystery,
romance, and the untamed magic of the sea.
Buy Links:
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BookShop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/397/9780778368458
Barnes & Noble:
http://aps.harpercollins.com/hc?isbn=9780778368458&retailer=barnesandnoble
Amazon: https://www.amazon.ca/s?k=9781335041791&tag=hcg-02-20
Excerpt provided by HQN Books and used with permission during the tour.
1
MARI
Wednesday,
April 11, 1821
Along a dark seashore
beneath the cliffside village of Positano, twelve women, aged six to
forty-four, were seated in a circle. It was two o’clock in the morning, the
waxing moon directly overhead.
One of the women
stood, breaking the circle. Her hair was the color of vermilion, as it had been
since birth. Fully clothed, she walked waist-high into the water. A belemnite
fossil clutched between her fingers, she plunged her hands beneath the waves and
began to move her lips, reciting the first part of the incantesimo di riflusso she’d learned as a child. Within moments,
the undercurrent she’d conjured began to swirl at her ankles, tugging
southward, away from her.
She shuffled her way
out of the water and back onto the shore.
A second woman with
lighter hair, the color of persimmon, stood from the circle. She, too,
approached the ocean and plunged her hands beneath the surface. She recited her
silent spell on the sea, satisfied as the undercurrent grew even stronger. She
gazed out at the horizon, a steady black line where the sky met the sea, and
smiled.
Like the other
villagers along the coast tonight, these women knew what was coming: a fleet of
pirate ships making their way northeast from Tunis. Winds were favorable, their
sources said, and the flotilla was expected within the next day.
Their destination?
Perhaps Capri, Sorrento, Majori. Some thought maybe even Positano—maybe,
finally, Positano.
Given this, fishermen
all along the Amalfi coastline had decided to remain at home with their
families tomorrow and into the night. It wouldn’t be safe on the water. The
destination of these pirates was unknown, and what they sought was a mystery,
as well. Greedy pirates went for all kinds of loot. Hungry pirates went for
nets full of fish. Lustful pirates went for the women.
On the seashore, a
third and final woman stood from the circle. Her hair was the rich, deep hue of
blood. Quickly, she undressed. She didn’t like the feeling of wet fabric
against her skin, and these women had seen her naked a thousand times before.
Belemnite fossil in
one hand, she held the end of a rope in her other, which was tied to a heavy
anchor in the sand a short distance away. She would be the one to recite the
final piece of this current-curse. Her recitation was the most important, the
most potent, and after it was done, the ebbing undercurrent would be even more
severe—hence the rope, which she would wrap tightly around herself before
finishing the spell.
It was perilous,
sinister work. Still, of the twelve women by the water tonight, twenty-year-old
Mari DeLuca was the most befitting for this final task.
They were streghe del mare—sea witches—with
unparalleled power over the ocean. They boasted a magic found nowhere else in
the world, a result of their lineage, having descended from the sirens who once
inhabited the tiny Li Galli islets nearby.
The women knew that
tomorrow, wherever the pirates landed, it would not be Positano. The men would
not seize their goods, their food, their daughters. No matter how the pirate
ships rigged their sails, they would not find easy passageway against the undercurrent
the women now drew upward from the bottom of the sea. They would turn east, or
west. They would go elsewhere.
They always did.
While the lineage of
the other eleven women was twisted and tangled, filled with sons or muddled by
marriage, Mari DeLuca’s line of descent was perfectly intact: her mother had
been a strega, and her mother’s mother, and so on and so on, tracing back thousands
of years to the sirens themselves. Of the women on the seashore tonight, Mari
was the only strega finisima.
This placed upon her
shoulders many great responsibilities. She could instinctively read the water
better than any of them. Her spells were the most effective, too; she alone
could do what required two or three other streghe
working in unison. As such, she was the sanctioned leader of the eleven
other women. The forewoman, the teacher, the decision-maker.
Oh, but what a shame
she hated the sea as much as she did.
Stepping toward the
water, Mari unraveled her long plait of hair. It was her most striking
feature—such blood-colored hair was almost unheard of in Italy, much less in
the tiny fishing village of Positano—but then, much of what Mari had inherited
was unusual. She tensed as the cold waves rushed over her feet. My mother should be the one doing this,
she thought bitterly. It was a resentment she’d never released, not in twelve
years, since the night when eight-year-old Mari had watched the sea claim her
mother, Imelda, as its own.
On that terrible
night, newly motherless and reeling, Mari knew the sea was no longer her
friend. But worse than this, she worried for her younger sister, Sofia. How
would Mari break this news to her? How could she possibly look after spirited
Sofia with as much patience and warmth as their mamma had once done?
She’d hardly had time
to grieve. The next day, the other streghe
had swiftly appointed young Mari as the new strega finisima. Her mother had taught her well, after all, and she
was, by birthright, capable of more than any of them. No one seemed to care
that young Mari was so tender and heartbroken or that she now despised the very
thing she had such control over.
But most children
lose their mothers at some point, don’t they? And sprightly Sofia had been
reason enough to forge on—a salve to Mari’s aching heart. Sofia had kept her
steady, disciplined. Even cheerful, much of the time. So long as Sofia was
beside her, Mari would shoulder the responsibilities that had been placed upon
her, willingly or not.
Now, toes in the
water, a pang of anguish struck Mari, as it often did at times like this.
Neither Mamma nor Sofia was beside her tonight.
Mari let out a slow exhale. This moment was an important one, worth
remembering. It was the end of two years’ worth of agonizing indecision. No one
else on the seashore knew it, but this spell, this incantation she was about to
recite, would be her very last. She was leaving in only a few weeks’ time,
breaking free. And the place she was going was mercifully far from the sea.
Eyes down, Mari
slipped her naked body beneath the water, cursing the sting of it as it seeped
into a small rash on her ankle. At once, the water around her turned from dark
blue to a thick inky black, like vinegar. Mari had dealt with this all her
life: the sea mirrored her mood, her temperament.
As a child, she’d
found it marvelous, the way the ocean read her hidden thoughts so well.
Countless times, her friends had expressed envy of the phenomenon. But now, the
black water shuddering around her legs only betrayed the secrets Mari meant to
keep, and she was glad for the darkness, so better to hide her feelings from
those on the shore.
Halfway into the
water, already she could feel the changes in the sea: the two women before her
had done very well with their spells. This was encouraging, at least. A few
sharp rocks, churned by the undercurrent, scraped across the top of her feet
like thorns, and it took great focus to remain in place against the undertow
pulling her out. She used her arms to keep herself balanced, as a tired bird
might flap its wings on an unsteady branch.
She wrapped the rope
twice around her forearm. Once it was secure, she began to recite the spell.
With each word, tira and obbedisci—pull and obey—the rope
tightened against her skin. The undercurrent was intensifying quickly, and with
even more potency than she expected. She winced when the rope broke her skin,
the fresh wound exposed instantly to the bite of the salt water. She began to
stumble, losing her balance, and she finished the incantation as quickly as
possible, lest the rope leave her arm mangled.
She wouldn’t miss
nights like this, not at all.
When she was done,
Mari waved, signaling to the other women that it was time to pull her in.
Instantly she felt a tug on the other end of the rope. A few seconds later, she
was in shallow, gentle water. On her hands and knees, she crawled the rest of
the way. Safely on shore, she lay down to rest, sand and grit sticking
uncomfortably to her wet skin. She would need to wash well later.
Terribly
time-consuming, all of this.
A sudden shout caught
her attention, and Mari sat up, peering around in the darkness. Her closest
friend, Ami, was now knee-deep in the water, struggling to keep her balance.
“Lia!” Ami shouted
hysterically. “Lia, where are you?”
Lia was Ami’s
six-year-old daughter, a strega-in-training,
her hair a delicate, rosy red. Not moments ago, she’d been situated among the
circle of women, her spindly legs tucked up against her chest, watching the
spells unfold.
Mari threw herself
upward, tripping as she lunged toward the ocean.
“No, please, no,” she
cried out. If Lia was indeed in the water, it would be impossible for the young
girl to make her way back to shore. She was smaller than other girls her age,
her bones fragile as seashells, and though she could swim, she’d have nothing
against the power of these tides. The very purpose of the incantation had been
to drive the currents toward the deep, dark sea, with enough strength to stave
off a pirate ship.
Lia wasn’t wearing a cimaruta, either, which gave the women
great strength and vigor in moments of distress. She was too young: streghe didn’t get their talisman
necklaces until they were fifteen, when their witchcraft had matured and they
were deemed proficient in the art.
At once, every woman
on the shore was at the ocean’s edge, peering at the water’s choppy surface.
The women might have been powerful, yes, but they were not immortal: as Mari
knew all too well, they could succumb to drowning just like anyone else.
Mari spun in a
circle, scanning the shore. Suddenly her belly tightened, and she bent forward,
her vision going dark and bile rising in the back of her throat.
This was too
familiar—her spinning in circles, scanning the horizon in search of someone.
Seeing nothing.
Then seeing the
worst.
Like her younger
sister’s copper-colored hair, splayed out around the shoulders of her limp body
as she lay facedown in the rolling swells of the sea.
Mari had been
helpless, unable to protect fourteen-year-old Sofia from whatever she’d
encountered beneath the waves that day, only two years ago. Mari had spent
years trying to protect her sister as their mother could not, yet in the end,
she had failed. She’d failed Sofia.
That day, the sea had
once again proved itself not only greedy but villainous—something to be
loathed.
Something, Mari
eventually decided, from which to escape.
Now, Mari fell to her
knees, too dizzy to stand. It was as though her body had been hauled back in
time to that ill-fated morning. She bent forward, body heaving, about to be
sick—
Suddenly, she heard a
giggle, high-pitched and playful. It sounded just like Sofia, and for a moment,
Mari thought she’d slipped into a dream.
“I am here, Mamma,” came Lia’s voice from a short
distance away. “I am digging in the sand for baby gran—” She cut off. “I forget the word.”
Ami let out a cry,
relief and irritation both. She ran toward her child, clutched her to her
breast. “Granchio,” she said. “And
don’t you ever scare me like that again.”
Mari sat up,
overwhelmed by relief. She didn’t have children, was not even married, but Lia
sometimes felt like her own.
She steadied her
breath. Lia is fine, she said silently to herself. She is perfectly well, on
land, right here in front of all of us. Yet even as her breath slowed, she
could not resist glancing once more behind her, scanning the wave tops.
The women who’d
performed the spell changed into dry clothes.
Lia pulled away from
Ami’s embrace, sneaking toward Mari, who welcomed her with a warm, strong hug.
Mari bent over to kiss the girl’s head, breathing in her fragrance of oranges,
sugar, and sweat.
Lia turned her narrow
face to Mari, her lips in a frown. “The spell will protect us from the pirates
forever?”
Mari smiled. If only
it worked that way. She thought of the pirate ship approaching the peninsula
tonight. If it did indeed make for Positano, she imagined the captain cursing
under his breath. Damn these currents,
he might say. I’ve had my eye on
Positano. What is it with that village? He would turn to his first mate and
order him to alter the rigging, set an eastward course. Anywhere but this slice of troublesome water, he’d hiss at his
crew.
“No,” Mari said now.
“Our magia does not work that way.”
She paused,
considering what more to tell the girl. Nearly every spell the women recited
dissipated in a matter of days, but there was a single spell, the vortice centuriaria, which endured for
one hundred years. It could only be recited if a strega removed her protective cimaruta
necklace. And the cost of performing such magic was substantial: she had to
sacrifice her own life in order for the spell to be effective. As far as Mari
knew, no one had performed the spell in hundreds, maybe even thousands, of years.
Such a grim topic
wasn’t appropriate now, not with young Lia, so she kept her explanation simple.
“Our spells last several days, at the most. No different than what a storm does
to the ocean: churns it up, tosses it about. Eventually, though, the sea returns
to normal. The sea always prevails.”
How much she hated to
admit this. Even the vortice centuriaria,
long-lasting as it was, faded eventually. The women could do powerful things
with the sea, yes, but they were not masters of it.
“This is why we keep
very close to our informants,” Mari went on. “There are people who tell us when
pirates, or strange ships, have been spotted offshore. Knowing our spells will
only last a few days, we must be diligent. We cannot curse the water too soon
nor too late. Our fishermen need good, smooth water for their hauls, so we must
only curse the water when we are sure there is a threat.” She smiled, feeling a
tad smug. “We are very good at it, Lia.”
Lia traced her finger
in the sand, making a big oval. “Mamma tells me I can do anything with the sea
when I am older. Anything at all.”
It was an enticing
sentiment, this idea that they had complete control over the ocean, but it was
false. Their spells were really quite simple and few—there were only seven of
them—and they abided by the laws of nature.
“I would like to see
one of those big white bears,” Lia went on, “so I will bring an iceberg here,
all the way from the Arctic.”
“Sadly,” Mari said,
“I fear that is too far. We can push the pirates away because they are not all
that far from us. But the Arctic? Well, there are many land masses separating
us from your beloved polar bears…”
“I will go to live
with other sea witches when I’m older, then,” Lia said. “Witches who live
closer to the Arctic.”
“It is only us, dear.
There are no other sea witches.” At Lia’s perturbed look, she explained, “We
descended from the sirens, who lived on those islands—” she pointed to the
horizon, where the Li Galli islets rose out of the water “—and we are the only
women in the world who inherited power over the ocean.”
Lia slumped forward,
let out a sigh.
“You will still be
able to do many things,” Mari encouraged. “Just not everything.”
Like saving the people you love, she mused.
Even to this day, the loss of little Sofia felt so senseless, so unneeded. The
sisters had been in only a few feet of water, doing somersaults and handstands,
diving for sea glass. They had passed the afternoon this way a thousand times
before. Later, Mari would wonder if Sofia had knocked her head against the
ground, or maybe she’d accidentally inhaled a mouthful of water. Whatever
happened, Sofia had noiselessly slipped beneath the rippling tide.
She’s playing a trick, Mari thought as the
minutes passed. She’s holding her breath
and will come up any moment. The girls did this often, making games of
guessing where the other might emerge. But Sofia didn’t emerge, not this time.
And just a few months shy of fifteen, she hadn’t been wearing a cimaruta.
Lia began to add
small lines to the edge of her circle. She was drawing an eye with lashes. “Mamma says you can do more than she
can,” she chirped. “That it takes two or three of the streghe to do what you can do by yourself.”
“Yes,” Mari said.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Because of your mamma who died?”
Mari flinched at
this, then quickly moved on. “Yes. And my nonna,
and her mamma, and so on. All the way
back many thousands of years. There is something different in our blood.”
“But not mine.”
“You are special in
plenty of ways. Think of the baby needlefish, for instance. You’re always
spotting them, even though they’re nearly invisible and they move terribly
fast.” \
“They’re easy to
spot,” Lia disputed, brows furrowed.
“Not for me. You
understand? We are each skilled in our own way.”
Suddenly, Lia turned
her face up to Mari. “Still, I hope you do not die, since you have the
different, special blood and no one else does.”
Mari recoiled, taken
aback by Lia’s comment. It was almost as though the young girl sensed Mari’s
covert plans. “Go find your mamma,”
she told Lia, who stood at once, ruining her sand art.
After she’d gone,
Mari gazed at the hillside rising up behind them. This beach was not their
normal place for practicing magic: Mari typically led the women to one of
countless nearby caves or grottoes, protected from view, via a pair of small gozzi, seating six to a boat. But
tonight had been different—one of the gozzi
had come loose from its mooring, and it had drifted out into the open
ocean. This had left the women with only one boat, and it wasn’t big enough to
hold them all.
“Let’s gather on the
beach instead,” she’d urged. “We’ll be out but a few minutes.” Besides, it was
the middle of the night, and the moon had been mostly hidden behind clouds, so
it was very dark.
While a few of the
women looked at her warily, everyone had agreed in the end.
Mari stood and
squeezed the water from her hair. It was nearly three o’clock, and all of the
women were yawning.
She shoved the wet
rope into her bag and dressed quickly, pulling her shift over her protective cimaruta necklace. Hers bore tiny
amulets from the sea and coastline: a moon shell, an ammonite fossil, a kernel
of gray volcanic pumice. Recently, Mari had found a tiny coral fragment in the
perfect shape of a mountain, which she especially liked. Mountains made her
think of inland places, which made her think of freedom.
As the women began to
make their way up the hillside, Mari felt fingertips brush her arm. “Psst,” Ami
whispered. In her hand was a small envelope, folded tightly in half.
Mari’s heart surged.
“A letter.”
Ami winked. “It
arrived yesterday.”
It had been two weeks
since the last one, and as tempted as Mari was to tear open the envelope and
read it in the moonlight, she tucked it against her bosom. “Thank you,” she
whispered.
Suddenly, Mari caught
movement in the corner of her eye, something on the dock a short distance away.
At first, she thought she’d imagined it—clouds skirted across the sky, and the
night was full of shadows—but then she gasped as a dark form quickly made its
way off the dock, around a small building, and out of sight.
Something—someone—had
most definitely been over there. A man. A late-night rendezvous, perhaps? Or
had he been alone and spying on the women?
Mari turned to tell
Ami, but her friend had already gone ahead, a hand protectively on Lia’s back.
As they stepped onto
the dirt pathway scattered with carts and closed-up vendor stands, Mari turned
around once more to glance at the dock. But there was nothing, no one. The dock
lay in darkness.
Just a trick of the moonlight, she told
herself.
Besides, she had a
very important letter nestled against her chest—one she intended to tear open
the moment she got home.
Author Bio:
Sarah Penner is the New York Times and
internationally bestselling author of The
London Seance Society and The Lost
Apothecary, which will be translated into forty languages worldwide and is
set to be turned into a drama series by Fox. Sarah spent thirteen years in
corporate finance and now writes full-time. She and her husband live in
Florida. To learn more, visit SarahPenner.com. Social Links:
Author Website: https://www.kylieleebaker.com/
Instagram: \https://www.instagram.com/kylieleebaker/
X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/KylieYamashiro
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/20095503.Kylie_Lee_Baker
