The first setting we’d like to explore is the strange landscape of Cappadocia, Turkey, which features in the art on the back of our paperback, shown here.
In Wicked Wish, Neve and Damian visit the fictitious site of Gizli Tepe, set in Cappadocia, in central Turkey. They pass through a strange and alien landscape comprised of tall, conical rock formations commonly known in guidebooks as “Fairy Chimneys.”
The proper term for these formations is hoodoos. The stone spires are made of volcanic tuff, a soft rock formed from layers of volcanic ash. Each chimney is capped by a harder layer or fragment of basalt. Essentially, while the landscape eroded over the millennia, the hard caps protected the softer material beneath them, leaving tent-like spires.
The thing that makes the hoodoos of Cappadocia so magical are the dwellings cut directly into the rock. Tuff is a soft material, and easy to work. Inhabitants of the region carved churches, homes, storerooms, and even stables into the spires.
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