S.2 Ep. 49: Hunted, Transformed, and Out for Revenge: Caitlin Breeze on The Fox Hunt

🎙️ Welcome back to The Mythic Mic Podcast, where power is never given freely, magic hides in the oldest corners of the world, and stories dare to ask what it costs to take back what was never yours to begin with.

This week, host Bethany Amanda sits down with author Caitlin Breeze for a gripping, thought-provoking conversation about her dark academia debut, The Fox Hunt. 

Caitlin shares her unconventional path to publishing, from studying at Cambridge and working in creative industries to discovering that she could write something of her own. What followed was years of rewriting, refining, and chasing the version of the story that felt truly alive. 

We dive into the world of The Fox Hunt, where elite privilege, ancient magic, and dangerous traditions collide. At its core is Emma, a young woman who finds herself pulled into a powerful and secretive circle of students—one built on wealth, legacy, and something far darker beneath the surface. When a seemingly thrilling game turns into something far more sinister, Emma is forced to confront the brutal systems of power surrounding her and decide what she’s willing to become to dismantle them.

Caitlin unpacks the real-life inspiration behind the novel’s most shocking element (yes, the fox hunt is disturbingly real), the layered exploration of power and privilege, and the deeply intentional focus on female friendship.

🦊 What happens when power is built on something ancient and deeply unjust?
⚖️ Can you dismantle a system without becoming part of it?
🔥 And what does it mean to reclaim your power in a world designed to take it from you?

This is a must-listen for dark academia lovers, fantasy readers who crave depth, and anyone drawn to stories about power, transformation, and the strength of female connection.

🔥 IN THIS EPISODE, WE TALK ABOUT: 

✨ Caitlin’s journey from reader to writer and why this was the story that finally “came alive”.
✨ Writing The Fox Hunt over years while working full-time.
✨ The real-life inspiration behind the fox hunt (yes… it’s real 👀).
✨ Crafting a dark academia world rooted in privilege and power.
✨ The role of ancient universities and places that feel magical.
✨ Exploring power, cost, and the idea that nothing comes for free.
✨ Building a heroine who discovers and claims her own strength.
✨ Why female friendship is central to this story (and rarely done this way).
✨ Rejecting toxic female rivalry tropes in dark academia.
✨ The importance of finding the right agent and creative partners. 
✨ Why editing strengthens—not weakens—your story. 
✨ Writing layered, meaningful secondary characters. 
✨ Teasing book two 👀 (and why it might not be who you expect). 

CONNECT WITH US

🎙️ The Mythic Mic Podcast – @MythicMic
👤 Bethany Amanda – @BethanyinFantasyland
👤 Sara Santillan – @the_magical_quill
📚 Caitlin Breeze – @CaitlinBreezeWrites

✨ 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_01 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_02 0:33

Hi everyone, welcome to this episode of the Mythic Mic Podcast. We are thrilled to be joined today by the incredible Caitlin Breeze, who is author of The Fox Hunt. Welcome, Caitlin. Oh my goodness, your book was on my TBR for a while. I picked it up, I read it, I was not disappointed. It is an incredible book, and we are so honored to have you on the show to dive into it and your publishing journey with us. So we're gonna start first by talking about you, Caitlin, because we are so curious. Tell us about yourself and, you know, kind of some of the things that you like to do outside of writing.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Probably very relevant for the fox hunt, is my undergraduate degree was at Cambridge University, which is alongside Oxford University, the two most ancient universities in the UK. There's a lot of like law and uh cultural stuff associated with those. But I I've always been a real nerd, unapologetic, absolutely. So even for Cambridge, which is fairly academically rigorous, I was like a nerd. I loved the libraries. I always loved a library. So I've always been a huge reader, and it wasn't until maybe five or six years ago that I suddenly was like, could I write something? So that kind of has come right through. So one of my favorite things to do outside of writing is very predictably reading. But I'm also a huge fan of design, like graphic design. I spent a lot of my career working in creative direction. So I worked in advertising agencies, I worked in the beauty industry, I worked in tech startups, and I was managing sort of multidisciplinary teams of writers, designers, filmmakers, production, and all of those things actually did make their way into sort of my writing career. I find them all really relevant, but all of which to say is like reading is my first love, but I have to say, if I had to pick something else, design is my second.

SPEAKER_02 2:30

Well, that is so cool. I did not know you had a background in design. I am I am super jealous as I sit here and try and just design little Canva graphics for social media.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

I have to say, my actual graphic design skills, I would I'm gonna say that they're not the most advanced, but the great thing about creative direction is it's a lot about sort of concept and the whole picture coming together. So I too spend a lot of time on Canva, like inching pixels around with my fingers.

SPEAKER_02 2:57

Oh, that's amazing. I just learned how to blur something on Canva. So I'm in like Canva 101 course over here, which is thankfully why my co-host Sarah does a lot of our graphics. Um, which is amazing. But so do you still live in London then?

SPEAKER_00 3:12

In a tiny little house that has a very high proportion of its floor space covered in books, as it should be. Um and I share the house with um I have two furry housemates. So they are both cats. One of them is called Orla, and one of them is called the Captain. They both also contribute to the writing process in different ways. So Orla is sleeping right next to me right now, actually. I'll give her a little flash on camera. On Dolly. So meet Orla, everyone. She is the chief author's assistant. Her job is to sit on my lap at all times. So I was up this week on a writing deadline and I just really wanted to get it done. So I was writing until four in the morning, and she would just stay on the desk purring and does not move. And then second one is the captain whose chief job is to sleep on the keyboard to prevent me from being able to type. So, you know, both helpful in different ways. They each have their own titles.

SPEAKER_02 4:03

Caitlin, I love that. And it's my two fluffy little dogs right here by me as well. They are very not conducive for writing at all because they just want my attention 24-7, which is probably why my book is.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

You know, I think they inspire us, they support us, they tell us to get away from the laptop when we've been there for too long. I think it's good for us in all ways. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 4:24

And I'm so curious, right? Because you said, you know, writing wasn't necessarily something that you had a dream of doing since you were in second grade. It was something, you know, that you kind of came into gradually and thinking, maybe I could write something. So what was that process like whenever you first had that feeling like I can write something from then until actually publishing?

SPEAKER_00 4:43

So I think I had the idea in the back of my mind longer than than a little while before I started trying things. And the first thing I tried to write was I loved, like I love Jane Austen, I love Regency romances. There's an author called Georgette Hayer, which anyone who's a fan of the Bridgetton series, Bridgeton owes a lot to Georgette Haya's romance books. They're so funny and zippy. And she wrote like 5,000 of them. So if you like Regency Romance, get to Georgette Hayer. But her writing is so smart and witty. So I was like, I want to write one of those. And I started writing it, and I was like, this is very workman-like, which is not something you ever want to say about a creative project. It just wasn't really alive. And then when I came to I had this idea for the fox hunt and I started writing it, I was so annoyed at myself because I didn't want to be that person who'd graduated from like our equivalent of an Ivy League and then spent the rest of their life making it all about the fact that they'd done that. Like, I've met those people, you've met those people, they're not fun to be around. But what happened was when I was writing this story, it was it was alive in a way that all the other things I put down on paper hadn't felt like they had their own like life to them. And so this book, a lot of people, when they start writing a book, they'll write one and it might not be the best thing that they've ever done. And I'll be like, okay, I've learned, I'm gonna write my second one. And then they might write a third one. So for a lot of people who are interested in the process of becoming an author, a lot of people don't secure their agent with their first book. They've written a couple. I did secure an agent with a fox hunt, but I kind of had the same process because I rewrote this so many times before it got to an agent. It was like I had written three books in the run-up to getting an agent. So that kind of like that process from having the idea of what I do this, to oh, like I'm going to stick with this one book for like five years writing it around my full-time job. The thing that made that possible was that little spark of it having its own life, which the other stuff I'd written didn't feel like, you know, the starter stories didn't feel like they had.

SPEAKER_02 6:52

I really I relate to that so completely because I'm on year 11 with my book that has never seen the light of day yet. And it's changed so much from the germ of an idea when it started and I had that first draft to where it is now. That like you, I feel like I've written five books in that time span of just this one story. So I think that is is such a powerful message, too. And I'm so curious, right? Because now your book is out there, it's published. Are there things about publishing that were harder than you expected, or you know, maybe easier or more enjoyable than you expected?

SPEAKER_00 7:24

I remember reading in the back of my favorite books. I, you know, I would religiously read, like, it's like saying end credits. I always read the acknowledgement chapter, even though they're lists of names of people I've never met. And I remember reading them before I was a writer and going like, so many people. And something I come across quite often in friends who aren't in the publishing industry is the idea that somehow working with a lot of people at your publishing house sort of dilutes your story or dilutes your artistry. And what I found really interesting about the publishing process, which I did not expect, is that all the people I've worked with from my agent through to my editors in both countries. I have editors in the US and in the UK, through to copy editors and line editors that they employ, all of those people are not negative. They're not even a neutral. They genuinely improved my experience of writing the book. So they helped me find, each of these people helped me find how to make the book the thing that I had in my head, the version of it that I wanted to be. They were able to, you know, instead of bringing in solutions, they would like identify areas of like, what if, you know, this is where it's losing me, or I wonder why this structure feels this way. And then they give you the freedom to go off and solve it. So that I think hopefully is encouraging to any writers in the audience and maybe interesting for readers is that like it does take a village to bring out a book.

SPEAKER_02 8:52

I love hearing that. You know, it's it's so interesting, as you mentioned, right? There's so many names typically listed in that acknowledgement section at the back of the book. You know, I think as a first-time author, you don't necessarily realize how much goes into it that's not you, right? The copy editing, right, the line editing, right, the publishing, the cover art, all of that has to come together to make a book. And it is so rewarding, in my opinion, right, to see that teamwork. And I love that you said it doesn't take away from the creative aspect because I think there's some fear amongst, you know, aspiring authors that once they get into the editing process, they lose a lot of that control and a lot of that vision goes out the window. Um, so I'm so glad to hear that's not the case.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

And I think it is a well-grounded fear because it really does depend on who you're who you're working with. And I think people as as they're with their hopefully projects who are listening to this, who are moving through that publishing process, is I mean, you'll get a lot of people who will just straight up be like, no, this isn't for me. And that is such a great gift because you do not want to be giving a book that you that you love to someone who's like, I kind of like this. Because what that means is like they're like, I like a different version of this that lives in my head that I will tell you how to get to, which is really different from the first ever email conversation I had from uh with my agent. So, you know, I talked to a few, quite a few agents. I've been querying querying for a few months, and then I found, you know, this this this agent, and I I'd sent her the stuff. And she, in I would say it was like a 10-sentence email max, she managed to outline in a single paragraph so much of what I hoped the book was and what I hoped it was trying to achieve, so succinctly, so intelligently, and with so much passion. And that I instinctively was like, okay, yes, this is my agent. You know, obviously talked to all the other agents, did the back and forth, whatever, before saying, yeah. But I knew right away that that was going to be a person that was gonna be great to work with on the book because we were trying to like, you know, Lord of the Rings, we were like putting on our little backpacks, getting ready to go to like the same mountain together, you know?

SPEAKER_02 10:56

You know, and I think you make a really important point there because right, so many people who are querying, we're just dying for that one yes, right? And I don't think that we necessarily view it as a two-way street in the beginning. I think we're like, thank goodness an agent was interested. I have to go with this agent. And I love what you said, right? That that agent might like a different version of the book that's in their head. They might try to change, you know, your original vision. And it's so important to find that perfect fit to bring your book into the market. And so I just I think that's so I just think that's so powerful to remember that like you have choice in this. You have choice in who you work with and what that end product looks like. And I just, Caitlin, I think that's so powerful to remember.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

Yes. And also, I mean, if you're uh we were talking earlier about, you know, would there be any advice I'd give to writers who were excited about taking their book out to the world and I'm sorry, I'm saying excited. I remember querying who are like desperately trying to cling to their last shreds of sanity as they're trying to take the book out to the world. Is that the the the agent who is going to make your book feel the most like the book you want to write is not necessarily the agent who has the fewest changes to it. It's not necessarily the agent, because you know, I there might be someone who has a different version of your book in their head that's quite different to an agent who has the same version, same type of book in their head as you do, and can offer you the big changes that you might need, or small changes, to get there. So I was interested to find that a lot of the work that I did on the fox hunt was at the structural level, not so much the line editing level. Line editing spent a week. Line editing is what I thought previously. This is what writing was. You work with your editor and you send sentences backwards and forwards while like I do not smoke, but you know, I'm imagining back in the day that smoking those long-handled cigarettes like while you have a very long lunch. And like my editor and I, by the time I got to line editing, we were like hive minding. So, you know, line editing took a week. I spent maybe four months on structural stuff on the book after I got my bookdame. And the reason I could do that was because I had a vision of like what is the book outside of things like clock arcs and characters. What is the book trying to say? What is it, what I want it to feel like? What is what are the important elements that like, you know, if you think about what makes what's the difference between like a fox, a cat, and a dog, they all have four legs, they all have fur, they all have tails, they all make noises and have sharp teeth, and they all live in the proximity of humans. So that there are some things that make them similar. But if you know what makes your book a fox, then you can like I restructured the entire second half of the book, and it didn't feel like I was making changes to the book. It felt like I can do those things because you know so strongly what the heart of your book is. So I don't know, anyone who's flagging in the querying process is like, I would not worry about the editing process. You've spent so much time with your book learning who it is, that you I don't think, I don't think it's actually that difficult to make large edits to it because you're so strong and you're so confident in the heart of your book.

SPEAKER_02 14:08

You know, I love that you said that because I've been working, you know, I've done 11 years of my book. Um I've gone through right, probably a hundred drafts by now. Um I'm working with, I'm doing my final edit and I'm working with a book coach. And it was that same thing, right? I was interviewing different book coaches, and there was one book coach who just got the vision for my book and is like, here's exactly what it's trying to be. And I was like, yes, that is. It's not there yet, but that's where I want to take it. And it was the same experience you had, right? We were reworking the outline, right? I have to kind of redo, like you write the second act of the book, but it doesn't feel like a change. It feels like it's getting more into the story that I always imagined it would be. I just hadn't successfully told it that way yet. So I was it's so encouraging to hear that you had a similar experience as well.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

Writers unite.

SPEAKER_02 14:57

We're all going through the same thing. I love that. And Caitlin, I know we've been teasing about your book. So I'd love for our audience who may not know about the fox hunt yet. Can you tell us what this book is about?

SPEAKER_00 15:09

Absolutely. Okay, so first of all, I want to show you the cover, which has a wonderful rearing fox that is roaring on top of uh the background of like a beautiful ancient university. So the fox hunt is about a circle of privileged students at England's most ancient university who uh hold a dark pagan ritual that brings them tantalizing power but has a terrible cost to it. So the the book follows not this circle of immensely rich, immensely privileged young men who have inherited power from their fathers and their fathers' fathers and so on, is what happens when a young woman stumbles into the middle of this web of power and through her all of her talents and who she is, she manages to start dismantling the centuries of privilege. So Emma Karen is a second-year student at the university, and when she wins an exciting research fellowship, she suddenly swept into this world, this elite circle of incredibly wealthy students with these shadowy rituals and strange things that she's not quite sure what's going on. And she runs it, she falls for Jasper Balfour, who is the head of the Turnbull Club, a shadowy secret society that has produced the name the nation's political leaders, billionaires for centuries. Everything is wonderful. There are parties, it's exciting until one night the Turnbulls propose a frightening little game where should they call it a fox hunt? The men are the hunters, the women are the foxes, and they have to run. And that is turns up very badly for Emma, and that is where her world collides with something that has been going on the whole time, which is that this entire system of power is held up by a deal with a dark and ancient magic that lives within the university. And when Emma is introduced to that magical realm, is trapped there, and undergoes a quite distressing, beastly transformation. It is about how she reclaims her power, how she learns to take everything that has happened to her and use that to dismantle these systems of power around her. So that's kind of where you get to, and then yes, more adventures happen. I would say it would probably be appeal to, I think the fox hunt would appeal to readers who love something like Ninth House, classic sort of dark academia, but who also love like Howell's Moving Castle, the more sort of whimsical fairy tale. It's a bit of a genre splice between the two.

SPEAKER_02 17:50

I love that. And having read the book, I can say it grips you from the moment that you are there. I could not believe that they were like actually hunting these women through this game.

SPEAKER_00 18:01

I just did you know that was real that happened. No. So this is inspired by a real life event that happened at Oxford University, where a group of young men invited some younger female students out for a human fox hunt where the men were the hunters, the women were the foxes. And what's been interesting, I mean, that as soon as I heard it, that like struck, I thought that image was so powerful, and that sort of became the beginning of the fox hunt. It summarizes because in the UK, especially, fox hunting is so associated with class privilege, with people who are able to kind of literally ride roughshod over the rest of the country to get what they want. So it all in all, it was like, oh, this is perfect, this is perfect book stuff. But yeah, I've actually, in the years since, met somebody who was invited to the human fox hunt but was ill and could not go. I've yet to meet someone who was actually, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:56

That is crazy. I don't know, that's just like the stuff of nightmares, right? Like you're actually being hunted by a man. Oh my goodness. I did not know that was real. My mind, my mind is blown up. Oh my goodness. Caitlin, I know which three I would pick, but I'm so curious for you. If you only had three emojis to describe your book, which three emojis would you pick?

SPEAKER_00 19:17

Okay, so uh the first one I would pick would actually be the emoji that I use most overall, um, which is the magic sparkle emoji. I use that on everything. I think that's probably very telling about my personality. Jonah, is is your favorite emoji very telling about your personality?

SPEAKER_02 19:34

I think it's the emoji that is laughing and crying at the same time, so probably.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

Okay, second emoji for the fox hunt would be, I think very clearly the fox emoji. There is a really strong reverse beauty in the beast thread running through the fox hunt and a love of like the savage and the fierce and the beastly. And so, yeah, fox emoji, absolutely. And the third emoji would probably be the scales that you know or that probably represent Libra, but the scales of justice, there is a lot here about in the magical part of this book, a lot relies on bargaining, like that classic fay bargain kind of thing. But also the book on a on a deeper level is about the idea of like nothing comes for free, everything has a price. And so when you see people who, whether it's wealth, whether it's political power, are accruing a lot of a certain thing, the idea that that is being taken from somewhere, it is being taken from someone someone else. So that yeah, the scales of justice and all balance.

SPEAKER_02 20:38

Oh, those are good. Man, and I'm curious too, right? Where did the spark for this story come for for you from excuse me, come from for you? Um, I know you kind of had like the Cambridge background, right? And now apparently the ox hunts are real. Where did this stem from originally where you're like, this is what I'm writing about?

SPEAKER_00 20:57

So much of this book is really about that sense of being somewhere that feels so intensely magical. You could feel like if you just turned around fast enough, you would find that door that leads to that magical place. So actually, you know, the the Fox Hunt began when I was at this ancient university and I was just entranced. It felt so magical. I could almost hear the voices of all the people who had been there before me. I imagine ghosts echoing in the walls. I was in ancient libraries that, you know, you felt like you could turn around and maybe there'd be a secret wing or rooms that were there that hadn't been there before. You know, so much of this book actually comes from a love of academia and a love of historic places. So I grew up, I think like a lot of us did, Renorthern Lights and the sort of the golden the that that sort of Philip Pullman books. And I think the idea of some places make us feel like we're closer to magic, like there is a parallel world or a world alongside or a world through the Through the wardrobe door for Lion the Witch in the Wardrobe. Like that is the feeling that that created this book.

SPEAKER_02 22:06

I love that. I love how it comes from a feeling, right? Because some people are like, I had a dream, right? And this character was doing this, and I had to write about it. And and yours is all about crafting that feeling, right? That almost like whimsical, historical, you know, just pull that there's something more and something exciting going on in that world. So I love that. That feeling does come through in the book whenever you read it. You do a great job. I'm so glad. And I'm curious as well, too, right? Because we talk a lot about, you know, we've talked a lot about privilege, right? And, you know, what that means in that world and dismantling, you know, the privilege and the different societal structures. But what themes are you hoping that readers take away from your book when they're finished?

SPEAKER_00 22:46

Okay, so I think a really, really big one is the idea of their own power. So, you know, when I talk about the book, when you're I talk a lot about the world as it exists at the beginning of the book, the layers of privilege and the structures that are there, the young men who have inherited a lot of power, the difficult situations that my heroin falls into. But kind of as you go through the book, the story is so much about her discovering her own power, discovering ways that she can decide to be traditionally feminine or not be traditionally feminine, to be angry or to find peace. Like there is no the book hopefully doesn't say like you should pick one route or the other. But hopefully, what people will take away is this idea that our own inherent power against very large structural power systems, just something that feels really, really relevant in a lot of places today, I think. Also, I really wanted this book to be very strongly about female friendship and the joys of female friendship, and the idea that in the book, my heroine finds I'm not going to give away too much, a group of female friends who become almost like an alter an opposing power system to the boys of the Turnbull Club. The idea that if you are faced with an old boys' network, you can build a new girls' network. You know, that that our our bonds and our friendships give us a place to either, you know, create resistance or to support each other when you are within a system of power that may not be supporting you.

SPEAKER_02 24:20

I love that. And I loved the focus on female friendships as well, because I think in a lot of books, especially, you know, kind of in this dark academia and fantasy genre, female friendships are vilified, right? And it's kind of every person against each other. You don't see a lot where it's actually promoting the fostering of these relationships.

SPEAKER_00 24:39

And that's so counter to my lived experience, which is my female friends are the great joy of my life. When I held my book launch in London, every one of my university female friends came and they were there. And um I do I do find that when people are asking me about dark academia as a genre, they tend to ask me a lot of questions about toxic female friendships in my book. And I'm sorry, I can't help you. We don't have those here.

SPEAKER_02 25:06

Yet almost every book in that genre, that is exactly what they explore.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

And I think there is a space to explore difficulty within female friendships, in that there is a side to that which is really interesting, which also explores the sort of slightly more savage and darker parts of womanhood, which we are like, you know, not supposed to be. And actually, I think I those elements are here in the fox hunt. They're just explored slightly differently and more in terms of my heroine's relationship with her body. You know, what does it mean to be in a different shape to a woman's? What does it mean to have fur instead of having to be completely hairless from the neck down? What does it mean to bare your teeth and to scream rather than to be smile and be polite? So I guess, you know, similar themes explored in different ways.

SPEAKER_02 25:50

Yes, but it it's definitely refreshing, you know, to see actual friendships in that book. I have to say, I love that. And, you know, without, you know, too many spoilers, were there, you know, any characters that surprised you um as you were writing or characters that you know you really fell in love with?

SPEAKER_00 26:07

Actually, the the the the Malid character, it took me a little while to find her because I knew what she had to do when I started writing the book, but I didn't know who she was. And I actually, I don't know that I would say I didn't get on with her very well at the beginning, but I felt very frustrated with her because I was like, who are you? Where are you? And it wasn't until I sort of realized that she had this great deep love for animals, for wildlife, and importantly that she was a scientist with a scientist mind, and that's where, you know, she's wonderful at observation. She's maybe not so great at human interaction sometimes, you know, like she is kind, but you know, she does not always manage to translate that into into confidence in her own actions. So once I found those pieces of her, the process of falling in love with Emma throughout this book was just is just I'm so protective of her now. I love her so much. I think what I gave her is uh some of the qualities of two of my close friends who I admire so greatly and whose whose kindness and whose groundedness are just things that I I wish I could emulate. So that that was that a second character that really surprised me, and it's giving, I'm gonna give very few spoilers here. The character that the character that had to do I had to do most rewriting on is the romantic and handsome Jasper Balthur, Prince of the University. When I first wrote this, I got a note from an agent which was really good, which was he is rich and he is handsome. Why is someone as special as Emma into him? I don't really see that much going on. And actually, that I realized that was another character which I where I hadn't realized when I first started writing. You know, we have this archetype of that person who is like the prince, the pinnacle, so handsome. And actually, what this story really needed for somebody like Emma, who's you start the book and she's like, she's very grounded, she doesn't care about that kind of stuff, is someone like that would have to fall for something a little bit deeper. So I ended up giving Jasper a lot of things that I loved: a love of photography, a love of seeing, you know, uh the idea that he has a very visual way of seeing the world, and he, you know, that that is something that he and Emma bond over, a love of nature and natural places. So I think that was a lesson to me as a writer, which is, you know, some of the characters that I thought were the two of the characters that have this very interesting, changing, twisting relationship. I'd spent so much time plotting the points of that relationship that actually took me going back sweeping right through from the beginning and going, no, who are these people? And then telling the story from there.

SPEAKER_02 28:53

You know, it's such a good point too, right? Because I feel like people are either very much like plotters, right? Or character-driven, kind of, you know, let the characters take the story. I'm very much a plotter, like like you, right? Like I'm plotting all the little points of their relationships and how they move through the books. But I think it's so important what you said, right? That a lot of times these characters, you know, we have to explore who they are in order to know their motivations, why they're falling for each other, all of that type of stuff. And I can tell you that the layers that you added into this final draft really come through. And I believe the relationship there.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

Yes. I think the point with Jasper's, I can't say any more without giving away spoilers, but there are some quite unexpected turns to his character and to what happens, which meant that because I knew those turns, I was like playing him straight from the beginning. Whereas actually what I needed is to bring in those other layers of his personality so that, you know, so that I wasn't giving the game away too early, basically. But readers who read closely, who read the start of the book, listen to Jasper very closely. There are some like clues that you're gonna pick up on later. But I think because I am such a plotser, what for me tends to happen is I have an enormous explosion in character in secondary characters. Don't know if you notice this. I love a really rich, full scene with secondary characters that have their own lives and have their own things going on, have distinctive voices, are funny or scary, whatever it is. I really love it having that ensemble cast almost.

SPEAKER_02 30:29

I love it. I'm I'm with you there. I love whenever secondary characters are so fleshed out that I almost want another book for secondary characters.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

I'm like, now I know them, now they need their own story. I've had a I've really enjoyed when I've had some readers get in touch, and like everyone has a different secondary character that they want another book for. And so that's been really, really interesting, especially since, and I am allowed to say this, I'm working on book two, but the request for book two is actually the book two is going to belong to a secondary character who you will have met in the fox hunt, but might not necessarily, you know, their world and their take on it is going to be quite different from Emma's. So that's been really fun, is being like when I talked to my editor about it, realizing I had put so much life into all these secondary characters that people were asking, like, but what happens next to them? It was great to be able to tell those stories.

SPEAKER_02 31:28

So exciting. And so, whenever you originally got your book deal, was it for more than one book? Was it just for this book? How did the second book come about?

SPEAKER_00 31:35

In the US, it was just for this book. In the UK, it was for two books. But I I have such a wonderful experience with my my editor, Liv, who's a little brown in the US. And um I, you know, I planned out what a straight Fox hunt sequel would look like. And there are some exciting things there that I definitely hope I'll get to write about one day. And actually, when I was talking with my editor, she was like kept pulling threads about one of one of the secondary characters, being like, I'm so curious. Can we just like dive into them? And we dove in and we dove in and we dove in, and suddenly we're like, this is a book. This is the book. It's a very different book. Uh, you know, it's a very different tone. But uh, but yes, I did have a one-book deal, and then after the, you know, once we'd sent the book away to print, that's when I started talking to my editor about the second book.

SPEAKER_02 32:26

That's so exciting. I I cannot wait to learn which secondary character we get to know about. My goodness. That is, oh, I'm gonna be thinking about that for a while.

SPEAKER_00 32:34

Well, I love like, you know, like Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are dead. I love not necessarily the idea of retelling the same story from a different perspective, although I very much enjoy that. At the moment, I've been watching The Other Bennett Sister, which is uh a take on Pride and Prejudice as if told from the perspective of Mary, which is so much fun. But what I really love about those stories is they remind us that the same world, the same people, can look really different through the eyes of somebody else. And that is something that I really love exploring is having set up a world that for me feels really rich and really detailed. Is with book two, the job is going, okay, so which parts of this were Emma's perspective on the university or the magical realm and how which parts would still be there if it was another character looking at this?

SPEAKER_02 33:23

It's incredible. Oh my goodness. Caitlin, I could talk to you forever about your book and about all the amazing things um that you've learned throughout this process and the characters, and I can't wait to see what comes next. But thank you so much for joining me today.

SPEAKER_00 33:37

No, thank you so much for having me. I've had such a great time.

SPEAKER_02 33:41

Us too. Um, so for our audience members who have not picked up this book, please pick it up. The fox hunt is incredible. There's a literal fox hunt with women. You will love it, and we need to be prepared for this sequel because I cannot wait to see what's coming down the pipeline. Thank you so much, Caitlin, and thank you so much to all of our listeners. We hope to see you at the next episode.

SPEAKER_01 34:02

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, author insights, and behind the scenes magic. Until next time, stay mythical.