S.2 Ep. 45: Shaped by Fate, Changed by Choice: H.R. Cole on Daughter of the Void

🎙️ Welcome back to The Mythic Mic Podcast, where power comes with a price, destiny refuses to be simple, and stories dare to ask whether freedom is something you choose or something you have to fight for.

This week, host Sara Santillan sits down with fantasy author Hope Cole to dive into her epic novel, Daughter of the Void. Hope reflects on a lifelong love of storytelling that began in childhood and how that passion evolved into a career path that wasn’t always linear. From working in veterinary medicine for over a decade to writing health articles and eventually returning to fiction, her journey is a testament to persistence, reinvention, and finding your way back to what you love. 

We dive into the expansive world of Daughter of the Void, a high fantasy rooted in a unique magic system inspired by theoretical physics, where every tangible thing has an unseen counterpart, and those who can manipulate it wield immense power. Hope unpacks the journey of Raelyn, a heroine caught between destiny and choice, whose greatest desire isn’t power, but freedom.

🩸 What does freedom really mean when your fate may already be decided?
⚔️ Can power ever truly belong to you—or does it always come with a cost?
🔥 And what happens when the line between hero and villain starts to blur?

This is a must-listen for high fantasy lovers, romantasy readers, and anyone who craves immersive worlds, layered characters, and stories that make you feel everything at once.

🔥 IN THIS EPISODE, WE TALK ABOUT

✨ Transitioning from veterinary medicine to a writing-focused career.
✨ Losing and rediscovering the spark for creative storytelling.
✨ Why community is essential for writers at every stage.
✨ The importance of advocating for your work as an author.
✨ The inspiration behind Daughter of the Void's magic system. 
✨ Blending theoretical physics concepts into fantasy worldbuilding. 
✨ Creating a world with checks and balances for magic users. 
✨ Exploring freedom as a central theme across multiple characters. 
✨ Writing a protagonist who makes mistakes and grows from them. 
✨ Crafting a sympathetic villain readers might actually root for. 

CONNECT WITH US

🎙️ The Mythic Mic Podcast – @MythicMic
👤 Bethany Amanda – @BethanyinFantasyland
👤 Sara Santillan – @the_magical_quill
📚 H.R. Cole – @H.R.Cole_Fantasy_Author

✨ If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review. It helps more fantasy readers and aspiring authors find their way to The Mythic Mic.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the Mythic Mike Podcast, where myths, magic, and legendary stories come to life. Join your hosts, Bethany Amanda and Sarah Santillon, passionate authors, book collectors, and lovers of all things fantasy and romantic. As they dive into epic worlds, enchanting tropes, and the books that leave us breathless. The Mythic Mic is your getaway to the magic of fantasy fiction. So grab your favorite bookish beverage, settle it, and let's step into the extraordinary. Now, here are your hosts.

SPEAKER_03 0:32

Hello everyone, it's Sarah. Welcome back to the Mythic Mind podcast. Today I am with the lovely Hope Cole, and we're going to be talking about the daughter of the void. Hi, Hope. Hi, how are you? Thank you for having me. I'm doing so well. I'm so glad you're here today. Let's talk about you. So tell us a little bit about yourself, where you grew up, what you love doing, outside, inside.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

All right. Um, well, I was born and raised in Pennsylvania, a very lovely no-stop sign, stoplight kind of little town. And so I grew up very much an outdoor child, and that followed me into adulthood. I do a lot of outdoor activities. Writing is my indoor activity, and when I'm not doing that, I enjoy hiking. I do traditional archery. Uh, my husband and I do um triathlons, so we dabble in a lot of things. We, you know, we also both did mixed martial arts for a long period of time. Yeah, so writing isn't all there is.

SPEAKER_03 1:35

That's incredible. You're basically your own heroine. Like I try. I guess I try. Yeah, I mean, archery, that's incredible. The amount of strength that you have to have in your arms and back, like to pull that bowstring, that's incredible. But I'm not surprised because you're like, oh, I do jujitsu and triath one. So you're incredibly strong.

SPEAKER_02 1:55

It is definitely strength training, it is definitely a big part of it. And honestly, for any lady listeners over the age of 25, you need to prioritize strength training for your own, like just your health and well-being as you age gracefully. It's just if you've got to pick one cardio or strength training, believe me, it's actually strength training. So I'm just gonna toss that out there.

SPEAKER_03 2:17

Yeah. Um, I actually ran cross country and track and field in college. Oh, nice. Yeah, and in high school, we didn't prioritize strength training at all. And then I got into college and we were lifting quite a bit. And uh I learned how important it is as I got older to just continue to strength train. So I also agree with that. I we have our own gym in our garage, and that's our priority, is like training. Yes, yes. It should be. Yes. Yeah. That's great advice, everyone. Write, write books and strength train. Yes, amen. That's the end of the podcast right there. If you could trace your writing journey back to its roots, where did it begin for you? When were you like, I love writing, it's everything to me, it's my life.

SPEAKER_02 3:01

You know, that's that's such an interesting question. I, you know, when you look back at it, I don't think I like consciously recognized a singular moment. But throughout childhood, as soon as I could write, I was writing. I was writing these, you know, even if they were just single-page little stories, just these fantastical things, these worlds that had come into my mind. I also loved to draw as a child. And so that kind of went hand in hand. You know, you're coloring like unicorns or dragons or whatever, and then yeah, I want to write a little like paragraph and show mom how you know how fun would that be. So I've just always loved that expression to be able to take what I'm experiencing in my head and and put it down in written format so that someone else can be there with me and enjoy that moment. Like, hey, I thought of this really amazing story. Let's, you know, let's share it together. So, you know, as a very young child, there's still my mom has them in a shoebox somewhere, I'm sure. Um, an abundance of like, you know, birthday cards and just uh keepsakes of little things that I had written as a child.

SPEAKER_03 4:18

Very wonderful. I feel like it's a weird thing that inherently happens and is so natural as you grow up, you don't even realize how significant it is to you. Yes. You I tell this story all the time that the first story that I wrote, my teacher was really shocked by it. Because she was like, This is very graphic. I watched a lot of anime and like read- Oh my gosh, yes, same, same. My content was very deep because like when I was growing up, Wolf Brain was out and there was like some really devastating anime that was out during the time. So I was writing stories about like these very complicated premises at like an elementary school level. Mm-hmm. Yes. My teachers were like, no, this is wrong. But then I realized as you were talking, the very first piece that I think was significant to me was actually a bit of poetry. I loved writing poetry. And I was like, oh my gosh, I have been writing since I could possibly write. As soon as as it was possible, I was writing. And it's like something that is ingrained in us, and then we have to tell stories. We are natural storytellers. I think that's a nice I agree with that.

SPEAKER_02 5:21

You know, you actually touch on something really interesting. So I also loved poetry. In fact, my grandmother, when she passed, left me all of her old poetry books. She she loved poetry, and I naturally assume that's where my love of it came from. But when you think about it as children, a lot of our books are they rhyme, right? They're they're in that type of prose. And so I feel like that probably a lot of authors can relate to that. I I bet we're not the only ones who have that that love of poetry from a very early childhood.

SPEAKER_03 5:54

Yeah. And you know, it I always say that I don't know why we stopped rhyming when we were teaching, because there was something about rhymes and songs and riddles that made learning very expressive when we were young. And then all of a sudden you get to middle school and they're like, no, everything's very straight-lined, everything's logical, and they took out all the creativity and and the rhyming and sing song. But I feel like that's what makes us so creative. It's like, what can we do with words? Like, you know, how do we them and how do we convey feeling with less words?

SPEAKER_02 6:27

Yes, no, you'd hit the nail on the head. That's spot on. I absolutely agree.

SPEAKER_03 6:32

So, what was the moment where you were like, okay, I love writing, it's a part of my life, but now I want to publish and now I want it to be a real solid thing in my life where I am producing works and sharing it with the world.

SPEAKER_02 6:46

I would say that very decisive moment was probably in my early 20s. You know, when you're coming out of high school, you have to make some career path decisions, or, you know, around that time. This you give yourself a couple grace years, of course, but I had two passions, and one was animals and one was writing. And in my mind, at the time, veterinary medicine was a more lucrative pathway, and so I picked that and I went into that and I was in that field for over a decade. But it is very hard on the heart. Um I I am too much of an animal lover to be able to distance myself effectively from the sad things you see in that line of work. The hospital that I worked for, we were the abuse case center for the county that I was in. And that meant that we saw all of the court cases that came through, and a little part of you dies, I think, when you see what people can do to innocent creatures. And I just, you know, after a certain amount of time, I was like, I can't, I just can't do this anymore. And what else do I love? I love writing. So I was like, you know what? I'm gonna I'm gonna give it a go. I did some research, I looked into freelance work, and while I was still in the veterinary uh career, I started taking on side contracts for just, you know, I mean, so many different varieties of contracts. I wrote pet wellness articles for a long time and eventually transitioned into human health articles, and that's kind of where I've also remained. So I still do that as my nine to five job. I do still write uh health research articles.

SPEAKER_03 8:37

Oh, wow, that's impressive. I I had a friend who was aspiring to be a veterinarian, and the classes were very difficult for her at the time, but she worked at a veterinarian's office doing like other things that she could kind of get her hands on so she could be in the profession, and she'd come home, and you could tell every time she came home, like a little bit of herself had just been chipped away. It was so difficult to see, and but she loved animals so much, and she she on she didn't she was in a hospital, so it wasn't so much about the trauma, but it's still very difficult to see what you have the animals that come in and having to put them down and things like that. And I always, I always she would talk about it and she's like, I love it too much to leave it, but you could tell it was eating at her. It was a very difficult film. So I commend you because people don't realize they're like, oh, doctors are amazing, but they don't realize like veterinarians have it so hard because it's like it's not always about keeping the animal alive. You try your hardest, but sometimes the result is trying having to put them down. Whereas with humans, that's not an option. Right, right. So you were like, I definitely want to write, but you still want it to exist in the health realm. How did you get from health to writing the daughter of the boy? You know?

SPEAKER_02 9:52

Well, so I creativity and creative writing is always where like I love to write in general and it comes, it comes naturally to me, but the the fantasy never really left me from childhood. So I knew that just from learning about it and I'm back back in those days, we didn't have YouTube and like the channels of learning were it was my library. So I went to the library and I checked out every book there was on the publishing process and writing query letters, and I knew that it was a shot in the dark to write something and have it become mainstream and make me enough money to survive off of. So I knew I had to maintain the article writing, but it was like I really want to be a fiction writer, and uh, it's something that I knew I would have to work at and slowly get my foot in the door. So, right around the same time I started the article writing, I also kept up with my creative writing, and I did actually publish a young adult novel boy back in like 2009-ish, somewhere in there. And that was my foot in the door. That was the proof of concept that it is possible to get something out there, unfortunately I didn't know what I didn't know at that time. Right. And um working with all a publisher who was also very new to the game, neither of us prioritized some things that we probably should have. And I didn't know any better. I had no guidance, I didn't have a mentor in the space, you know. Uh what I had learned was from those books at the library. And so I I lost heart a little bit when it wasn't didn't sell to more than my family and friends, I guess is a good way to put it. And then I just prioritized the writing that was making me money, and that was the health writing.

SPEAKER_03 11:57

Wow. It's crazy to hear that because you often hear that in like the indie space. It's like you don't know what you don't know. But to have work with an a publisher that doesn't know what they don't know as well as you, that's definitely a tough start. With that being said, how did that affect your, you know, publishing process as you went along? How was that affecting your journey? You said you were like, yeah, it it really discouraged me. How did you get back in on the horse, I guess?

SPEAKER_02 12:25

Yeah, so it was almost a whole nother decade before I really embraced creative writing again. I dabbled into contests here and there because it's still something that I loved, but I didn't pursue it seriously until later on in life I had a friend who was just she was in that part of her writing journey where she was messaging me every day, like excited about her own work. And it kind of renewed that spark in me a little bit. And I was like, you know, I have this book that I started eight years ago. I was like, and I felt really, really good about it then. So I went back into it and rereading it, I was like, I still feel really good about this book and and the idea I had for it. And so with that, with her energy driving me a little bit, it renewed it and I was back in the game just like that. So it is important, I think. You know, we write on our own, we write alone. But as authors, I think it's important to have a supportive community of people around you who also write. You can have supportive family and friends who, you know, cheer you on, but I think it's important to have a group of people that you can bounce ideas off of, get genuine feedback from, people who are also in the trenches working through that, you know, that sense of camaraderie is there. I think that's uplifting for everybody.

SPEAKER_03 13:53

I agree. Everyone says that you're kind of like the brooding solitary artist writer, but that can stunt you in some ways. I mean, some people function really well in that, I'm not gonna lie. But I also feel like having the community around you and seeing people cross like progress in their journeys at different like and different points kind of keeps you on the ball. And then, like you said, being able to discuss it, like, hey, I had this chapter super difficult, or this character is killing me. And then hearing someone else have a similar experience than you, you're like, okay, I'm not floating this in this water alone. Um, I can do this. I've others have done it before me, and I can do it as well. I'm in a writing group, so I love my writing group. I'm so thankful for them. I jumped in it and just seeing all of these beautiful, fantastic women just publish. Some publish Trad and some do indie, but it's incredible. And I'm like, yes, I can do it. I'm going to do it. And it just keeps me motivated. And I I totally agree with that. Absolutely. So for aspiring authors looking to follow in your footsteps, what exactly, what kind of advice would you have for them?

SPEAKER_02 14:59

I think the most important thing is to be your own advocate. We often let people make decisions for us, or we don't speak up, or we change things we don't want to change. But it's your it's your creative work. You need to own it, you need to be proud of it. And I think that sometimes when we start working with editors and publishers, everyone has uh their own opinions. So, you know, it's just like reading a book is a very personal experience. Something that I love might be something somebody else doesn't like. And that that holds true with the team of people that you you choose to work with for your book as well. So if your editor comes to you and and says, Hey, let's change this, and you don't want to change it as an author, speak up. It's okay to have an open discourse about why you want to keep something, or you know, if you don't like the cover design, you know, let them know. It it's your it's your book, it's a representation of you. And I think personally, my first book that was published, I fell really, really short in that area. And I think one of the things that held that book back for such a long time was the cover art was done by the young lady who was also my editor at the time. And I wasn't happy with it, but I was afraid to say something because she was also the editor working on the the work. And you know, I didn't want to make waves or in my inexperienced mind, I was like, are they gonna tell me? Well, then never mind, like take your book and you know, beat it kind of thing. So but it is okay to advocate for yourself, and I think it's really important as an author for people to to do that and have boundaries, but an open communication with the people that you're working with for sure.

SPEAKER_03 16:54

That's some great advice. I kind of took the notion is if you give if you go trad, you have no hope to fight for your book. It's just kind of the narrative um that you hear in the in the you know community. It's just if you're going traditional, you lose a lot of you know creativity, like creative rights to your story, and you kind of have to just suck that up and hope that the publisher and the people around you that you chose kind of see the value in your story as it is. So it's nice to know that you can still speak up for yourself at any level. Whether or not that comes across, you don't know, but it's important to say your truth and fight for your your work. Because you like you said, and you pointed out something really important. This is a representation of you. And people are going to judge the book on you, not the publisher.

SPEAKER_02 17:37

Exactly. Yes, exactly. Authors are the front line. You're gonna take all the the glory and all the the criticism. So keep that in mind when you move forward.

SPEAKER_03 17:48

Yeah, and that's that's that, hey guys, speak up. If you know anything, speak up for what you want, fight the fight, and also strength train. Yes, right, right. Okay, so let's get into the daughter of the void. For listeners just discovering your book, let's get the elevator pitch. Tell us what's about, what we were.

SPEAKER_02 18:09

All right. So, in a world shrouded with tendrils of magic, Raylan holds the power of savior and destroyer, but using her ability may chain her fate to the gods forever.

SPEAKER_03 18:20

Wow, that makes me want to read it, just simply hearing those. That's really impactful and it's mysterious too, because you're there's so many questions in just those few sentences, so you're just like, tell me more.

SPEAKER_02 18:32

I appreciate that because you know the elevator pitch is like the dreaded we all kind of hate it a little bit, I think, as writers. So it's still a work in progress, but that's good enough for now.

SPEAKER_03 18:44

Yeah. I know because you have to conceptualize an entire work into a few sentences at best. And that's like dishonest to the work, but you have to figure out how to do that and sell it. Um I hate elevator pitches.

SPEAKER_02 18:56

Every time I think about it, I'm like, ah yeah, I think that's universal. I don't I've yet to meet an author who's like, oh yeah, I love love elevator pitches. But there, I mean, I'm sure you're out there. And if you are, boy, more power to you. Yeah, come and help me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:13

So who are the key players in your story and what are the stakes for them?

SPEAKER_02 19:18

Well, the the main protagonist is Raylan, and she's a young woman who for her the stakes, and I would say this is almost the stake for everyone in the book, but in different ways, is freedom. Okay, so Raylan's particular power, it makes her a target, and and she just wants to live a normal life. And no matter what she does, it seems like her fate is just it's not meant to be. She she would has this power for reason, and forget what she wants. She's got to do what she's supposed to do. And so for her, the stakes are her freedom and the freedom of choice, you know, and that's kind of what I wanted people to get as they read through this series is to ask themselves about their own ideas of destiny and fate. And do the choices we make matter? And or is everything predetermined? I want people to, you know, on a subconscious level, be wondering these things as they're reading. And I don't want you to know yet. I want, you know, in book three, you'll know what the outcome is, but there's I want you to wonder about that. And then the the other two really pivotal characters, we have Elithon, who is Raylan's best friend. She is worried about her freedom, but in a very different way. She's fairly high up in the nobility chain, which in this world means an arranged marriage and being a dutiful wife, and she is not about that. She wants she wants power and she wants all the accolades, but she doesn't want to be chained to that kind of a life. So for her and her decisions are based off of that fear of freedom. Um, and then the antagonist is Sarat. Her freedom is it follows a similar path of Elisan's, but hers is a journey of revenge, and it's freedom, freedom from the knowledge of everything that she and her mother have endured, and that's what her drive is. She wants to be free of that burden. So those those are the main players. And then, of course, Raylan has a love interest, Laris, but he's I would say his main motivation is his stakes are that he finally has found something other than fighting and war to actually care about. And so he's invested in in Raylan's safety and health moving forward.

SPEAKER_03 21:52

How did you how did this idea come to you?

SPEAKER_02 21:56

So the concept of the book itself is actually loosely based. I have a weird side hobby. I love theoretical physics and like learning about things like antimatter and black holes and things like that. So it all started with the magic system, which is basically all tangible things in this world have a counterpart of what is called magic. And it's just basically an invisible shadow of their what they are that surrounds them. And people who can manipulate that are your magic users in the book. And so I loosely base that on concepts of of antimatter and dark matter and the unseen in our own world. And then it grew from there. So if I have people who can manipulate this power, what's the natural counter to that? And I don't want to spoil too much of the storyline, but that it that's where it blossoms from. It all started with that magic system.

SPEAKER_03 22:55

Wow, that's very interesting. You my son would love to hear everything you have to say about it. He loves space and every I mean he loves science. He he said he's seen to be a dancing scientist astronaut when he gets older. I love it.

SPEAKER_02 23:10

I'm here for that. I'm here for that for sure.

SPEAKER_03 23:13

And he's not, he's not kidding. He's already he's in the second grade. He's gonna go into the third grade, but he's already like surpassed division and fractions and all of that. He's very intelligent and he's obsessed with space and dark matter and antimatter and black holes and white matter and things of that.

SPEAKER_02 23:32

Oh, that's exciting. I'm excited for him. It's a really a fascinating field.

SPEAKER_03 23:37

I'm gonna tell him this book when he gets on the is based off of these things. You should read it.

SPEAKER_02 23:44

Does your book have spice? It does. It's not it's difficult to explain in a reader community where I think people associate romantic books with gratuitous spice. But you know, yes, but I would say that Daughter of the Void is more along the lines of a romantic fantasy where the fantasy story is really standalone and the romance is uh just an added nuance to it. It's a th it's a strong component to it, and uh I did include a spicy screen. And I do that because uh I think it's important to showcase if we're gonna showcase people and all of their emotions and what it means to be human, I don't think we can leave that out, especially when you're following the story of personal growth and self-discovery, which is very much Raylan's journey. She doesn't know anything at the start and and she's experiencing life for the first time. So I think it was important to include that. And I, you know, if I'm gonna write battle scenes that have blood and gore and death, why not include a beautiful love scene? I agree.

SPEAKER_03 25:04

And that's that is a powerful way to illustrate spice or having you know intimacy in a book. And I because I write I write adult as well. I haven't finished it, but uh the my I'm rather write adult because I believe in the truest form of a relationship and being able to demonstrate what healthy and unhealthy relationships look like. Absolutely. And it's real form. I think it's a natural part of human life, and there's nothing wrong with having those concepts in it at any degree. If you want your book to be a little more spicier or less or no spice, that's up to you. But in degrees, it to me, showing the realness of a relationship for me personally, I like to see it all the way through because it's there's so much you can find in a spicing, what what brings out in both people and how a relationship evolves, because it you never really know what happens after spicings, whether they get closer or they get separated. Like it's a really interesting and powerful concept to use in adult relationships.

SPEAKER_02 26:10

Yes, absolutely. And I think you hit a really key point about showcasing healthy and unhealthy. Uh, you know, we can't take for granted that everyone has seen what a healthy relationship is or can recognize what an unhealthy relationship is. And I, for one, learned so much about black people and the spectrum of psychology from reading. And I think that as authors, including those kind of scenes is a really great way to show character growth and to help a reader, you know, you're you're you're teaching as you're writing. This is fiction, but that doesn't mean that these aren't how things can happen. That's what immerses people is when your characters are relatable and real. And even though they're in a fantasy setting, this is something, their interactions are something that we can recognize in the world around us.

SPEAKER_03 27:04

Absolutely. And I love that you bring that up that we're teaching. I feel like off we often forget as artists that we have a responsibility for everything we create and put out into the world. People will consume it and be affected by it to some degree. So we have to be conscious of that. And when we are writing, write our truest art, but also understand that we are influencing in some degree. Um, and how we do that is important. Um, and I love that you mentioned that because I've we just spoke to another author who was saying, she's like, I just want my art to move people, and I don't care in which direction it moves them, but I really want them to sit down and engage with my writing. And I was like, Yeah, absolutely. You know, I want them to engage with it, feel something, and relate to the if I did that, then I wrote a book. I wrote a good book. Yes, yes, absolutely. Yeah. So what are what are some of the thematic themes in in your book? What is the what are we signing up for when we're going through it? What kind of feelings are you trying to invoke? I noticed you mentioned freedom.

SPEAKER_02 28:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 28:07

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 28:08

Um so frustration is definitely one. Um I I love an overpowered main character. Do not get me wrong wrong. I love stories sometimes that I'm just like, yes, this person, you know, they are going through life just slaying out. But the reality is, in my own experience of life, I've had some really uncertain moments. I've fumbled through a lot of things, I've made a lot of poor choices, you know, and I wanted I wanted my character to be raw in that way. And um you're probably gonna be a little frustrated with her from time to time because as a reader, uh with the knowledge you have that she doesn't, you'd be like, why, why would you do that? But it's because how many times in my own day-to-day have I made done something silly, right? And I think we are all guilty of that. So even if you're a little frustrated with her, that's okay because I think it showcases that she's human. And just like any of us, she might not make the best decision in the heat of the moment. At the same time, you're gonna grow with her, and so you'll be proud of her when she does start finally coming into her own. And then I kind of want you to root for the villain a little bit, and I think I think that most people do, because the villain is driven by a f a personal revenge story, and it's it's a very justified revenge story. Now, what makes her the villain is the extremes that she goes to for her end goal, and I think that's the defining thing, right? She's not she's not a white knight by any means. She's got an end in mind, and she's gonna get there no matter how many people or places she has to burn down to do it. But you kind of are like, I get it, you know, like I I get it. Like, and you kind of want her to succeed a little bit, so yeah. So I want you to have mixed feelings, I guess, is the best way to put it. I love that.

SPEAKER_03 30:15

Um, I I love a good villain with a good logic.

SPEAKER_02 30:19

Yes, yes. I think sympathetic villain, right? Is that that's what we call them. Uh a villain that you can kind of see a little bit of yourself is.

SPEAKER_03 30:27

I know everyone always asks you, who's your favorite villain? And I'm like, Thanos? And I love Yes, yes. On Thanos, he had a point. I mean, granted, his math was wrong, because when you actually did math, it didn't make sense. But yes.

SPEAKER_02 30:40

That is whenever people ask me to compare a villain to my villain, Thanos is who I say because really yes, because he he was well meaning, right? He meant well. He just the way he went about it was wrong. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:56

He really, he really thought that he was in the right, he really thought that what he was doing was serving the greater purpose. Um, and he believed that through and through. That's crazy. I'm like so happy because I don't often hear people like, yeah. Yeah, famos. So um, who would like this book? If they liked, say they like X, then they'll love your book.

SPEAKER_02 31:19

See, I think if you enjoy high fantasy, uh an action and adventure, this book is for you. That would include Lord of the Rings stands, you know, we'll go really traditional. But it's also gonna appeal to people who love like Cosera J. Moss stuff. It's got the romantic element, but it's also really, really epic fantasy. So I think it appeals to a very broad audience. I would venture to say, due to the female protagonist, and because it is a a romance, there is a love story in this, it's probably gonna appeal mostly to adult women.

SPEAKER_03 31:56

Yeah. And that's okay. There may be some bros out there who love it too.

SPEAKER_02 32:00

That's true. Uh that's the thing. The romance is not, again, it's the the subplot. So I think as long as you love fantasy and you love reading fantasy, it can appeal to anyone.

SPEAKER_03 32:13

Yeah, I agree. I we Red Rising was not as popular like back back in the day when I was first reading it. And now it's like if it's it's everything. It's like the holy grail of books at this point in the series. But what I love about it is people are starting to realize that there is a romantic subplot to Red Rising. Um, the whole point of Darrow's journey is because he lost his wife and he loves her, and her love drives every good and evil thing he does throughout that entire series. And I always love um people when men started realizing that when they were reading, like, like, wait a second, this is kind of a love story. And then the author was like, Yeah, it's a lot, it's kind of I love that because I feel like I feel like books can be a lot of things. They are the real things of what people feel and how they go through life and how they interact with people and how they grow. And there's a lot of nuance in that. There's a lot of things that happen in that. And you can pick up a book and find yourself in anything that you read, I believe. So I'm really excited because I love Lord of the Rings and I love all the things you said. I love I'm like, this is everything. And your magic system sounds amazing too. So super excited. Can you tell us a little bit more about your world? Like, how does your world function without like, you know, is it dangerous? How is it unique? How did you build it?

SPEAKER_02 33:35

So the world is it what we would consider in our work post-apocalyptic. So they had a very devastating war between, basically a war between the gods. And so Raylan's story takes place after that, when um basically the winning god was like, okay, now here's the rules. You're all gonna operate under, we're gonna try to keep, you know, the peace. Thankfully, you know, it was um a well-meaning god that was triumphant. So the hierarchy of power is there's these these god entities who no longer have a way to interact with the physical realm. They're very much in the spiritual realm at this point. After that, cataclysm is what they call it. The police of this world are called the holy knights, and the holy knights are led by the holy king, and he is supposed to be the direct representation of the god, and his name's emblem, the god that won the war. So Raylan finds out through her journey that though the the holy knights basically keep mages in check, right? So that's how the magic system doesn't become overpowered, right? Because I I feel like that's a common dilemma in fantasy writing is well, if I have magic at my ability, you know, like how am I just not overpowered and doing all the things I want? And so there has to be a system of checks and balances. So the holy knights and what they represent are the balance to the mages who would otherwise just be unstoppable. So, and then of course, you still have kings and queens, and we have unique creatures in this world that I call faith folk, and faith folk represent a variety of just creatures that honestly are made up. There are so there's gonna be some names that as a reader you'll encounter and you'll you'll be like, I never heard of that before, and that's because it's unique to this world. But we also have the classic, we have griffins, there's dragons, um, you know, there's spirits, we have will o' the wisps. There's so there's a lot, there's a lot going on in there.

SPEAKER_03 35:51

I love Will O'The Wisps because I always think of Princess Mon and okay with those little nuts.

SPEAKER_02 35:55

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 35:56

They're like little nutcracker heads.

SPEAKER_03 36:00

I love that. That sounds amazing. Uh your world sounds very vibrant and layered. I like that you put checks and balances because I always thought that too. I was like, how come there isn't just somebody who's just like this super overpowered on both sides of the ends of the spectrum? And so to have checks and balances and then how those checks and balances impact people, because you know, that's also a layer. So that's really that's very interesting. I'm super excited to dive into this. So yeah, let's how does your is your book ending on a cliffhanger? What's your series like? You said book three. What are we looking at?

SPEAKER_02 36:32

Yes. So book one does end on a cliffhanger, but uh just you know, safeguard myself here before people riot with pitchforks. I made sure, and this will be true of all three books in the series, that the main conflict in the book is resolved. So you're not reading book one and just like throwing your hands up in the air at the end, you know, because and like, oh my gosh, how could you do that? There are things that are left unresolved because naturally I want you to go and buy book two. But you know, but the main conflict I didn't leave you hanging because I personally would hate that as a reader, so I couldn't do that. Um but yes, naturally there will be there will be something in book one and book two that will make you want to get through the story. You're going to need to if you want certain answers. So whether they're important to you or not, you know, maybe you don't care how the love story ends up. You know what I mean? So, but the main conflict is resolved at the end of book one. So it's not that extreme of a cliffhang.

SPEAKER_03 37:42

Okay, okay. She's walking us through, guys. She's being nice. So, what do you want your readers to feel when they close that final page of book one? How are they gonna are they gonna hit you up and be like, why did you do this?

SPEAKER_02 37:57

No, I honestly I I would be happy if if you take away from it just a sense of when you close the back cover, I want you to immediately feel like, no, that's over. Like, what am I gonna do now? That's what I want you to feel is immense loss at the end just because it's finished and and you're not still in there. But no, I don't expect any any hate mail or anything like that because of how it ends. In fact, I made some decisions at the end that originally I had planned certain character deaths and things to end up a little bit differently, and I actually changed that uh in the final draft. So you you got off easy, believe it or not. So it could have been could supposed to be a little bit harder on the heart, but all right, guys.

SPEAKER_03 38:49

If you wanted to be an author that you feel safe with, Hope Cole is it.

SPEAKER_02 38:54

Yeah, I'm not pulling uh Game of Thrones, like you're not gonna get attached to somebody who feels like a main character just to have them ripped out from under you. Like a character loss, I think, is a valuable part of storytelling, but I'm not about emotional damage to my readers, so yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:13

I I'm the opposite. But I every for me, um, death has a purpose, just like life. So I feel like all my books are going to have death in it. But also it it it's how I deal with death myself. Like fantasy is how I process death. But I love that you it your characters are important to you and how you write them, and you want whatever happens to them to be meaningful for them as well as your audience. I mean, I think that's amazing that you're conscious of that. Um, you're not just killing, taking people out willy-nilly.

SPEAKER_02 39:48

There is don't now like disclaimer, there is character death, but yeah. If you love Raylan, because she's the main character of book one, she's sticking around for all three books. I'll just I just like that.

SPEAKER_03 40:00

Yeah. So you ready to get in those rapid fire questions? Sure, sure. Whatever comes to mind first, which character from any of your books would secretly binge the most trashy reality TV show? Oh, Elisad, for sure.

unknown 40:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:17

What would it be? What would the the TV show be?

SPEAKER_02 40:19

Oh, she'd probably like Love Island or any of those, you know, any of those, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:26

Trashy TV helps my brain for that. I don't watch it a lot. I it's like every blue moon that I'll sit down and watch an actual TV show. But this one is the it's like age of attraction, and it's people are getting together and they don't know each other's age, and I'm like, this is so problematic.

SPEAKER_02 40:41

Oh my gosh. I haven't even heard of that one, but of course, of course, that exists. It's on net like my gosh. Who is your favorite book boyfriend? His name would be Dane Lavrins, and he's actually in a an older book written by Glenna McReynolds called The Chalice and the Blade.

SPEAKER_03 41:02

Wow. I feel like I feel like I know that book because my sister, so and she was the one that read to me a lot, my mom, and then her. Um, and she reads a lot of high fantasy and a lot of the older work, so I'm gonna ask her about it. Really?

SPEAKER_02 41:15

Yes, yes. And if you have it, it high that's like my number one book of all time. Top two. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 41:21

We got a book rec, ladies and gentlemen. We got two. Because we're gonna read her book, Daughter of the Void, and now we're gonna read her wreck. Absolutely. Want a new book, boyfriend? Go check it out. If your book was a drink, what would it be? Hard lemonade. Hmm, yeah. Oh, those are so good.

SPEAKER_02 41:39

Right? They've had a little bit of an edge, but they appeal to a lot of people. I think Yeah. They're super sweet, but you know, like you don't feel it when you know, you're still having a good time.

SPEAKER_03 41:50

What trope will you defend forever?

SPEAKER_02 41:53

Enemies to lovers.

SPEAKER_03 41:55

Yeah. Oh yeah. You're you're like, I'm dying on that hill. Enemies to lovers. I love enemies to lovers when it's real, like when they hate each other, like real life. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 42:04

You know, that's that that is just such a key component. And the reason I love it just is I think it really like takes you on a psychological journey. Because so often, like, we meet people and we establish like immediate like, do I like this person or not? But you have to get to know people sometimes. Like, there's people who might be off-putting at first, and you're just like, Oh, I don't know about that person. And then like two years down the road, you're like, This is my best friend, so and so. So I think it's just a really great way to show character development.

SPEAKER_03 42:38

I do, I agree with that. I it's people are complex and they come from different works, things have influenced and you know, changed them and grown them. And to meet a person and kind of establish already, like, oh, this is what I feel about that person, and not realizing that there's so many layers to a human being. I love that. Enemies, when there's real genuine dislike and discourse between the relationship and then them coming to a common ground and then coming to a love, that's so powerful. It's like seeing beyond all the mess, and that's amazing. And it also shows very like every relationship, you have to come together and find common ground beyond your culture, your ethnicity, or what have you. Um, and that's a process. If you could drop your characters into any fantasy world, what would it be?

SPEAKER_02 43:26

Mythgar. And Mythgar is uh creation of Dennis L. McKearn and uh a very oh boy, he's got probably 40 plus books fantasy author, and and that's if you enjoyed Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, Mithgar is often compared to that because of some of the I mean he uses like elves and dwarves and but it's just such a deep, diverse, complex world and all of his books intertwine. It's just uh uh amazing. Like if I could write within that world, I would. I I It's just I've always loved it.

SPEAKER_03 44:02

That's what fan fiction is for. That's right. That's right. Absolutely. Yeah, that's amazing. I love expansive worlds. I love when you can feel like you can live in it. Um, and then all the lore. That's what I love. I love when an author puts in all this history behind its history. Like Tolkien does that amazing. You he goes back to the beginning of the world of all things and then takes you forward. It's incredible the depth of his lore. I just love lore. Give me all the bits.

SPEAKER_02 44:30

Me too, me too. And I, you know what? During this journey, I've found out that not everyone is about that. Because I, in my own, in Daughter of the Void, because I enjoy reading that, I included world building in mine. And probably, if I had to say one of the reader criticisms I got of it was not everybody enjoys world building. Some people want just straight up, you know, like dialogue-based progress. And it's like, well, you're gonna get descriptions. If if you if you're gonna if you read my book, you're gonna feel like you're in a dark, you know, dreary castle for a paragraph. I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna build it up a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 45:12

I love descriptions of that. Well, that's good to know. I'm gonna go in knowing everyone hates the world they live in. I think, I mean, how do you I get it? I can get it.

SPEAKER_02 45:23

No, I just love world buildings. I know same, the same. I'm I I yeah, give me all the lore too.

SPEAKER_03 45:31

I do. I love description. I love lyrics, like I love lyrical writing, I love like you know, poetic prose. I love people who take their time with the lore in the world. Um, I love to be immersed in my book because I how I read is like a movie in my mind. So, like I sit there and I hallucinate a movie for a long time reading. So the more descriptive and the more the world is built, the more immersed I am. So it's very exciting. I'm very excited for your book. Well, thank you so much, Hope, for coming on and talking about your story. And I'm so excited for everyone to read Daughter of the Void. It's gonna be a great ride. So, where can we find you and where can we buy your book?

SPEAKER_02 46:10

Well, you can buy a Daughter of the Void anywhere books are sold. If you want the easy links, Barnes and Noble and Amazon do carry it, bookshop.org. You can find out more about me at hrcole.com. And then I do stay fairly active on Instagram. The handle is Hidden Gems Books, and I don't talk just about Daughter of the Void there. I also do book recommendations and I do some pretty nice giveaways as well.

SPEAKER_03 46:37

Woo! Giveaways? Mm-hmm. Alright, guys, that's where you can find her. That's where you can get her book. Go get it, enjoy it, eat it up, and let's review it. Thanks so much for having me. Yes, you guys have a great rest of your day. Bye.

SPEAKER_00 46:53

That's it for this chapter of the Mythic Mike Podcast. But the adventure doesn't end here. Subscribe, leave a review, and follow us on social media at Mythic Mike Pod for updates, giveaways, and all the bookish and writing fun. Want more? Join our newsletter at mythicmike.com for bonus tips, other insights, and behind the scenes magic. Until next time, stay mythical.