The Lure

She made herself irresistible. Something noticed.

Aoife Finnegan boards a singles cruise with a $10,000 bet riding on her skin. She and her colleague Cyrena have spent months developing an experimental body wash — a blend of botanicals, animal excretions, and synthetic compounds designed to make a plain woman irresistible. Aoife, who catalogs her own physical flaws each morning in the mirror, has wagered the formula won't work. Cyrena has wagered everything that it will — and has chosen the testing ground: a singles cruise bound for La Isla del Amor, a remote Atlantic island of legend that no voyage has yet confirmed exists.

Three days out from port, Aoife can no longer deny the results. Every man on the ship watches her. Every woman wants her gone. She sailed expecting to prove that looks are everything. Now she's beginning to wonder what the men are actually looking at.

For readers of Clive Barker and Carmen Maria Machado — weird fiction where the love story is bait on a much larger hook.