Episode Details

🎙️ Welcome back to The Mythic Mic Podcast, where deadly secrets, morally gray suspects, and murder mysteries are infinitely more fun when you add a little magic.

This week, hosts Bethany Amanda and Megan Tromposch sit down with Mai Corland to discuss Verity Guild, a Heartless Hunter meets Knives Out romantasy murder mystery set in a world inspired by the ancient Roman Republic, where everyone has something to hide and no one is above suspicion.

Mai also takes us behind the scenes of her journey from civil litigator to author, the books that didn't find immediate success before Five Broken Blades took off, and how her legal background unexpectedly shaped a fantasy story about truth, justice, institutional power, and what happens when the people making the laws are above them.

⚖️ What does justice look like when the most powerful people in the room are above the law?
🔪 How do you solve a murder when everyone has secrets and the suspects keep dying?
🔥 And what happens when the investigator has every reason to suspect the woman he's falling for?

If you love romantasy murder mysteries, ancient Rome-inspired fantasy, enemies-to-lovers, morally gray characters, unreliable narrators, political intrigue, deadly secrets, and closed-circle whodunits, this episode is for you.

🔥 IN THIS EPISODE, WE TALK ABOUT:
✨ Mai's unconventional path from civil litigator to published author, and the family experience that finally pushed her to pursue writing.
✨ Why Five Broken Blades wasn't actually Mai's first published novel, and how writing books that didn't immediately take off gave her a very different perspective for her debut.
✨ The discovery-writing process that keeps Mai excited about creating new stories.
✨ Mai's advice for aspiring authors to read widely both inside and outside their genres.
✨ The inspiration behind Verity Guild, which Mai describes as Heartless Hunter meets Knives Out: a romantasy murder mystery that combines a closed-circle whodunit with fantasy, political intrigue, secrets, and romance.
✨ Building a fantasy world inspired by the ancient Roman Republic, Mai's background studying ancient Roman art, and why the rigid class divisions and inequalities beneath an ostensibly representative political system fascinated her as a foundation for the story.
✨ Moving from the six points of view in the Broken Blades trilogy to the much more intimate dual POV of Verity Guild.
✨ Why Mai loves unreliable narrators, morally gray characters, and liars, and why the motivation behind a character's deception can be just as fascinating as the lie itself.
✨ The central question that emerged while Mai was writing Verity Guild: What is justice when some people are above the law? And how far can someone's morals bend in the pursuit of it?
✨ Why fantasy became the perfect space for Mai to explore corruption, inequality, justice, and truth without writing a traditional legal story.
✨ An early tease of Mai's next fantasy, which she describes as Water Moon meets ACOTAR, featuring a demigod with a pawn shop that trades in love stories and a fae prince searching for his missing brother.
✨ Plus: why law school ruins legal television, the goldfish who may secretly be a murderer or a cursed human, Mai and Bethany's spectacularly terrible altitude-related travel decisions, questionable amounts of cold foam, and the trope that wins every time: enemies-to-lovers.

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🎙️ The Mythic Mic Podcast – @MythicMic
👤 Bethany Amanda – @BethanyinFantasyland
👤 Sara Santillan – @the_magical_quill
📚 Mai Corland – @