Stacia Stark on Gladiators Meets Vampire Diaries, real slow burn, and the magic of We Who Will Die

Fantasy Romance Month continues as Stacia Stark joins to break down We Who Will Die, the ancient Rome-inspired romantasy she originally pitched as gladiator meets Vampire Diaries. Stacia went indie first, built her readership on the Kingdom of Lies series, and We Who Will Die is her first fully trad book, sold to Avon as a trilogy off a few chapters and a synopsis.We get into why this is a book with trials and not a trials book, how Arvell's binding vow to kill the emperor in the first chapter gave Stacia a huge amount of rope to write into, and why a Taylor Jenkins Reed tennis novel quietly inspired one of the best training arcs in the genre. Stacia explains how she wrote real slow burn instead of miscommunication wearing a slow-burn costume, and walks through the sigil magic system where your power is literally stamped on your forehead, and a book two release date update you heard here first.A heads up: there are a couple of light first-chapter setups discussed, all flagged in the moment.