Theresa Varela

Coney Island Siren Theresa Varela

Call it coincidence or call it fate when Maggie Fuentes, rummaging through a Coney Island flea market, stumbles upon a a handwritten diary whose author, a young girl of the nineteenth century names Ellen, reveals dreadful secrets that parallel Maggie's own. Maggie sinks deep into the sinister maelstrom of her lover, Police Officer Frank Ramirez, until the stark urgency of lines written by a kindred spirit compel her to confront the reality of her- and their- lives. Far removed from each other in time but bonded by the white-capped ocean, amusement park locale, and converging torments, it seems particularly apt that the sleight-of-hand landscape of luck and chance provides the setting for Maggie's harrowing and hypnotic encounter with turmoil, then kismet, and ultimately, clarity and reawakening.