Episode Details

🎙️ Welcome back to The Mythic Mic Podcast, where surviving the apocalypse is hard enough without adding forbidden magic, trauma, and a found family you never expected to need.

This week, Host Bethany Amanda sits down with author K.L. Speer to discuss Bones and Fangs, a post-apocalyptic romantasy series where civilization has collapsed, magic shouldn't exist, and one woman possesses a healing power that could make her invaluable or turn her into something others will exploit.

Kelsey also shares the incredible story behind Bones, from writing it simply because it was the story she wanted to tell to watching readers embrace its unconventional mix of dystopian fantasy, romance, and mental health representation, and eventually having the originally indie-published series picked up for traditional publication.

🦴 What happens when your greatest gift is also the thing that makes you a target?
🖤 How do you learn to trust again when survival has taught you not to?
🔥 And who can you become when surviving is no longer enough?

If you love adult dystopian fantasy, post-apocalyptic worlds, romantasy, found family, rare magic, complicated heroines, emotional character arcs, survival stories, and enemies-to-lovers, this episode is for you.

🔥 IN THIS EPISODE, WE TALK ABOUT:
✨ Kelsey's lifelong love of storytelling, the fantasy adventure she started writing at twelve, and how finally finishing Bones turned a story she'd written purely for herself into an unexpected publishing career.
✨ The incredible indie-to-trad publishing journey that followed Bones.
✨ Why Kelsey believes authors should write the stories they genuinely want to read instead of chasing whatever is currently selling.
✨ Creating a survivalist post-apocalyptic world without zombies, where governments have disappeared, humanity survives inside scattered strongholds, raiders roam outside their walls, and magic is virtually nonexistent.
✨ Building Bones as a heroine with a mysterious healing ability in a world without powers, and exploring what happens when something capable of saving people also makes its owner vulnerable to exploitation.
✨ Writing a heroine shaped by trauma who doesn't magically become “fixed."
✨ How a tabletop RPG first introduced Kelsey to the character of Bones.
✨ The return of dystopian fiction for the generation that grew up reading The Hunger Games and Divergent, and why Kelsey believes adult readers are now searching for darker, more mature versions of the stories they loved growing up.
✨ Expanding the story in Fangs with grief, complicated family dynamics, sibling reconciliation, deeper character development, and an ending Kelsey promises gets absolutely bananas.
✨ Why readers should have Fangs ready immediately after Bones, Kelsey's unapologetic love of cliffhangers, and her warning that the ending of Book Three, Ashes, might actually take readers out.
✨ Expanding what was originally planned as a trilogy into a four-book series, and the other stories already tempting Kelsey, including a 1930s paranormal romance and a pirate story that accidentally became much bigger than expected.

CONNECT WITH US

🎙️ The Mythic Mic Podcast – @MythicMic
👤 Bethany Amanda – @BethanyinFantasyland
👤 Sara Santillan – @the_magical_quill
📚 KL Speer – @Author.KLSpeer

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