Packed with pirates, magical beasts, fierce battles on the high seas, and more than a splash of romance, Capitana is a fantasy debut like no other. We spoke to author Cassandra James about her swash-buckling YA epic – and asked whether her rapier skills are as sharp as her writing.
In a nutshell, what can readers expect from your book?
Capitana is set in an academy for pirate hunters where my main character Ximena Reale has to capture the legendary pirate Captain Gasparilla in order to redeem her own family’s treasonous past. It has swash-buckling action, slow-burn enemies-to-lovers romance, and to-the-death friendship. Basically, if you loved Pirates of the Caribbean and The Legend of Zorro growing up, you will love Capitana!
The novel is incredibly cinematic. Was that always the intention? Is that just how your mind works as a writer?
I think it’s just how I write. I’ve gotten that quite a bit, that it reads like a movie. I think that’s partially because I grew up as a voracious reader, but was also really consuming movies and plays, so my brain was geared towards storytelling that kept people’s attention. How do we keep the plot super-tight, characters super-focused, so we keep readers engaged, involved and turning pages?
Have you always been interested in pirates? Where did the inspiration for Capitana come from?
I have been a pirate history nerd forever. But I won a grant in my sophomore year of college where I had to find something locally to write a novel about. Florida is steeped in pirate history due to our position between the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic, so I was like ‘there’s gotta be something there…’ I planned a three-week research trip and went all around the state. I went to historical sites, museum archives. I learnt to sail and to fight with a rapier!
I was taking notes all through my research trip, and I’d written a question down: ‘What if there was an academy for pirate hunters?’ That snagged my attention. I ran with it and Capitana was born. A lot of that historical inspiration is infused into the book. The Republic of Pirates in Capitana is based off a real Republic of Pirates operating out of the Caribbean.
How important was it for you to weave in elements of Latin American culture and the Spanish language? And – as a writer – how did you go about fusing real world authenticity with fantasy?
In so much of Latin American writing – particularly fiction – magic and the real world are inextricable to one another. Magical realism comes from a Latin American writing tradition – Gabriel García Márquez, who is also Colombian, being a big name in that world of course! The way I was raised, and the way my brain operates, is that magic and the world are not separate from one another – which really benefits me when I’m writing fantasy because I love pulling from history, but I also love branching off from that history and imagining what might have happened instead. Magic complicates things – which is always fun!
As a second generation Colombian American, retaining and preserving the Spanish language and that history – especially in a state like Florida, which has all kinds of historical complications – was so important to me. There’s that element in the book – of an all-powerful empire controlling these islands, which is something that Latin American people know very well, that relationship with colonialism. I wanted to include the magical realism, the history, the relationship between indigenous people and colonialism and how that unfolded, and to preserve the culture and share it with people. And to share how incredibly full and rich it is – especially in the scenes of family. Family is so important in Latin American culture and that tension between family and individualism is also very important in the book.
Do you come from a family of storytellers?
Yes. Everybody in my family is a storyteller! I learnt how to tell stories through my family. Part of that is the immigrant experience: when you leave your home country, how do you share it with your children? You tell stories.
And the wonderful part is that as a kid you don’t know how much is true, how much is fiction, and where the lines are between the two. And that just makes it all the more entertaining! That was how we passed down our family history, and how we continue to do so. I catch myself doing it all the time – I tell very long, involved, detailed stories! It’s a necessary part of my culture.
You learnt how to sail for this book. How was that?
So fun! And incredibly humbling.
I grew up on power boats as a kid, but sailing was an entirely different animal. It is such physical work. I finished a day or two of lessons and I was sore all over… I had such respect for the captains I learned from because they knew those waters so well, and what was going to happen with the slightest fluctuation in the wind or the sun. That instinctual relationship with the sea was something I tried to infuse into Capitana.
And tell me about the rapier training!
Rapier training was the same! The weapon becomes an extension of your body. I had never done anything like it. The weight of it! I wasn’t expecting it to sit in my hands that way, and there are certain movements that you can’t do when you’re holding a rapier. Even little things like the sounds… Rapiers have such a way of cutting through the air. I loved that sound. There’s all kinds of different cuts and ways you can manipulate another person’s blade too.
It was so fun to be able to pick my teachers brains: ‘So… if you were trying to take over a ship and you’re coming up from the ocean on a rope ladder, how are you going to attack?’ They had lots of great ideas!
It sounds like you found real pirates…
I did my best!
A quick word on your opening line. ‘It was a fine day for an execution’ is a belter…
Opening lines are my favourite thing to write. I love ones that immediately surprise you – that contain details but also questions; lines that make you think ‘I have to know more…’
And finally: Ximena and Dante… Authors sometimes talk about characters popping into their head fully formed – was that the case with you? How was it bringing the pair to life and into each other’s orbit?
There was an original draft of Capitana that I ended up throwing out. But what’s weird is that in that first draft, Ximena and Dante were still in it and were still very much themselves. I went back and looked at it recently and thought: ‘oh my gosh, they have been here, fully formed, from the beginning’. It’s almost like they just existed and I didn’t make them up.
I wanted to create characters that weren’t likeable, but that were loveable. They’re inherently flawed, and very confused about who they are and their place in the world. They’re both ambitious and stubborn and difficult to work with. One of the things I love about them, and which I love about a lot of my favourite romances in fiction, is that they grow through each other: they learn to see themselves, their flaws and their strengths through each other – and challenge one another so that by the end of the book they are different people. I wanted them to push one another, and given the environment they are in, that collision is inevitable!