Episode Details

🎙️ Welcome back to The Mythic Mic Podcast, where sirens have wings instead of tails, blood bonds offer dangerous freedom, and some kings are more than willing to be ruined.

This week, host Bethany Amanda and Mythic Mic Rep Teresa sit down with fantasy author Kalie Cassidy to discuss her bestselling Siren Mage series and its highly anticipated second installment. 

Kalie shares her journey from professional stage actor and dialect coach to debut novelist, including the seven years she spent teaching herself how to write, revise, and position a novel for traditional publishing. She opens up about landing an agent during romantasy’s rise, and why resilience matters more than any single success in an unpredictable publishing career.

We also dive into the story of Imogen, a winged siren forced to hide in a kingdom that hunts her kind, and Theodore, the neighboring king whose blood bond helps her escape. Kalie discusses Greek mythology, gothic atmosphere, autonomy, belonging, and flipping the traditional siren archetype by creating a man entirely willing to be ruined. She also teases Theodore’s expanded point of view, deeper politics and lore, painful separation, maximum yearning, and the difficult path toward a hard-earned happily ever after in book two.

🪽 What happens when the creature everyone fears is the person who finally makes a king question his crown?
🩸 Can Imogen and Theodore overcome the kingdoms, secrets, and impossible odds keeping them apart?
👑 And what if being ruined by a siren is the first step toward becoming free?

This is a must-listen for romantasy readers, mythology lovers, fans of gothic atmosphere and dangerous heroines, and anyone who believes yearning is enough to earn immediate book-boyfriend status.

🔥 IN THIS EPISODE, WE TALK ABOUT:
✨ Kalie’s career as a stage actor, acting teacher, and dialect coach.
✨ How theater training shaped her character-driven approach to fiction.
✨ Beginning her first novel in a phone notes app while caring for a newborn.
✨ Spending seven years learning how to draft, revise, and understand publishing.
✨ Aging the series from YA to adult romantic fantasy.
✨ Landing an agent and selling quickly as romantasy began its rapid rise.
✨ Why publishing is not a meritocracy and success never guarantees the next success.
✨ Focusing on craft instead of unstable sales, rankings, and moving career goals.
✨ Why resilience is one of the most important qualities an author can possess.
✨ Imogen, a siren hiding in a kingdom determined to destroy her kind.
✨ The blood bond that connects her to Theodore and offers her a chance to escape.
✨ Returning sirens to their winged roots in Greek mythology.
✨ Blending gothic dread, historical romance, and traditional fantasy.
✨ Theodore’s complicated relationship with kingship, duty, and autonomy.
✨ A hero who is completely willing to be ruined by the woman he loves.
✨ Adding Theodore’s point of view as the world, politics, and mythology expand.
✨ Sustaining romantic tension through separation, impossibility, and maximum pain.
✨ The pressure of writing a sequel under contract and on a shortened deadline.
✨ Kalie’s Frankenstein and The Nightmare Before Christmas-inspired next project.
✨ Dark fairy tales, pathetic yearning men, therapy bills, and rapid-fire chaos.

CONNECT WITH US

🎙️ The Mythic Mic Podcast – @MythicMic
👤 Bethany Amanda – @BethanyinFantasyland
👤 Sara Santillan – @the_magical_quill
📚 Kalie Cassidy – @KalieCassidyBooks

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