The Mythic Mic Podcast

S.2 Ep. 108: Romeo, Juliet, and a Happily Ever After: Emily McIntire on Burning Daylight

• Season 2 • Episode 108

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0:00 | 51:22

🎙️ Welcome back to The Mythic Mic Podcast, where tragic lovers get another chance, corrupt families turn romance into war, and happily ever after is always worth fighting for.

This week, Mythic Mic Team Member Amara sits down with bestselling romance author Emily McIntire to discuss Burning Daylight, Forsaking Midnight, and her interconnected Defying the Stars series. 

Emily shares the unusual psychic reading that finally convinced her to write her first novel, her journey from indie publishing to becoming a hybrid author with Bloom Books, and why every author must treat their career like a business. She also opens up about protecting creative control, finding an agent who will truly advocate for you, and using music to uncover the emotional heart of every story.

We also dive into Burning Daylight, a modern Romeo and Juliet retelling where secret heir Roman Montgomery falls for Juliet Callaway before either realizes they belong to Rosebrook Falls’ most bitterly opposed families. Emily discusses forbidden romance, slow-burn tension, small-town corruption, and rewriting tragic love stories so they finally receive their happily ever afters. She also teases Forsaking Midnight, her darker Lancelot and Guinevere retelling filled with cage fighting, forced proximity, moral grayness, betrayal, and devastating yearning.

⭐ Can Roman and Juliet choose each other without losing everything their families control?
🥀 What happens when the person you hate becomes the only one capable of protecting you?
🖤 And how much pain must a tragic love story survive before it earns a different ending?

This is a must-listen for forbidden-romance readers, retelling lovers, slow-burn and angst enthusiasts, and anyone who believes even literature’s most doomed couples deserve a happily ever after.

🔥 IN THIS EPISODE, WE TALK ABOUT:
✨ Emily’s life as a reader, musician, bird watcher, and self-described hermit.
✨ How songwriting shaped the emotional core of her novels.
✨ The psychic readings that pushed her to finally write her first book.
✨ Learning indie publishing through research, experimentation, and persistence.
✨ Treating an author career like a business and continually studying the industry.
✨ Moving into traditional publishing while preserving creative and financial control.
✨ Emily’s hybrid partnership with Bloom Books.
✨ Why authors need trustworthy agents, contract guidance, and strong boundaries.
✨ Writing across genres while always placing an epic love story at the center.
✨ The creation of Rosebrook Falls and the Defying the Stars series.
✨ Reimagining tragic romances and giving them happily ever afters.
✨ Roman Montgomery, Juliet Callaway, and two feuding founding families.
✨ The Rosebrook Rag, corrupt small-town politics, and scandalous reader-submitted gossip.
✨ Flawed characters learning to love themselves before fully accepting love.
✨ Why small gestures and emotional intimacy make romance feel earned.
✨ Slow-burn tension, forbidden desire, and spice rooted in character growth.
✨ Forsaking Midnight as a modern Lancelot and Guinevere retelling.
✨ Pride and Prejudice, Shakespeare, iconic ’90s adaptations, and rapid-fire chaos.

CONNECT WITH US

🎙️ The Mythic Mic Podcast – @MythicMic
👤 Bethany Amanda – @BethanyinFantasyland
👤 Amara – @Bored_Military_Wife
📚 Emily McIntire – @itsemilymcintire

✨ 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 back to another episode of the Mythic Mike podcast. The lovely Bethany is out sick today, so you have me, Amara, hosting today's episode. But don't you run away just yet, because I have the amazing Emily McIntyre with us today. No, you did not hear me wrong. Yes, that Emily. She's here to talk about her Defying the Stars series. Hi, Emily. Welcome. Hi, thanks so much for having me. Oh my God. Thank you for being here. It is an absolute pleasure to have you here with us today. Oh yeah, I'm excited. Well, just will you wait until I'll start hounding you questions and then you'll see how you feel. Now just play. Yeah, right, right. I'll display it. Well, we love getting to know our authors first before we jump into their book. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and who is Emily behind the writer?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so I'm just a girl. I am just, you know, I wake up in the mornings, I go on my walks, I feed my murder of crows. That is like my favorite thing to do. I bird watch, I come back and I get lost in my own imagination. Uh I have a seven-year-old daughter, so I am also a mom. And family time is really important to me. So I live like a little hermit in my house, and occasionally I pretend like I'm an extrovert and I go out in the world.

SPEAKER_02

Oh my gosh, I can totally relate to that so much. Like I am like an introvert, but I'm also an extrovert, which makes no total sense, but it does kind of make sense. No, it does. It makes perfect sense. Yes, like I love talking with people, but then afterwards I'm like, wow, I am so drained. Like I don't think I can like converse or talk to anybody for weeks, like what you just said.

SPEAKER_01

That's exactly how I am. I can turn it on, but then I have to turn it back off.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, yes, yes. Oh my gosh, I love that. And I love that you mentioned Game of Thrones. I I took forever just to start watching that. Like I was so far behind. Like I kept re-watching the first season because of a certain character's death, and I was so upset about it, but I'm so thankful that I kept going on. Not so much the wedding episode, but I know, I know.

SPEAKER_01

Well, my rewatch, I'm like, I just have I'm gonna have to re-watch the last season, which is my least favorite season, and I'm like, maybe I can just stop before that. Like it never happened. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

That's so funny. A lot of people have that same like uh response to the last season. Yeah, that's too funny. Well, looking back, what is one of your fondest memories of discovering or reading books growing up?

SPEAKER_01

I have so many because I have been a reader my entire life, as I'm sure many people listening to this will relate to. You know, um, I it's hard for me to say this now because I don't really like to bring it up, but fundamentally wise, Harry Potter was just fundamental to me as a child. It makes me sad to talk about it now. But um, other than that, Mrs. Pigglewiggle was a big one. I don't know if anybody else has ever read Mrs. Pigglewiggle. When I was a little kid, she lived in an upside-down house, and they were some of the first books I read, and they made me fall in love with reading. Um, and then I was a big Swiss Family Robinson girl. So I would read the Swiss Family Robinson when I had to do chores because I would get in the mindset of pretending I lived in tree houses and had to like clean and put things together. And then even getting a little older in elementary school and middle school, books like The Giver or you know, How to Kill a Mockingbird, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, all of those books were really fundamental for me in shaping who I was and kind of how I acted in the world and took in things around me.

SPEAKER_02

It's so funny that you mentioned the books like that you read in school, because back then when you were reading it, at least that's how it was for me. I'm like, why are they making me read this? Like, what had a purpose? And yet, here we are still talking about it to this day. And now we can kind of even understand a little bit further of what exactly they were teaching us.

SPEAKER_01

Exactly. It's it's kind of my favorite part about reading and literature is sitting in discomfort and seeing situations that you aren't necessarily experiencing in your own life or you would never kind of have to confront. I think that I think it's important for everyone to do that. So I'm very grateful that as a child I was forced to read those books.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, yeah, exactly. I love that. I love that so much. And you mentioned Harry Potter. I feel like as a teenager, it's very much the mindset of like, were you backstreet boys or were you in sync? And it was very much like, were you Harry Potter or were you Twilight? Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I know. I well, I read both, to be honest. But I but Harry Potter was, I mean, those were the books that got me. Yeah. And also in sync to answer that question. Oh, oh, oh, you know what?

SPEAKER_02

Thank you for saying that. Cause same. Same. Yeah, it's the correct answer. Yeah, thank you. Well, we're probably gonna get so much slack for the symptoms. So they're gonna be like, what the hell like backstream? I love it.

SPEAKER_01

Well, it's okay to be wrong.

SPEAKER_02

So or right in this instance. Or right. Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_01

Except I don't claim Justin Timberlake anymore either. Harry Potter and Justin Timberlake, both of them, I'm like, okay.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. You can have the appreciation of the memories of them, but I mean that's so yeah, exactly. Well, speaking of memories, what was the very first thing you ever wrote? Not just like published, just wrote in general.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, you know, I don't even know if I can pinpoint one singular thing because I have been writing since I could write. I play the piano and I'm a singer, so I would write songs and poems. I had hundreds of notebooks just full of them all through my youth. I I don't know that I have like the number one thing, but it was definitely either a song lyric or a poem, and probably very angsty and depressing.

SPEAKER_02

Hemily, what can't you do? Holy cow, you sing, you you know, like well, you don't know if I'm good. I can't do it. Okay, that's true. That's and you know what I always say in regards to singing, like a lot of people get not embarrassed, but maybe shy when it comes to I'm just like, it doesn't matter how you sound, just as long as you're having fun, like people are gonna love it.

SPEAKER_01

I hope so, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I love it. That's stupid, yeah. And the very first of my works I don't really write, and this is a reason why, because I'm not very good at that. But the very first thing for myself as well, too, was a poem, and I had to read it in front of the entire middle school, and I was so nervous. And people came up to me because it's like it was like an emotional poem. They're like, that was so beautiful, like you were so emotional, and I was like, I was freaking out the whole time. But you did it and they loved it. That's all that matters. Exactly. I'm sure your poems were so much better, and I and I love that you wrote your own music as well, too. I bet that really helped with it, or did it help with your writing in regards to kind of transitioning into books?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I would say so for sure, because I would say there's a big piece of storytelling that you have to inject in songwriting, and you have to get to the core emotion of it a lot quicker than you do in novels. So finding the emotional core of something in a novel is the first thing that happens to me. I've always kind of just felt the stories, even when I was songwriting, but especially with writing books, they just drop into me and it's almost like a physical click, and I feel the emotions. So bringing that over from when I was a kid and I would write songs. Yeah. I've never thought about it before, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I'm making you think of this episode. I I very much agree that music and books can totally like correlate and work together. Cause I always when I'm feeling something, like I either gravitate towards a song or to a book.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Well, I still do that, right? So I put playlists in the front of all my books. Yep. Yeah. Because I listen to music when I'm writing. And so, and actually, how I start the plotting before I ever write a word is I put music on random and I just let songs play, and then a song will come on, and scenes start dropping in my head. And so I know, okay, when I get to that scene, this is the song I have to listen to. And those songs are what end up in the playlist of my book.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, that that was cool. That was really cool. That how like certain songs that you listen to can kind of change kind of what you're writing, evoking a certain emotion in your writing. You hear okay, if there are any listeners who are authors, you heard that here. You need to just start listening to music and that'll start helping with the writing. Yeah. I love that. Well, speaking of writing, what made you decide to finally take that leap into writing as a career and get it top list?

SPEAKER_01

Okay, this is kind of a wild story, but I love telling it. So I had been thinking of writing a book for a long time. I had never told anyone. And my mom bought me a psychic reading from her psychic who lived in England. He goes in totally blind. He doesn't know anything except your first name. And I did the session with him, and he stopped in the middle and he said, Who is it that wants to write a book? I'm hearing that a spirit is telling me that that really needs to happen. And he had said a lot, and so I still didn't write. And then about six months later, before my husband and I were married, but we were together, he had a reading. And again, this man knew nothing about us. And we had different last names. And in the middle of my husband's, he says, There's somebody really close to you that's gifted with the written word. And my husband keeps listing off all these people. And he goes, No, no, no. I keep hearing to be published, to be published. And it's it's either you or it's somebody who maybe you live with or you love, but they're very close to you. And the spirit is saying that they really, really need to pursue this. It is what they're meant to do. So I was like, okay, I'm gonna listen. And I sat down and I wrote my first book, Beneath the Stars, and the rest is history.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, that is like the coolest origin story, like ever. And you you can't go against the spirits. Oh my gosh, could you just imagine if you didn't listen to? I know. Who knows where I'd be? That is crazy. I love that. I love that story. I I've always wanted to look into psychic readings. My husband doesn't really believe in it, so like I haven't really jumped in on that, but I think that is the coolest thing ever that you did that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. He was on point.

SPEAKER_02

See, obviously. Yeah, right, right, right. I mean, they should have gone more into like your trajectory of your author. Have you done a reading since then or no?

SPEAKER_01

I have done readings with them, but not really about my career. However, astrology, if you get into astrology and you look at astrology charts and your full charts, I'm very into that. And that is extremely on point with trajectories, but also your past, down to sometimes the week of when things happen.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, that's cool. I haven't gotten too much into that because I it's hard for me to comprehend all that. So that is crazy to hear. Now you got me kind of wanting to look into that a little bit.

SPEAKER_01

Just go down the rabbit hole. Just do it. Let yourself have it. Right.

SPEAKER_02

You're gonna sucker me into so much stuff in this episode. Do it. Right. I have to listen to Emily. That is too funny. Well, what was your experience publishing your first book like? And does the process feel like second nature now that you're a seasoned writer?

SPEAKER_01

The process when I first started was I didn't know what the hell I was doing. So I kind of just threw myself in the fire. I'm very much a person that when I decide to do something, I'm like, okay, this is the only option for me. There is no failing. I will do it, and even if I fail, I will continue until I succeed. So I started reading um lots of articles on marketing and books and the publishing industry. I followed my favorite authors who were indie publishing and signed up for their newsletters kind of to see their process and emulate what was working for them. And I just kind of dove in and doing that was terrifying and also kind of trial by error because you do things and you look back and you realize, well, I would definitely do that differently. Now it is second nature. However, a couple years into my indie publishing, I became a traditionally published author. And so then it was almost like trial by error again, being thrown into this whole different sphere and having to learn a different ballgame. But that was easier for me because of all of my experience that I had gone through with indie publishing first. It allowed me to have more control and demand to be more of a partner that they listened to and was heard than just kind of assuming that they were going to handle everything. Now it does feel like second nature, but I consistently am surprised. I feel like I'm always learning and I'm always I still read articles. I read one every at least once a month on marketing and the industry. So I it's just a constant evolution and a learning process. I don't think it ever ends.

SPEAKER_02

I think that's amazing that you want to kind of stay current in regards to the b the excuse me, the publishing market because it is ever changing. It's very much, I mean, this is literally your profession. If you're a hairstylist, you want to keep up with the trends. You wanna, you know, keep up with what's new and happening. So that's amazing that you kind of take that initiative to even though you are a seasoned author and you're amazing, that you're just like, you know what, no, I'm gonna follow along and keep track and still learning.

SPEAKER_03

Right.

SPEAKER_02

I I love that. And a lot of people feel that they get so much information when they start off as Indy that they may not have gotten if they started off as Trad. Like would you say that's that's the case? 100%.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, absolutely. I think that I think that it's possible to for that to happen with Trad, but I think that when you start at least from my personal experience, when I started out as Indy, I was forced into I have to treat this like a business because I I don't have this giant wheelhouse of professionals telling me how things are done and falling into the status quo. So I think that that experience really sets you up for success in a way that you can have. I'm not saying by any means that traditional authors don't have that, but I but for me it made it a lot easier for the transition.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, a lot of people don't understand that it is indeed a business, like you said, like writing is fun. Yeah, woo-hoo, you get to write this amazing story, but there's a lot more to it that you may not know. Totally, 100%. Well, you've written in multiple genres. Is there one that you consider like easier to write? And do you have a personal favorite?

SPEAKER_01

Uh, see, this is where I split from the reader in me has a favorite or the writer in me has a favorite. But I the one core thing, no matter what, is epic love stories, right? No matter what subgenre I'm or sandbox I'm playing in, because I don't ever want to pigeonhole myself, I will always be writing love at the center of it. That is my my wheelhouse. That's what I love to write. So that is what's important to me is I like having people fall in love over and over and over and over again, and always through their flaws, through their trials, through their tribulations, and coming out and getting there happily ever after. I don't know that one is harder than the other because they're all hard in their own ways. And I don't really have a favorite to write because whenever I'm in this story, my muse is just I'm so excited and so I feel like I am the characters. So it's just this creative fountain that I'm feeling. Now, of course, I get fatigued when I'm like near the end of it. Is this what it suck? It's trash. But for the most part, I will just write whatever the muse tells me to write, and and it will always be love. There will it will always center around love.

SPEAKER_02

I so appreciate that because I am such a sucker for love. Like everyone asks me, you know, what's your favorite genre? Blah, blah, blah. I'm like anything with love in it. I always say, like, I love love. I love that you love love as well.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, totally. Like, I like to play in all these different areas and I like to challenge myself as a writer. I think it's important to continually grow in your craft. So I like going to wildly different. Plus, I also I have ADHD, so I have to work on multiple projects that are wildly different from each other at the same time. Otherwise, my brain explodes. It doesn't know what to do.

SPEAKER_02

I'm super curious though. What is your favorite genre to read, though? I know unless you're kind of a mood reader like me. Like, I don't really necessarily I mean yeah, okay, yeah, a mood reader as well, too. Yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_01

I am the biggest mood reader. It's impossible to pick.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I'm so bad. Like, I'll start a book and then like I'll be like, nah, I think I'm really into something, and then I'll just do like I'll jump to something and I'll have like four books going at once, which is so bad. I know.

SPEAKER_01

It's not though. If that's how your brain works, I you have to be in the mood for it. I get it. That's how you I really like forbidden though. Like forbidden romance to me, I love tension and I love angst. So, you know, tear me up, just put me back together at the end of it. That's all I want.

SPEAKER_02

I mean, that makes sense with the series that we're almost about to talk about. So yeah. I love that stuff. It makes total sense. Well, I mean, you have had an amazing career, like everybody knows your books. Well, you have a strong partnership with Bloom Books. How did that business relationship come about?

SPEAKER_01

They reached out to me. So they emailed me. The the editor, the executive editor emailed me and asked for a meeting. And I went into the meeting fully ready to say, absolutely not. Why would I give up my rights to my books? I'm not gonna make as much money. But the way that they wanted to do it and the creative control that I had and the voice that I got became worth it for me. And I'm very glad I did because they took my distribution to a level that I would never have been able to reach on my own as an indie author, and they grew my fan base to a level I can reach so many more readers and people. So it it really was just them finding me and reaching out and them convincing me to do it.

SPEAKER_02

That's too funny. I know a lot of authors when they get that first initial email, they they think it's fake. Did you have to do like some digging around or or like doing get some clues to see like if it indeed was real?

SPEAKER_01

You know what's funny? I don't remember if I I probably did because I'm very suspicious by nature, so I feel like I'm always doing that. But I genuinely cannot remember how far down the rabbit hole I went. I think it wasn't too far because it looked very official. The email was the official Sourcebooks email. And then I immediately got on a Zoom call, I think within the next week or so, and I knew I knew then, like, okay, this is legit.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I'm a sucker for Bloom Books. Like, I think I was. Rearranging or organizing my bookshelves the other day, and like the majority of them were for from bloom. So that's uh yeah, it's amazing that you're working with them. Congratulations.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you. Yeah, I got in with them. I think I was one of their first hybrid authors because I got to keep the ebook. I kept my own ebook royalties, so that's all me, and they just took the paper back. And so it was kind of cool to work with them on figuring out the kinks and working that out and seeing being like with them along for the ride as they grow or grew into what they are now. So I love that.

SPEAKER_02

That is, I didn't even know that was a thing that you could have those two like separate entities in ebook with well, look at me learning new things.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that was why I said okay to them because I said I'm not gonna give up ebook. There's no way I make like that's my bread and butter. I make too much money in Kindle Unlimited, you know, unless you can match it. But you can take the paperback and distribute it all over. So that was, yeah, they can't never fall for the status quo if your author's listening. Just dream it, do it, believe it.

SPEAKER_02

That is amazing advice. And that's actually gonna be our next question. For aspiring authors looking into following your amazing footsteps, what's one piece of advice you would give them?

SPEAKER_01

It's very difficult for me to just say one. So I'm going to apologize in advance if I ramble and say two or three. That's fair and fine. But my number one is kind of what we touched on earlier about you are a business, and it's important for you to run your author brand like a business. And if you don't know how to run a business, that is a foundation that you need to learn because it will continually serve you over and over again and keep you from being taken advantage of, which it is a predatory industry, whether we want to talk about that or not. So you have to protect yourself. Nobody is going to care more about you, your livelihoods, your books, your craft, or your career than you are. And you need to invest in yourself. Okay, then my second one, my second one is you please find an agent that you trust, one that really will have your back in situations and will go to bat for you when needed. They, if you have a good agent, they are your backbone, your right-hand person, and they can make sure that you have a voice when you don't feel like you're having one in traditional publishing. Um, and even if it's indie publishing, if you're doing international deals or audiobook deals, I've had to buy back rights before from deals that I made before I had an agent that were bad deals. And it was very expensive. So I recommend if you can't find an agent or you can't afford a lawyer to at least look over contracts, sign up for the Authors Guild. It's authorsguild.org. And once you're a member of the Authors Guild, you can submit your contracts and their lawyers will look it over for free for you.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, that is amazing advice. Hopefully, everybody just shouted that down. That is wonderful that they offer those services.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, really incredible.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and a lot of authors in the past have said exactly kind of what she said. Trust your intuition because you're gonna go through a whirlwind and you're gonna be learning so much, dealing with multiple people and all kinds of different paperwork and all of the such. So to really trust in yourself, and if you're feeling something, then go with your gut. Absolutely. Well, I could talk about you and your advice forever because you have such amazing advice, but I'm ready to jump into the book. If you're ready to jump into or the series, let's do it, girl. All right. For listeners just discovering the series for the first time. Can you walk us through the first book, Burning Daylight?

SPEAKER_01

Sure. So Burning Daylight is a modern-day Romeo and Juliet retelling. The entire series as a whole, uh, the Defying the Star series is tragic love stories getting there happily ever afters. So Romeo and Juliet is, of course, I think arguably the most well-known tragic love story. And this follows Roman Calloway. Listen to me. Okay, we have to cut that. That's my that's my one. We have to cut that. Okay. This follows this follows Roman Montgomery and Juliet Calloway. Roman is a secret heir to one of the founding families in Rosebrook Falls, which is a corrupt small town. Everyone thinks he's dead. Nobody knows he still exists. And Juliet Callaway is the heiress to the Callaway founding family of Rosebrook Falls. And the Montgomerys and the Callaways, as I'm sure you can guess, absolutely hate each other. They cannot stand each other. They are always feuding. It is a major, major deal. So when Juliet and Roman meet, they don't know who the other person is. Sparks fly, the banter is bantering, the juju is jujuing. And come to find out, he has to come back to town to take his rightful place as air, and the fallout occurs where they realize they cannot be together because their families are enemies. We have a lot of high stakes, a lot of action and high drama. It's, I've heard it called like a soap opera meets gossip girl, because we also have the Rosebrick Rag that runs through this series, which is a trashy tabloid that we also have in the real world. They have social media on here. Y'all can put in made-up tips to the hotline. And um yeah, so they have to basically figure out how to be together and still have their lives and get their happily ever after, which they do get their happily ever after. But it's a slow burn, tension-filled, angsty, forbidden romance road to get there.

SPEAKER_02

I can I just say that I'm so thankful that you gave them a happy ever after because I'm a theater girl. Like I went to college for theater, and so I'm very familiar with Romeo and Juliet. You know, I've done scenes from that, and it is so freaking tragic. And my emotional heart cannot handle that. So thank you so much for making it a happy ever after.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, my my books will always have happy endings. You can always count on that.

SPEAKER_02

As they should, as they all all books should have that. Good thing Sarah isn't involved in this episode because she loves to cry and have like sad endings and whatnot.

SPEAKER_01

So well, see, I love to cry and I love to make you cry, but I will I will heal you at least for the most part at the end. I will heal you at the main couple at the end.

SPEAKER_02

You're like those uh sour but sweet like patches, like those commercials where they like mess you up, but then you're like, nah, like we're sweet, like then she weary. Right. Yeah, you're good, girl. Like, okay, so thank goodness. Cause like I appreciate that. Like I said, I cry at everything. Commercials, like I'm surprised I haven't started crying in this uh interview. So there's still time. Yeah, you're right. There's plenty of time left. Well, your readers know you as the retelling queen. That is just your new title now. But we'd love to know what drew you to Romeo and Juliet and why this specific moment in your life did you feel that it was the perfect time to write it.

SPEAKER_01

So the way that all of my inspiration happens, I wish I had more control over it, but I don't. It it feels as though it's an outside source that kind of drops into my head and demands to be written, and I'm just the transcriber. I just transcribe, it plays like a movie in my head, and I feel what the characters are feeling. I can feel the energy of the towns and so on and so forth. So when I was thinking about where I wanted to go next after the never after series, Rosebrook Falls as a corrupt small town just fell into my head. And I thought, wouldn't it be cool if I could just meld together all these tragic love stories and make them work together as one cohesive thing throughout an interconnected standalone series and then give them all their happily ever-afters, rewrite history for lack of a better term. And when I was thinking about that, the characters started talking to me, and I knew Romeo and Juliet was going to be one of them. And I decided to do them first because what better entry into a tragic love story series than one of the most well-known of all time, Romeo and Juliet. I was like, I gotta start with the big guns, and that's how it started.

SPEAKER_02

I'm always in awe of how like authors' brains can work and come up with ideas just like out of nowhere. Out of nowhere. You were just like, hey, I'm thinking of this, and then it just brought you to to Romeo and Juliet and then writing a whole freaking book.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, you know, I don't even know how it happens. It kind of feels like it's not I don't know, it's not even fully conscious because sometimes I look back like, I wrote did I write that? How did that happen?

SPEAKER_02

That's so funny. It's kind of like an out-of-body experience. It is just like I don't even know how that happened. Yeah. Without too many spoilers, though, how would you describe your protagonists at the start of the story versus towards the end of the story?

SPEAKER_01

What little snippets can you tease without giving too much away? Well, that's hard to not give anything away with that. So I'll say this I'll say that with all of my characters, one of my favorite things to do when I'm writing is to have flawed characters. And their arc is growing through their own flaws and learning to love themselves as well as learning that they are worthy of being loved and of giving love. All of them, even the dark sides, even the two light sides, whatever there is, there is somebody out there for everybody, and you have to love yourself. So the character, the protagonists in Burning Daylight go through the same arc that I like to put in all of my stories, where they start at one place, they have to work through their own flaws and grow as people and grow in their own strength and their internal validation of themselves in order to love and be loved and find their happily ever afters.

SPEAKER_02

I love that you add the part in where they have to grow as a person because you see a lot of relationships in the real world and in books where they want to help the other person grow. They want to change them, help them grow, you know, better them, and they don't necessarily focus on themselves. So I love that you add that into your characters. I feel like we can all gravitate and learn towards that as well.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I really try to, and I really think that's true. I mean, I think when you find your person and you're working on yourself, you find a person that does support you in that. So they are helping you, and you're helping each other because you are each other's strengths, and you can lean on each other in your more vulnerable and weaker moments that you don't let anybody else see. And that's one of the most beautiful parts of writing the romance for me is those little moments, you know, those little things. The the guy remembering how she takes the coffee when nobody else does, or uh here's this isn't too spoilery. In Burning Daylight, there's such a small scene where he's walking her home and he won't let her walk on the sidewalk nearest the cars because he wants to walk on that side. And they have like this banter moment about it's like the little micro things, you know, that really just support each other and allow you to feel safe enough so you can grow.

SPEAKER_02

And those are the moments where you really start to fall in love and grow in those moments. I live for those moments so much too. Those little subtle things, like it gets my heart like pumping, and that's the reason why I read, you know, like a lot of people are like, oh, you know, I'm in it for the for the spot or whatever or whatever, the sexy time. No, I like the in-between moments, and a lot of the times I'll skip over those kinds of scenes, if you know what I mean, because I am truly involved with the growth of their relationship.

SPEAKER_01

100% it's my favorite part of writing. There will always be that. And for me, like I love the spice, you know, I write the spice, but for me, it's always going to accentuate where they are in their emotional journey. That's why I love writing slow burns so much, because I build the tension and I build the relationship. And so when it does, exactly. It's my it's my bread and butter. Because when it finally hits that point, then the spicy scenes for me, it's like, oh, this is so earned. This is so emotional and good, and like, mmm.

SPEAKER_02

I love that. I'm the same way of like Chef's kid. I don't have a word. Yeah, it's just uh it's just how you invoke it, like just like that. I love that so much. Well, I am ready to dive into Forsaking Midnight. What can you share about the plot? And what can readers expect with books do?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I'm very excited for everyone to read Forsaking Midnight. This is the second book in this series. It's an interconnected standalone, and it is a Lancelot and Guinevere retelling, but make it modern day, make it morally gray, and make it happily ever after. So Lance is Juliet's brother from book one. Juliet is the main female protagonist in Burning Daylight. And Lance is her older brother, and he is an underground cage fighter, and his entire life he is sacrificing himself to protect and save the people that he loves. And he lives this life of secrecy and violence, and he's just this broody, mysterious, grumpy, trauma-filled man who doesn't feel like he's worthy of love, but also doesn't feel like he is worthy of giving it. He doesn't, he's very lost and he's stuck. And Genevieve is our female protagonist in this, and she was a sous chef and she's turned bartender at the Round Table Tavern in Rosebrook Falls, and she is Lance's best friend's girlfriend. Art, of course, because it's a Lancelot and Guinevere retelling. So we have um they hate each other. We have hate to love because they cannot stand each other. They fight all the time, bickering, bickering, bickering. But when Genevieve's life is in danger, there is nobody else on earth that can protect her as good as Art's best friend, Lance. So there's forced proximity when they come together and they realize that the line between hate and heat and duty and desire is a lot thinner than they thought. And when the people you're with aren't as trustworthy as you imagined, and the only person you can trust is someone who you've re you're slowly realizing is the only one that really sees you for all of you. There is a lot of yearning in this book, more than I've ever written in any other book, to be completely honest. There is a lot of angst, and there is a lot of slowburn tension that then explodes into this spicy goodness that gives them their happily ever after.

SPEAKER_02

You had some amazing taglines in there. You must be a writer or something.

SPEAKER_03

Because like I was like, I felt like I was rambling. No, that's not it.

SPEAKER_02

I was like, dang, she's on point with that. It was perfect. I am just like, I've always in these interviews, I want to like cut it short just so I can start reading the book. But I won't put the short. I freak you promise. And I I one of my favorite tropes is a bad boy, good girl. It is just so I don't know why. It's such a classic trope that I gravitate towards, especially for for romance. And of course, you just said that he's, you know, got angst, trauma, uh, us toxic girls love art.

SPEAKER_01

Trauma meh. He fits the bill for everything. And if anybody who's read my never after series um is kind of jonesing for my morally gray men or my morally gray characters, Lance will fulfill that for you. This is a very gritty, this is darker than book one. This is darker than Burning Daylight. He is very trauma-filled, very morally gray. He will burn the world for her. He will for her, he will do anything for her. So I think people will enjoy it.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, for sure. For sure. I mean, everybody, we all love your books. I'm not just hyping you up just because you're on the episode. It's like, it's the truth. It's so the truth. And now you got me excited for more in the series. Like, can you give us give us three hints on what couple flash telling you have chosen for book three? I cannot.

SPEAKER_01

I cannot do that. However, I will tell you that there are always hints in the previous book. So Forsaking Midnight will have hints to who book three is about. And also, there is always the title of the next book in my previous book. I always put it in, and a lot of my readers love to find the Easter eggs and try to find the title. There are whiteboards done and notebooks filled, and I get tagged and all of these. It's the only reason that I make the publishers wait to reveal the title, is I give y'all about a month to try to find it. So if you want hints for who book three and even book four is about and what tragic love story is based on, they are there. You just have to read the first two books to get them.

SPEAKER_02

There you go. And that's how you like get us to sucker us to read the first and second book. I love how sneaky you are. You're getting like, I gotta get my detective cap on just so I can also get the whole whiteboard with like strings, like pointing to everything. Okay, well, I'm super excited. All right, can you share with us at least? Are you working on anything currently?

SPEAKER_01

I am. Well, I'm well, I'm working on uh book three and defying the stars. Uh I am also working on, let's see, I'm working on three other projects that I genuinely am signed NDAs for and cannot tell you a single thing about yet. But I think everyone will be very, very excited when they do find out. And I'm hoping that at least one of them I can talk about soon because I've been waiting for a year and a half to talk about. So, yes, just know someday in the future, y'all will be like, How is Emily McIntyre writing all of this so fast? And I want you to remember this moment and realize that I'm not, that I have been working on them. I just haven't been able to talk about them.

SPEAKER_02

That's so funny. I know, because when you had said three, I was like, holy cow, like when did you do that? But it makes sense that you've been waiting and you've been waiting so patiently. I am so impressed because I'm not a patient person. Like, I'll buy someone a present like for their birthday and want to give it to them right away, like and not wait for their birthday.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, listen, traditional publishing, especially, is a lesson in patience. It is so slow moving, and things that get announced have been in the works for a very long time, usually.

SPEAKER_02

So yeah, a lot of people don't realize that when you know they're waiting for a book or they're curious on what you're working on and you have like one come out after another. No, it takes time. Like that is a process.

SPEAKER_01

It is, it is, but also, like I said earlier, my ADHD really works in my favor because I set up my schedules where I work on multiple projects at once. So I can work on one thing during the week when I'm on deadline for it, and then the weekends I work on the other thing, and then when the deadlines switch, I just swap them. And it it really works well and keeps my brain refreshed and keeps it from being fatigued on the story I'm working on.

SPEAKER_02

I guess it's great that you have a hobby as well, too, like bird watching, that you can easily write and look at birds at the same time.

SPEAKER_01

Right. I hear them. They love to stand on top of my fireplace right behind me, and they just tweet, tweet, tweet all day long.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I have birds somewhere in my house too, and I hear them all day long, and I just like listen to the stories. Yeah, that's so funny. Yeah. All right. Well, I am ready to jump into some fun, rapid fire questions. I don't know if you're ready. You ready? I'm ready. I'm ready. Okay, get ready. I promise it. I I was easy when it came to these questions writing it. So that'sn't too crazy. We'll see. Yeah, right, right, right. I'll be the judge of that. Yeah, yeah, that's fair. Okay. What is your favorite romance duo of all time?

SPEAKER_01

I'm gonna have to go with Pride and Prejudice. It's just it's just perfection. Yes.

SPEAKER_02

It is the perfect duo. I knew I liked you, Emily. Like, I completely agree. There's just right here. The vibe in, man, I am here for it. It is just It's so classic and how can and it's a book that like you may not comprehend the words because it is, you know, written uh from back in the day, but you can still understand the romance, the love, the yearning, uh everything you said that you loved. I'm here for it. Yeah. It's iconic, it's perfect. Yes. Agreed. Okay. Next question. What's one retelling you don't think you'd ever do and why?

SPEAKER_01

Okay, this is an easy one. I will never touch Pocahontas. Um, and I will never touch Mulan either. I'll give two. And the reason is is because they are very steeped in culture, and it's not my culture. And Pocahontas, especially, is real history. And I just don't think it's my place to tell those stories. I would love to read those retellings, but I think there are authors that would do justice that are part of the culture, and I would be a happy reader for those, but it's just it's just not my place to touch those ones.

SPEAKER_02

That's a very valid point. You know, it's a touchy subject in regards when it comes to those kinds of things. And you you kind of want to stay away from things that can go wrong, I guess you could say.

SPEAKER_01

Right. Yeah. And like it's there, I just don't think that I could do the culture the way that somebody of the culture could represent it. And it really, I mean, with reading, it's so important, in my opinion, to make a reader experience things or see different angles or push their boundaries or make them uncomfortable in situations. And I just don't think I would do justice the way that those stories should be done.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that perfectly well said. Well, do you think you will jump into any other genres like romantic? I don't know if you can give that away because I know you're previous.

SPEAKER_03

You can say like next question.

SPEAKER_01

I will say that I go where the muse takes me. So I will never say no to any subgenre or genre within romance. If there's love story involved, never say never.

SPEAKER_02

That's a perfect uh like answer, but not answer. I'm here for it. Okay, what's your favorite book or movie retelling of Romeo and Juliet?

SPEAKER_01

I love that you said movie because you already know what I'm gonna say. 1996. Yes. 1996, Leonardo DiCaprio. Yep. Not only is it an iconic movie, but the soundtrack is unmatched. Mm-hmm. And I love it. And actually, Burning Daylight, I totally those vibes for me when I was writing, I just felt that same kind of energy. It's not like it's not like the movie, but it's just that kind of ugly, I just love it.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I can I can vibe with that because of the cover of your book too. It's very vibrant and has that kind of attitude, kind of like the movie did in the 90s.

SPEAKER_01

Right. And I like to slip in the scenes and the dialogue from the original into my retellings, right? And I liked finding a way to meld it into modern day, and that's very much on a more on a way more on the nose scale that movie did, but I love it. It's my favorite. It will never be topped. Another classic.

SPEAKER_02

We're just gonna keep talking about classics. I look over like classic Romeo and Juliet, and then we're thinking of this movie like the 90s is classic, too. Oh god, my favorite movies come from the 90s, like a best. I love it so much. Okay, well, now this last question may be a hard hitter. Okay, what's your favorite book, series, or just book of all time?

SPEAKER_01

See, this is an impossible question that I cannot answer because one, as we said, I am a mood reader. So my favorite literally changes depending on the day. So it's and also I just don't know that I can narrow it to one because certain books make me feel certain things, and I love that and don't like other parts of how they make me feel, but the discomfort is kind of important to it. So I I just don't know. I will say that I own everything Shakespeare has ever written. I know that this is he he's more of a playwright um or sonnets, but I own every single thing Shakespeare's ever written. I own everything Jane Austen. I own I'm a big classic. Obviously, if you couldn't tell by how this entire conversation has gone, I am that girl. Now, if we want to talk about modern like books that people could pick up and get lost in romance-wise, one of my favorite series is Zoe Draven, the Horde King series by Zoe Draven. Write it down, go pick it up. They are incredible. It is sci-fi romance, but I when I tell you Zoe, her writing is just a masterclass. You cry, you laugh, the love, and they're ugly, just do it. Don't ask questions, just do it.

SPEAKER_02

Do it, shoals.

SPEAKER_01

Like, I approve of your opinion.

SPEAKER_02

I have never heard of this, so I will most definitely have to you will love it.

SPEAKER_01

Every single thing we talked about loving in books, they are in these books. So good.

SPEAKER_02

Just another one to add to my TBR that I'm most definitely gonna get to right away. And please just promise before we end this episode, please just promise me that you'll do something with my favorite Shakespeare in the future, A Midsummer Night's Dream. That one is my favorite! It's so much fun. It's the best. I love it so much. Yeah, the scene from the very end when he's like talking with the moon, when they're acting out the scenes. So funny. Classic.

SPEAKER_01

I love I am truly elite.

SPEAKER_02

Well, thank you so much for coming on an episode of the Mythic Might Podcast. I am so happy that you are here with us today. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. This was really fun. Yes, it was a blast. I can't wait to hear the episode and what everybody says and all the all the hate on our in-sync uh our listen.

SPEAKER_01

Right. They're just gonna have to get over it. Okay. Right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Okay. All right. It is what it is. Yeah. So funny. I love it. So, everyone, please go pick up Emily's books, not just the series that we talked about, all of her books. They are so amazing. Thank you again, Emily. And to everyone, I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day.

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.