The Mythic Mic Podcast

S.2 Ep. 51: The Deadly Duel Between Witches and Dragons (That Everyone is Talking About): Ellis Hunter on Blood Bound

• Season 2 • Episode 51

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0:00 | 49:21

🎙️ Welcome back to The Mythic Mic Podcast, where magic demands a price, love and loyalty are tested to their limits, and stories dare to ask what you would sacrifice for power and for each other.

This week, Host Bethany Amanda sits down with the brilliant writing duo behind Blood Bound, Ellis Hunter, for a wildly fun, emotionally chaotic, and deeply insightful conversation about one of the most anticipated fantasy debuts of the year.

From the very first moment, this episode is full of laughter, honesty, and the kind of behind-the-scenes storytelling that makes you fall even more in love with a book. Katie and Becky share how their friendship, built over years in publishing and reignited in Cornwall, turned into a late-night, wine-fueled decision to “just write a dragon book” which quickly spiraled into something much bigger. 

We dive into the world of Blood Bound, a kingdom of witches and a kingdom of dragon riders bound by a brutal, ancient covenant: once in a generation, two champions must duel to the death for the source of all magic. At the center are two brilliant female main characters: Astrid, a witch destined to die, and Skylar, a fierce, guarded performer searching for the one person she loves most—two women on a collision course neither of them chose.

What unfolds is a story built on impossible stakes, layered characters, and one of the most compelling female friendships in fantasy right now. Katie and Becky share how their own bond shaped Astrid and Skylar, why they prioritized platonic love alongside romance, and how they approached writing two distinct perspectives that still feel like one seamless voice.

We also get into the magic of collaboration—how they split POVs, merge writing styles, and push each other creatively—and the emotional toll of writing a story that doesn’t hold back. (Yes, we talk about THAT moment. No, they do not apologize.)

🔥 What happens when your fate is sealed and there’s no way out?
⚔️ How far would you go to save your people or the person you love?
🩸 And what if the only way to win is for someone else to lose?

This is a must-listen for romantasy lovers, fans of dragons and deadly trials, and anyone who wants a story that blends epic stakes with deeply personal emotion.

🔥 IN THIS EPISODE, WE TALK ABOUT: 

✨ How Katie and Becky met in publishing and reconnected years later in Cornwall to write a dragon book that turned into Blood Bound.
✨ Building a co-author process (POV splits, shared plotting, and line-by-line edits).
✨ Why their writing voices blend so seamlessly.
✨ The inspiration behind witches vs. dragon riders.
✨ The central duel and why it was the heart of the story from the beginning.
✨ Creating Astrid and Skylar as dual female leads, and why female friendship was just as important as romance.
✨ Subverting tropes while still giving readers what they love.
✨ Designing dragons that don’t breathe fire 👀.
✨ The emotional destruction behind that plot twist (yes, they cried too). 
✨ How their publishing backgrounds helped and hurt the process. 
✨ Why this book is their “love letter” to fantasy. 

CONNECT WITH US

🎙️ The Mythic Mic Podcast – @MythicMic
👤 Bethany Amanda – @BethanyinFantasyland
📚 Ellis Hunter – @EllisHunterAuthor

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

SPEAKER_00

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 in, and let's step into the extraordinary. Now, here are your hosts.

SPEAKER_02

Hey everyone, welcome to this episode of the Mythic Mike podcast. We are finally here with the episode you have all been waiting for for a long time. We are with the authors of Blood Bound. Welcome, Katie. Welcome Becky. We are so excited to have you on the show and to talk about what I have heard is going to be the next Fourth Wing.

SPEAKER_01

Oh my God. What like what an introduction. I mean Becky, like, oh my God, no. I'm just gonna lay that out there for you. I mean, well, we love Fourth Wing. So if people enjoy it half as much as they enjoyed Fourth Wing, we will be very happy indeed.

SPEAKER_02

Oh man, this book has gotten so much hype and it is so deserved. I have to say, I have read The Arc of the Book. It is incredible. I know people are diving in, especially if they have the early book of the month or allureal editions now, they're diving in. But this book is so incredible that I cannot wait to talk to you about all of the different pieces, the plot, the character. But before we dive in, I do want to know a little bit about each of you. So, Katie, Becky, tell us about yourselves. You know, where did you grow up? What do you love doing outside of writing?

SPEAKER_01

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02

Like where do we also like outside of books?

SPEAKER_01

Well, I grew up between I grew up between the UK and Ireland, hence why I call myself an Irish-British writer, but my family are Irish, and I spent a lot of time growing up near and around Dublin, um, and then in the north of England, so hence my northern English accent. Um, what do I love doing? Oh, I mean, I love reading, Bethany, which I know is probably a bit of a pathetic answer. What else do I like? I like I like skiing, I love being in the mountains, I love like a kind of fresh winter's night, you know? That's what comes to mind when I talk, yeah, and I love a cup of tea.

SPEAKER_02

My dad loves tea as well. He we always had this joke because my grandfather before would be like, Oh, I can't do anything until I've had one more cup of tea. And it was this running joke. And my dad's the same way now. He's like, I made this cup of tea, I put it in this yeti, I'm gonna go up and have this tea for 45 minutes, and nobody talked.

SPEAKER_01

Oh my god. I'd love that he takes a full 45-minute break for his tea. I mean, I'd be on a break all day. I drink so much tea.

SPEAKER_02

It's so funny about it because the only place that has ever made his tea right whenever we've traveled is England. That's the only place that can get it right.

SPEAKER_01

Obviously. And it's got to be Yorkshire tea. Yes. You need to buy your dad Yorkshire tea.

SPEAKER_03

Yes. Oh man, he would love that. I don't drink tea, so Me neither, Mikey. I'm not a tea drinker. I'm Becky. I grew up in Newbury, which is like a little town about an hour and a half outside of London in the UK. I actually spent two years in Munich in Germany as a kid, living there. And I like horse riding. So I constantly tell Katie that I think I'd be a good dragon rider because I can ride horses. Yeah. Um, I've got two little uh rescue ponies um called Teddy and Wurzel, so I spend a lot of time with them. And I've got a little, I was telling you earlier, I've got a little rescue dog, so I hang out with her, or I take her to the stables and make her hang out there, which she is not always a fan of. And between that and writing and reading, that is pretty much my life.

SPEAKER_01

Fair enough.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, that is that is amazing. I am a terrible horse rider. I tried it once. One time we were on a trip to Canada and we did this horseback riding, and my horse would not stop eating. And so every two seconds it was eating something, and I couldn't focus it. Oh my gosh, it was it was it was so terrible. I'm sure it was all on my error, but it was a hungry horse.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. I was liking it when I was like, because um when I was younger, I used to like teach and work at the riding school so that I could get like rides, so that we'd like um it's super expensive, so I'd like you know, do that in exchange for rides. And um, I used used to tell the kids it's like walking through a field of like chocolate or sweets or whatever your favorite food is and not being allowed to eat it and like have the self-control needed.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, that was so funny. Man, and I love Munich, I can't believe you got to spend two years there.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I mean, I was super young, so I so I like don't remember it really. You know that thing where you can remember like certain smells, or there'll be a like smell or something that triggers a memory, but I mean my memory of it is so I was like four or something.

SPEAKER_02

Munich was the first place that we ever traveled. My dad had finished his MBA. Yeah, and like this this trip with his class that that we got to go on, and it was to Germany, and it was the first trip out of the country. I think it was like eight years old.

SPEAKER_03

That's that's insane. Yes. I really want to go. My friend now lives there. Weirdly. She's she and her um husband and um daughter moved out there. They're there for like because of his job for a few years. So I need to go and visit her and like try and see if I remember any of it.

SPEAKER_02

That's amazing. I need to get back to Ireland. I've been to Ireland once for one day.

SPEAKER_01

Oh my god. One day is not enough, Bethany.

SPEAKER_02

To have a whole week, and I sadly came down with COVID, which I didn't know, and I sped it to my parents. Yeah, we had we had done the England and the Scotland portion, and I was sick, right? That I'm like trudging through, going on all the tours. I gave it to my dad when we got in Scotland, and he was like in bed, couldn't move. He's like, We're going home. We had to um go through Ireland anyway to catch the flight home. So I was like, we have a whole day, like, well, let's go see the cliffs of Moor. Let's go.

SPEAKER_01

How did you go to the Cliffs of Moa? I love I love it though.

SPEAKER_02

One place I saw.

SPEAKER_01

I I feel so bad that you traveled all this way and then you got you all got so sick. But that's so a novel I wrote before I wrote Blood Banner is actually set by the Cliffs of Moa in the Burren really weirdly, and so I just love that part of the world. I thought apparently the floor and the fauna you get in the burren can't be found anywhere else in the world. It's so stunning.

SPEAKER_02

Oh my goodness. It's a great excuse to come back. So that that's what's on my fucking book.

SPEAKER_01

Another trip. You need to plan another trip.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, absolutely. So we're so curious. What inspired both of you to become writers?

SPEAKER_01

Do you mean together or just separately?

SPEAKER_02

Well, separately first, but then definitely together because I love this co-author pairing.

SPEAKER_01

I think I wonder if like a lot of if you're a reader and you love stories, I feel like there's so many readers who really do love the idea of creating their own stories. I think for me it wasn't so much being a writer, it was being a storyteller. Which I don't know whether that sounds a bit silly, but I love I just love coming up with stories and characters and plots. And then I find I actually find writing really hard. I mean, I know it like writing is hard, but I find it extra hard when I'm quite slow, and it is so like it I really have to pull it out of me to get the story down. But it's kind of for the love of the story at the end of it, why I do it, I suppose. Like just to get the ideas down on a page.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

I totally agree. I think I think if you love reading and you love story, that can lead so naturally into writing. I tried to write my first book when I was like 11, and I sat down and my I couldn't type, and we'd like just got a computer, and you know they're like the really old school, and it was like the first time you'd we'd had one. I made my older sister who was visiting for the weekend, um, she made her sit next to me, and she's like 10 years older than me. I made her sit next to me and type because I couldn't type. So I was like dictating, and we wrote like loads of it, like 30 pages or something on word, like quite a lot.

SPEAKER_01

And then I hit your sister for doing that. Good sister.

SPEAKER_03

And then I hit a key and I deleted the whole thing. And um, we couldn't recover it because of no, you know, computer skills or whatever, and like back in the day, she was so cross. So and that was called The Ghost, and was about a ghost, as you may be able to guess. And then I tried and then I just I love I I I kind of love writing and then right, like I actually think I had so much to do, but like to learn about it. But I was filled this, like I so I wrote um a novel, then like properly seriously tried to write a novel when I was like 21 on a summer break from university, and um was filled with this like weird confidence that I was brilliant, like in a in a like really weird way when I look back at it. But like it's the thing that got me going. So I was writing this, it was like a YA fantasy book, really indicative of all this like stuff I was reading. So there was a love triangle, and they were like, you know, and I was like sending it to my friend chapter by chapter, and everybody wants you're like an actual grown-up, you know, like don't your friends quite often can't give you, they'll just tell you you're great. So she but she which is what she was doing. So she was reading it being like, I love it, this is so exciting, and everything. And so I was like sharing it with her as I as I go, and that was like inspiring me. And I was like, so I was like, this is brilliant. I'm gonna get a film deal, I'm gonna I was reading all the statistics because the statistics for getting published, I'm sure you've heard so stacked against you. Agents received like something like 200 submissions. I mean, Katie knows this better than I do because she was an editor, but um agents can receive like 200 submissions a week, and maybe we'll take on like four new authors a year. And I remember reading the statistic and being like, I'll be one of the four, I will be fine. I love it. And like, and I was like, I won't even need to get a job after university. And anyway, needless to say, Bethany, that did not happen. And I was not a very good book. I think I might still have like bits of it, and I look back in it and I was like, oh my god, I really couldn't write.

SPEAKER_01

But you learnt from that experience.

SPEAKER_03

And I loved it, and I loved telling the story, and I loved sharing the story. When I like I was sad a lot, uh like in my early 20s, but when I was like sad or down, I would like think of the story and tape myself into the story I was writing, and it was like a total escape. And I think to Katie's point about being a reader, like I think when you're writing, it can it can offer you that kind of same escape that reading can when you really absorb, and you'll know you'll know Bethany if you're a writer too. Um so yeah, I mean it took me a long time to get. Um so I have actually had other books published before Bloodbound, but it took me like over 10 years of learning how to write, and I was not super as successful as I thought I was gonna be. But I think you have to kind of have that weird self-belief, even if it was totally misguided, to get you going. Otherwise, you'd never like if you if you really believed all the odds were started against you, it's too overwhelming. So even though it was misguided, I'm kind of glad that I was so naive when I was younger.

SPEAKER_01

It's you know, it's so funny now, like listening to you tell that story, Becky, because it really reminds me of like me writing my first book and mine, I would send it to my sister, and my sister would be going to me, this is so great, because Bayes' a story, like me and my sister in a fantasy world. So that's it's made me think, you know, when you say like, why did you want to become a writer? I think it's actually more like, Why did I want to become a fantasy writer or just a writer in general, but it's the escapism, isn't it? Of escaping into your own stories and transporting yourself there, especially when like, you know, because I I was a saddo, I was sad as well. I mean Becky with the depression. And I think it can really help, you know, when you're depressed, if you're neurodivergent, if you have issues, like there's this extra element to it where you want to disappear into those worlds. And it was great, you know, we're obviously quite lucky, Becky and I, that we had people, I think, who encouraged us, even if it was a load of rubbish the first time.

SPEAKER_03

It's funny, isn't it? You hear people like where they won't give you honest feedback. And I'm like, sometimes I don't think you need honest feedback, you just need encouragement, and you need someone to be excited about the story, and you need to see it.

SPEAKER_01

Exactly. Exactly. Because how else are we meant to learn?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Yes. No, I think that's so, so brilliant. Um, you know, it's funny. I've been I was telling Becky, I've been working on my book for 12 years now. So eventually it will Bethany. Yeah. But you know, the only person I let read it was my mom, right? And she's she's exactly that person, right? Like, this is brilliant, you know, love it, et cetera. Yes. I'm doing my final developmental edit now. I have a book coach and you know, um working with an editor.

SPEAKER_01

Amazing, Bethany. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And of course, right, like you get the first chapter feedback and all these red lines and you know, all these changes you're making. I told my mom, you know, I'm like, okay, yeah, it's gonna take a different course. And she's like, Well, I'm not reading it now. It was perfect the way it was. I'm not touching it.

SPEAKER_01

Oh my god, that's so cute of your mom. But you know what? You need a champion like that. You need someone like that to keep give, you know, like to instill the confidence in you. I will say, being a writer, you have to learn, don't you, to take editorial feedback. And I think I'm not the best. Well, I certainly wasn't the best with uh criticism, and it's definitely a learned skill because it's hard, it's hard to be told this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong. Like, no, no, it's all it's all for the sake of making this story better and making me a better writer. But you need like mums and sisters and friends as well to say you are brilliant, keep going.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, my dad is not that type of supporter. So whenever I was in in high school, right, and I was working on my college essays and I give them to him to review, he'd read the first sign, yeah, the first like paragraph and be like, Well, come back when you have a point. Like, he's like, This is the worst I've ever read. He's like, No, wait a minute, I haven't read the second one. It could be worse. I had the balance, definitely, balance. How you each found your journeys into writing, and you know, that you each kind of wrote books before Bloodbound. But tell me about how you two met and how you decided to come together to actually be co-authors, because that to me is this is such a power team. I want to know how it happened.

SPEAKER_01

You kick us off, Becky.

SPEAKER_03

So we first met when uh in in a publishing house in London, and um Katie was working in the PR team at um one of the Big Hub Publishing Houses um Headline, um which is part of her set. And I was coming in to take, I would say this in it like in it kind of like sounds really threatening, but coming in to take Katie's job because she was leaving, not because I was like stealing it for her. Um and um so I was coming in as her replacement as a publicity manager, and it was like a two-week handover period, or maybe even less than that. So we like met for the first time when she was like handing over the job. And then Katie was got a a job as an editor in the same building. So we kind of stayed in touch and had similar um friendship circle because we were all in London and you know, kind of similar-ish ages, and but then Katie moved to Cornwall. I don't know if you want to pick that bit up.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I moved to Cornwall, so I mean, this was about 10 years ago, but as Becky said, and then about five and a half years ago or so, I I live in Cornwall, as I was telling you before, which for anyone who doesn't know is at the very bottom of the UK, it's really gorgeous, very similar landscape to Ireland, I feel. And a couple of years later, Becky moved to Cornwall, about half an hour from me, and we were both down here without friends, and we were both like, thank God, there's someone here we know. Um so it's one of those things, you know, proximity. So Becky, and at the time I'd just got, I mean, I had my daughter in um 2022, and Becky moved down just around that time. And then 2023, Becky was spending a lot of time sort of over by me with my newborn, and then the summer of 2023, we'd started to realise we both had, despite having like known each other for so many years, worked in publishing as PRs and editors together, we'd never worked in fantasy, so we didn't realise that both of us were like obsessed with the fantasy genre and had been like reading it since you know, like we were kids, you know. Um, and I think we discovered the shared passion, and then it became the whole, you know, exchanging, you need to read this book, giving the live updates as we read it. Um, and after a few months, it was like July 2023. Becky basically messaged me and was like, We need to write a dragon book together. And so I had like, you know, Becky was working, like you were writing under two other different names and have your PR job. I was working like a 60-hour a week job with a nine-month-old. Oh wow. And yet we started writing this book together, but we I think this is part of it. It's like if you want to be a writer, it takes a kind of a lot of compromise or even sacrifice. And it was something we wanted to do, and we set out to do it. It was kind of a bit joking at first, a bit like to us two friends, like, won't this be a fun thing to do together? It's like a hobby, you know?

SPEAKER_02

Yep.

SPEAKER_01

And that's where it started, and it just started to snowball and become quite intense, and then we started to take it really seriously. And about a year later, I got an agent. And I mean, like they say, the rest is history, but it really was. It was really very much borne out, a passion for fantasy, and that's why we always talk about this book being our love letter to the fantasy genre, because it that's where it came from.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, and we were about like Katie says, we were doing it as a hub, like it was something that like brought us together. We had so much fun as friends. So we'd be up like really late, like into like the earlier hour of the morning. Sometimes with wine, Bethany.

SPEAKER_01

Do you remember we once went to like a club and we were sitting in this club at like 11 pm with our notebooks? And people go to us, What you doing? Like, we're plotting our fantasy novel in a club.

SPEAKER_03

We went to a wine bar, and we told the person about we were like, We're gonna writing a novel.

SPEAKER_01

Also, we never go to a club. What are we doing in there? Oh, yeah, because nowhere else was open, so we just keep going.

SPEAKER_03

The first night you had away from Teddy, I think. So we were like, yeah. And then like plotting.

SPEAKER_02

Um then we don't want to stop to the club with our pen. My new life dream is to go to a club with you all and watch you plot your notebook.

SPEAKER_03

Well, we'll be plotting, apparently, instead of dancing, like with the torchlight over our notebook.

SPEAKER_01

I need to find, I need to try and find that notebook because it was a mess.

SPEAKER_03

We thought we had great ideas. And then we get so excited and we love the characters. And as Katie said, I don't think I think we took it like semi serious like you've got to take it semi-seriously in that you've got to put a lot of work in. But it wasn't really like, oh, we're gonna do it and we'll definitely get it public. And then this is gonna, you know, because we very much did it for us.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Like that's how it started very much started out for us.

SPEAKER_03

And then, yeah, like Katie said, a bit later on, we were like, oh, hang on. Like, and then we Katie got her agent. I I already had an agent for my other books, but and they were quite excited. Like we shared it with my agent first, and she was quite excited about it.

SPEAKER_01

And we were like, Well, that's what made us realize something when you told.

SPEAKER_03

I'd not told them, I was too like nervous to tell my agent for the like the year that we were writing it, and I was like, So by the way, I've done this. And she was actually really excited. And um, then we were like, oh my god, this is like a real thing. And uh it kind of did change it, didn't it? Like became more like a like, okay, we have to take it seriously, and we're gonna, you know, we're gonna try and get it published. But it but it took, you know, we'd written the most of the first draft by the time that happened.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

That's incredible. When I was little and I had to go visit my nana for two weeks out of the year, which which I hated because she would make me do tours and like hang up my towel after a shower. And yeah, that was like 10 years old. Outright. There was um, there was a neighbor kid, her name was Emily, and we would write stories together the entire time. Oh eventually she dumped me as a co-author, probably when we were like 12, because I kept changing and she was like, pick a name. And I was like, no, no, we're this name, this name, this name. But it was it was a fun experience, and I reflect back on it, and it makes me so curious. Like, how do you two divide like this co-writing process kind of behind the scenes? Because the book itself has such a cohesive tone that I can't be like, well, Becky wrote this chapter, right? Or Katie wrote this chapter. It is like one mind, one person. How does this work practically?

SPEAKER_01

So glad you feel that way. I mean, very practically, I write Astrid and Becky writes Skylar. So it really helps that we have our individual characters that we write, but we do, but both of us plot the entire thing together. So every chapter is is plotted by both of us, the characters and what they're gonna do, drafted by both of us. And we each read each other's trap chapter and feed, you know, we give editorial notes and feedback on it or make suggestions, that kind of thing. I think if any because Becky's a lot more experienced than me, I think I probably found, didn't I, Becky, that I then I ended up maybe adapting or picking up sort of your tone and your style a bit more as we went.

SPEAKER_03

That actually makes me feel a bit guilty now. But yeah, I think well, I think we s I don't know. I think the writing, I think you your writing maybe Yeah, did you do that? It's hard because like you are like the best compliment is that um is what you've just said, Bethany, that like you can't tell. And we've had that a lot, right? That the the point of view characters feel distinct, but you can't, it doesn't feel like two people writing it. And I think we probably ended up merging partly because of this editorial feedback though, because we were then like comment, you know, down to a line level, and there'd be phrases, and I'm sure we've both picked up phrases from each other. You know, you can't like work that closely with something read each other's things and not pick up a bit of the tone.

SPEAKER_01

It's like a cadence thing sometimes, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03

Just that kind of rhythm sentences and stuff like that. Um and that's maybe what you mean actually, Katie, is the rh is the like the rhythm of Yeah, sorry, yeah, more that rhythm yeah. Or than the accent.

SPEAKER_01

I think you you also adapt your style, don't you, depending on what type of genre you're writing in.

SPEAKER_03

For sure, yeah. And I and I guess that's the other thing is we both read so much as a genre that we came to it with a kind of like we hadn't really discussed it, but I guess we had an awareness of how we wanted to write it in terms of like the immediacy and that kind of thing. Yeah. Anyway, so we were already kind of similar in tone, probably because of the reading and what we knew the book wanted to be, rather than like consciously trying to make us similar in tone. We actually lucked out because we could have ended up with really different writing styles and we totally.

SPEAKER_01

So I And also like the fact that we have been so aligned on our ideas. We've honestly because when you collaborate on a creative project like this, as anyone will know, if you are misaligned in idea Like there's just no getting past that.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So we always super lucky.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Did that answer the question?

SPEAKER_02

It does.

unknown

Yep.

SPEAKER_02

No, I I love that. And you know, and I'm curious too, right? Because you both had that experience in publishing, right? And kind of the PR side. Did that impact, you know, kind of going into your own book and writing how you were going to approach the publishing process or you know, the marketing and publicity aspects of it?

SPEAKER_01

Uh so you know what, Bethany? There is such a thing as knowing too much because you second guess everything. As well as like as an editor, the amount of submissions I used to get. Because I was a I used to be a publisher at Penguin Random House, and the amount of submissions I used to get every week. And then when you're read, like you're seeing all these submissions, you're seeing everything on the bookseller. And I think as any aspiring writer or writer knows, it can be quite daunting to see all these announcements, see all these other writers, see all these other submissions coming through. And it makes you, it can get inside your head, and it can mean you second guess your own work, and it can mean you question, you know. I can remember Becky questioning whether we should even have dragons in the book, because she worried that dragons had been overdone. Um, but then actually, and this Becky, the great idea that came from Becky was that I was like, No, we need dragons. I said, and Becky said, Well, if we're having dragons, none of them are breathing fire. And I was like, Great! There we go. Like, so like that's how we change it up, you know? So that's that's where the whole elemental and celestial dragons came from. Becky was like, our dragons need to be different then, which is yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I agree. I think you can you can you do second guess it um and being in the industry can make you do that. I mean, I because I've had books published before, I think. Um, do you know what it was less working in the industry that was the issue, but more like having not had like huge success with my own other books. So that to be honest, it was more that that was like the fear and the questioning of it rather than working in the industry. Because I've got to sort of got used to doing the two side by sides, and actually it can be it, there's like pros and cons with anything. I think working in the industry can be helpful and it can be not helpful depending on what part of the process you're at. But I'd kind of got the rhythm of that. So although the actual writing, is in I, you know, we kind of balanced each other out because I think I was always pretty sure we'd finish the book at least, because I was like, well, I finished loads of books, like it's doable. And I think Katie, well, you know, she also had a had a young child and that makes it a lot harder. But um, but I think yeah, like I was like, no, we can do it, we're gonna keep going, you can write. And I was like really motivated, like was sure that would happen and we'd get it done, but then like less sure, but now and now it's like less sure on the like success of it. Um so yeah, I guess I think they go, yeah, they go, I think, I think, yeah, pros and cons, isn't there?

SPEAKER_01

It definitely does help, obviously, working in the industry to know, like to manage expectations for one. I mean, with bit like really helps. I think sort of having just a general idea of how these things work, the kind of lingo that people use, uh, you know, having like so many of us now, we have to really use social media as a tool, and that can be very daunting for people. It can be such a time drain, such an emotional drain. I personally love it, and I think unless it's all yeah, I think it has to be authentic if you're going to do that, because it it just can't take so much out of you. And of course, like even connections. I mean, both of Becky and I went into the industry in the first place because you know, well, we needed jobs, and this was the job that made sense because we were readers and wanted to be writers. That's why we you know, we work we went to work in publishing because we wanted to be storytellers and we loved um books, you know, like we loved reading. So it kind of and then after, I mean, I've been in the industry 16 years. So after 15 years working in the industry, I was finally able to leave my job. And I won't lie, I had such a great grounding for how to approach my first published novel.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, that is amazing. No, and and everything you all have done has set you up for success because I see this book everywhere and it's not even out yet. And it is, I think, on the top of almost everybody's TBRs that I have spoken to over social media.

SPEAKER_01

So it is the word Oh, does that make me it makes me a bit nervous because I've like because you know when people have high expectations, I'm sort of like I'm always like, just lower them a bit. So then the book can exceed your expectations, please.

SPEAKER_02

Well, the book exceeded my expectations, and I'm thank you, Becky. Like I am critical when it comes to a hyped book because I'm like, is it really gonna be that good? This one is that good.

SPEAKER_01

Oh my god, thank you. Oh, that's such a relief.

SPEAKER_02

And I know that we have been teasing our listeners about Blood Bound since we started, so I promise we'll get into that now. So, Katie, Becky, tell us about Bloodbound. What is this story about? Who are the main characters that we're talking about?

SPEAKER_01

Okay, shall I kick us off, Becky? So, I mean, top line is it is about a queendom of witches and a kingdom of dragon riders who, once in a generation, have to duel to the death of the source of all magic. The book follows two FMCs, one of whom is the one I write, Astrid. She is the heir to the witches of Arturia, and she is destined to die. Um, in a few short weeks, she is gonna go to Vatra to duel. I need to not be like the sexy prince because that's so to duel the terrifying, terrifying, very powerful dragon rider prince is Ryan. And all she has are her potions, her wits, and her familiar to aid her, and she knows she's a dead woman. And if she dies, her queendom dies with her because they're trying to tackle the blight.

SPEAKER_03

We've got Skylar, who is deep in dragon country, and she's part of a travelling troop, she's a blade juggler, and her best friend, the one person in the entire world that she loves, has gone missing. And she thinks he's been taken as part of conscription because the royals are conscripting people with blooded powers, which is like magical powers, and Cam had one of those, so she is desperate to find him and she's gonna burn the whole world down if she has to. Um, but what she doesn't realize is that her path's gonna take her closer to the royals than she would hope. Dot dot dot.

SPEAKER_02

Just leave us hanging there. My goodness. It is so cool. Oh my gosh. And we've had people um reach out to us and ask, how did this idea come to you for this story? I know you all, you know, you're swapping fantasy books, that type of thing, right? Deciding to write a book together. But how did the idea, witches versus dragons, how did this materialize?

SPEAKER_03

Do you know there was a point there was a while it was called Witches versus Dragon as a word document? Yes. That was a holding title, just Witches versus Dragons.

SPEAKER_01

We were like, how do we call it that? Well, we always knew, didn't we? I think it really started with the two, like we always knew there was gonna be these two characters. And I think because with what you know Becky and I had kind of been going through together, like we were sort of lonely, and our friendship had like sort of reblossomed while being together. We wanted to have something about friendship. So that's always been core to this story, that friendship from found family. So Astrid and Skylar, although they were like that, what were their for ages? What were they called? Like Northern Girl and Southern Girl. Yeah, Northern Girl and Southern Girl, because we wanted to get the per, you know, the names that were just so right.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, we just I feel like you remember better what happened next because she was Well, we well, we definitely had we just we did a lot of brainstorming. Like we were like to write a a fantasy book and like the different parts of it, I think, came at different points. Like we spent so much time like blue sky thinking, like writing things out, talking about what we loved in fantasy books. So it was it was partly coming from like, okay, what do we love as readers and what would we want to see? And we had the ideal idea for the jewel, I think, quite early. So the jewel came really early on before the witches and dragons did.

SPEAKER_01

So we were like, because we wanted that personal, we wanted the personal, really like immediate stage for these two individuals.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. So we knew that the like northern and southern kingdom before we came up with names for them, that they were gonna they were gonna have two people that jewel to the death for the source of all magic. And then we were like, okay, how do we make them, you know, and and that and then actually, you know, it was like what are we gonna put them on on each side? And I think Katie came up with the idea of uh witches and familiars, and yeah, the dragons was like having started um by saying I think we should write a dragon book, as Katie said, I was like, actually no dragons, uh, and then the dragons got put back in, which I'm glad of. Uh yeah, so it kind of built from there, um, but a lot of like working, and and and do you know what? The first half was really quite different, um, but not in like the central dual concept. So the dual concept main characters, Ryan, the sexy dangerous prince were all still kind of the core was still there, but but we had to do a lot of like figuring stuff out around that and just so much brainstorming and and and kind of uh what we did with this book, which I've never done on a because I've never written fantasy, but uh never done with another book, is we just kept pushing it and being and we kept being like, okay, like ideas, and we'd we'd still have ideas halfway through, and then we'd go back and like figure it out and and constantly coming up with ideas and working out how to put them in. And I think we were like pushing it quite, you know, pushing each other and pushing in a really fun way.

SPEAKER_01

Um yeah. But I think part of that was because so like Becky was saying, we thought about what we loved when we're reading and what we loved in fantasy. We also thought about what mattered to us in the world, and that's why we were thought you know, the heart being the source of all magic is actually linked to the land and the idea of climate change and energy poverty was something we wanted to bring in. So these big themes, the things that stayed all along as well that we worked from. I was gonna make another point, then it's just totally gone out of my head. What we loved, what mattered to us. And then actually the reason why Bethany was, and I think this is a tip for any writers, and I bet we've all been frustrated when we've read a book and we feel like something feels forced or doesn't make sense, and it's bec often that's because the character does something or doesn't do something that that makes no sense to that character. So a lot of what we did we felt that it had to fit with what that character would do, what the motivations of that character were, because we never wanted this plot to fall down. It was like it's so which can be very tricky because sometimes you know, and I think sometimes you want to make you you force the characters to fit the plot, whereas we were like, no, the plot needs to fit these characters and fit this story because that's how it we're gonna make it feel satisfying. Like is that does that sound fair, Becky? I feel like that's where something stemmed from, and we're like, well, what would they do now? And then what if this happened and what would they do in this scenario?

SPEAKER_03

Giving them both really clear goals so that we can see it.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, really clear goals. Um I think I'm hoping that's why people have really resonated with the characters, and especially with Astrid and Skylar, I hope, because they do feel like they, you know, we we gave them so much thought.

SPEAKER_02

It comes through, right? I mean, this is a very unique book in that we have two FMCs, which you know, normally when we have kind of like a, you know, a dual main character book, right? It's usually female and male. So I think what I've heard too, a lot of people saying is they loved the friendship in this book. They love that they had two different female perspectives. And we did have some listeners and you know, commenters on our Instagram, and I think that you've answered this, right? But the friendship in the book is one of the best that they have read so far. And they wanted to know if it was your friendship that inspired that storyline for them.

SPEAKER_01

That's such a nice, like, such a lovely question. I think like our friendship for sure, us as people and on how our friendships in our lives have gotten us through. I mean, I say I I have a I have a husband and a child, but I still maintain that my female friendships are just as important as the you know, the romantic relationship with my husband. Like platonic friendships can be the most intense, most incredible, most sustaining that any of us will ever have and the longest lasting. So that's it was kind of always going to be an ode to that. And it's also why we felt like that had to take so the romance is a subplot, and that's why we call it a fantasy romance, not romantic. I mean, that's just like semantics, I know, but it is it is secondary as much as it's still very important and we love the romance, we really do. We always wanted it to be very much about Astrid and Skylar in this first book and how their lives intertwined.

SPEAKER_02

And, you know, another question from our audience as well is do you relate most to the characters that you each wrote? Or you know, how how does that work?

SPEAKER_03

I think there's definitely part we're laughing because Skylar is like so mean. Sometimes I like Joker and I'm like, does it say something about me? But um, I mean, I loved writing Skylar more than I've loved writing any other character. She was so fun to write, but she can be quite um spiky. But I think there's parts of the characters that go in, like we we are like obsessed with our characters. I mean, we're obsessed with all of the like we're each, as in we're all of we're both obsessed with all of them. Like as in, you know, it's not just that I'm obsessed with Skylar and Katie's Astrid, but we do have like a like maybe unhealthy relationship with the gun of the character that we've written. Oh my god, yeah. So, but you but you pour parts of yourself into it, right? So, like for me, um, there's like little things that Skylar, so like I'm really not a hugger, as Katie knows, and I like find it really hard to say I love you, and all and Skylar is like so like there's a line in the book where she says I'm not a hugger. So that like um there's like little things like that, and I and I love the sun, and Skylar, you know, so writing Skylar in in Batra, and um and that like I have I have probably you know, I have a few relations like actually the friendship thing, but you know, like as we were saying, the the few relationships that you have but you feel really strongly about them, it you know, even if it's in a platonic way. And um Skylar also lost her mum when she was little, and my mum died when I was seven, and so I you kind of end up pouring part of that into your character, and and like she's quite defensive and closed off, and and like some of that comes from my feeling, not that I present in the same way, but that that uh feelings of that kind of like closing yourself off and protecting yourself and that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01

Definitely you pour all yourself into, and I know Katie with Astrid has Yeah, it's been I mean I know it's di a bit different for me because I've not written as many books as Beckley, but I feel like for both of us these are like the most personal potentially the most personal characters we've ever written, maybe with how intensely we feel about them. Like Astrid, I mean I don't know whether there's like some weird catharsis thing, because there's things I've done with Astrid that are very much me, so I found it quite I wanted to give Astrid bipolar disorder because I have bipolar disorder. But specifically I wanted to explore how she relies on her medication because for many years I really relied on medication, and so that's why I just wanted to show someone with bipolar disorder.

SPEAKER_02

I love it. Who has bipolar disorder and it runs in their side of the family? Um and so you know, it's like four generations now for them. Um so it was just for me, just I have not really seen that representation in other books. So I just I did want to say thank you for that, Katie.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you, Beth. You know what? It's really I've really loved hearing that from people that it has connected because I think bipolar disorder is such um a misunderstood um don't want to say I say illness, like condition. Yeah, but I've had it for so long, I don't even know how to describe it. But it's you know, like the kind of and also the neurodivergency that also comes with it and around it and can be associated with it. Um so Astrid, for anyone who's not read it, has this tincture she takes to help manage her mood. And I just thought, you know, imagine it's the same, it's like on a smaller scale, it's there's one point where I talk about Astrid being on a tonic to stop her periods, because imagine being on your period when you've got to go into the jewel. And it's like a kind of imagine having just these everyday things that we, you know, having to take a medicine because you're you have bipellar disorder. Imagine being on your period. But then also, oh my god, you've got to go battle the dragon. And I, you know, it's like taking the everyday, the things that we can relate to and then transforming it. But part of that, you know, was a kind of mirror to our world and a lot of people who are much less privileged than us right now and who are in war zones, who don't have sanitary care, who don't have medication, who don't have health care. I don't know, so it was kind of a mirror to that as well. I don't know. Um, but yeah, but there's other things I've done with Astrid, which was a way of kind of so Astrid's I like I don't really have a relationship with my mother, and I've had a very troubled relationship with my mother growing up, and I decided because often you can get the quite difficult mother uh represented in fiction, especially in this. And I I actually wanted Gwen to be this very powerful queen who really is, you know, loves her queendom, but also really loves her daughter and is looking out for her and is actually quite pretty supportive and generally a good mum, you know, and also powerless to stop this covenant, because this covenant is curse, like you do you duel or you die, you know. So I wanted to kind of put um, you know, she's still flawed as a mother, but I wanted to give Astrid this positive mother uh like model, which was very different to my life, I suppose.

SPEAKER_02

I love that because you know, Disney uh you know, Disney girl here, right? The mom's always killed off, right, in the first five minutes of the movie. And you don't get to explore that dynamic. So I loved seeing that there.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, I'm so glad.

SPEAKER_02

Oh man. Okay, now we have another question from our audience as well, which is who is your favorite character and why if you can't pick the two female leads?

SPEAKER_01

I'm gonna pick Bastet.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, yeah. Oh, that's a good one.

SPEAKER_01

So Bastet is a little sardonic black cat familiar and has some of some great lines in them, is just so fantastic. We I think Becky and I both loved writing him when he was in our scenes, but we love the dynamic he has with a certain other creature later on in the book, and the two of them together are like the most iconic duo after after the Skylar.

SPEAKER_03

I'm gonna I am gonna say Zarayan. I mean, I feel like it, I feel like unless he was a um like yeah, some of my favorite quote. I mean, and also I think you know, we talk about the female friendship, but we are both like die hard romance and fancy romance. We are so like I mean they're thy favourite. So in the in the new in the second book, Katie recently wrote an Astrid and Sorry and C. I don't know if that's a spoiler. Um I don't think it is. It's fine. And it was like my favorite. I was like everything, I love everything about it. Oh my comments were like in capital letters, being like, I love this so much. Um, and uh, I think we'd both been, and we both kind of like, oh thank god, the Roma, like bring in more romance. We were like, thank God, Zrian's here. So yeah, I'm gonna go with that.

SPEAKER_01

We love his dragon riding thighs.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. And I think a lot of people, you know, again, we took I think people have loved the friendship, which is so lovely to see, but we've seen some like really lovely comments on on Zrian as well and how people are loving him.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, yeah, because he's such a lead me for other book boy friends right now. We just love you know what? Because he's so we took the kind of typical male league, because you know, in the book, Bethany, you've read it, we like to really lean into some tropes and then flip them or subvert them, but some we just love to lean into because they're so fun, and that's why we love the books in the first place. But one of the tropes we kind of leaned into is Ryan was to kind of make him look and seem very much like this a bit of a morally gray MMC with how big and his dark hair and his grey silver eyes. And we was like, we were on we were doing a festival at the weekend, the and the moderator was going, You just described the widest man who'd ever lived. I was like, Yes, we did. But then what we do is we kind of flip it and we he's he's such a green flag, and we were like, let's make that he's not morally grey, let's like, let's make him a like a green flag MMC. So you get the best of both worlds.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Oh my gosh, I love that. And Katie, we've had several people ask this question. Who is your favorite familiar?

SPEAKER_01

I'm gonna have to say Bastet, aren't I? Who does or who are you gonna say?

SPEAKER_03

He's gotta be Bastet, although yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Quincy. He's like a uh strong we love we love Quincy too. So Quincy, for anyone who's not read it, is a bit is like basically was based on an Arctic fox, but making the size of like a mountain lion. A big, gorgeous white fox who's always hungry.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, that describes my life right there, except for the gorgeous part.

SPEAKER_01

Always hungry.

SPEAKER_02

That's me. Another question from our audience, too. So a lot of our listeners have read the Goodreads reviews of the book, even if they don't have a physical copy in their hands yet. And they say that the Goodreads reviews very stressful talking about Goodreads.

SPEAKER_01

Goodreads.

SPEAKER_02

Goodreads. But they mention amazing plot twists and something that happened that. Has wrecked people. So did you start the story with that wrecking idea in mind? Or did you write the book and then have this light bulb moment that you wanted to destroy readers?

SPEAKER_03

We didn't realize how it would blow up, I don't think, in the way it has, but we knew because there is a specific structural thing that we do. And that I remember, I actually remember being sat in Katie's living room and saying, Oh my god, Katie, what if? And then she was like, Oh my god, and we had a like whole thing, and it like slightly changed the trajectory, not in like a massive way, but we just had a like real, like, light bold moment.

SPEAKER_01

I remember it's definitely a moment where Becky regretted what she'd done though. Because yeah. Becky was like, wait a minute, we're gonna have to write this. And I was like, Yeah, Becky, you started it, and now we're gonna have to do it. I didn't people will never forgive us.

SPEAKER_03

I did, yes, that is accurate. I was crying a lot in said moment. Katie was, I was what's up, and Katie, being like, I'm crying so much, and she was crying being like, I'm so sorry, but also your own fault.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Um and then I was crying. Sorry, I'm really sorry.

SPEAKER_03

And then she was like, I've glad at her own nose, but I can't even give them to you because I'm crying.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, we were just a pet. So if I hope it helps people to hear that we destroyed ourselves doing this.

SPEAKER_02

The next question is how do you sleep after that chapter?

SPEAKER_01

Oh, we got asked this at the We got asked this at the weekend. How do you sleep at night? And I'll say what I said then. We sleep really well. He sleeps so well and cozy. We do.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, you're killing me. Yeah, that's great. Will we get more POVs in other books that are coming? Yes.

SPEAKER_01

Yes. Now uh I think what we can say, because I know exactly what POV everyone bloody wants. And it's Zrian's. So I'm gonna have to like staunch any rumors. So this the second book won't have a continuous Zrian POV, but what we can say is currently there will be one Zryan POV chapter. Another thing for the Zryan girlies, me and Becky, is there are two Zryan bonus chapters that will be going out into the world soon. One of which is like the f my most favourite chapter I've ever written. I loved it so much. But we also have a secret POV in book two. So the secret that you don't find out till the end of the book who it is. So so book two will be three POVs um with one secret POV, which is very exciting.

SPEAKER_03

Oh man. And we've got um loose plans for book three that have not been committed to yet.

SPEAKER_01

So like can we do like a sneaky with the caveat?

SPEAKER_03

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01

I'm just going. One of whom may or may not be Trian.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, we've got and and the um I think I think it will be on book two, we'll be interested to hear what POVs people want in book three, and we hope that we are gonna be able to give the people they want.

SPEAKER_01

I think the people will want what we're gonna give them.

SPEAKER_02

So is you know, another question from our audience too. Is this uh three book series or is this gonna have more books? Because in our and I quote from our listener, I will never be ready for this series to end.

SPEAKER_01

Well, let's see what you think of the book. The second book first.

SPEAKER_03

They might be like, no, don't it's three books currently.

SPEAKER_01

It's it's three books currently. We have the very end of book three planned. Like we know exactly where this is going. We know the the big ending. So, yeah, the journey. We know the journey. We know that big end. And it's oh my god, it actually makes you feel sick. Yeah. Just I feel like I love to say things like, just, you know, if you hate us in book one, I just wonder how they're gonna hate us when book three is over. Yeah. Oh well, we'll worry about that in a couple of years.

SPEAKER_02

This has been so much fun. We will have to have you on to talk about book two and book three and how our hearts are probably still broken and crying and you know, asking how you're sleeping then as well. Thank you so much for coming on the show with me today. Oh, thank you so much for inviting us.

SPEAKER_01

It was so fun. I could have chatted for another hour, Bethany. Honestly, it was lovely.

SPEAKER_02

We could too. We might have to do a part two because those questions keep rolling in. So but to all of our listeners out there, thank you for tuning in. Bloodbound will be out later this month. Please pick it up so that we can all scream and cry together about that specific twist and chapter. So thank you, everyone. We hope to see you at the next episode.

SPEAKER_00

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.