Lit Witches: A Fantasy Book Podcast
Gladiator meets The Vampire Diaries: Author Stacia Stark on her new fantasy trilogy 'We Who Will Die'
04 May 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic of Stacia Stark's new book 'We Who Will Die'?
What's the art behind writing a good fight scene?
I think, like... So quite often I'll be kind of sketching and like figuring out where people's hands are and like arms. Do you know what I mean? It's almost like a sex scene. So like one of my friends has a couple of like Barbie dolls, like the ones that move. Oh dear God. And so because she's got to be like, oh, like where, oh, he's got three hands, like the way that I've written it.
Do you know what I mean? So she has to be able to like visualize it. And I feel like fight scenes can kind of be similar.
Hello, and a very warm welcome to Lit Witches, the podcast for fantasy readers, writers, and all things in between. I'm your host, Adelaide Jensen, and today I'm joined by Stasia Stark. Welcome, Stasia. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to have you here.
Chapter 2: How does Stacia Stark create fight scenes in her writing?
Stasia is the bestselling author of the Kingdom of Lies Romantasy series, among multiple others. But today we'll be talking about We Who Will Die, which is the first book in her brand new fantasy romance series. Let's start with a little icebreaker question to get to know you. If you could pick any place to travel to, real or fictional, where would it be?
So I feel like I wouldn't do well in a lot of the fictional places that I like. I like to believe that I would. I know, but that's just, like, us being Delulu.
We wouldn't.
I really want to go on safari in Africa. Like, that's the dream. Like, that's my next kind of bucket list.
That would be amazing. Yeah. That's a great answer, actually. Such a good, like, sort of a bucket list travel place. So many things to see, but, like, quite a lot of effort and planning would have to go into it.
Yeah, right. It's, like, such a big trip. You want to do it properly.
And what is the book or series that shaped you or your love of fantasy?
Oh, man. I felt like I was, it was a lot of paranormal romance, you know, as I was sort of in my 20s. I read a lot of Karen Marie Moning, Nalini Singh, who I met yesterday, a few days ago, and fangirled so hard. And then, you know, Patricia Briggs, all of that. And then I feel like, funnily enough, so when I was in high school, I read the John Marsden series.
Which I was actually talking about recently in America. And, you know, it's not very well known over there. This is so formative for us here. I know.
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Chapter 3: What themes of grief and parentification are explored in the book?
But I really think that that was one of the first times that I saw like a teenage girl, which I was, be like kicking ass and saving the world. And obviously that's like action adventure, you know. But I think that probably informed a lot of my writing when I look back.
Well, that's one of the books that they always talk about as being like one of the first, especially in Australia. I'm not sure if it was in the curriculum or anything in New Zealand where you're from, but it was very much like one of the first books that was counted as YA and started the genre. It was that and Looking for Alla Brandy.
Wow.
Did you study it at school?
So we were all kind of separated in different English classes and I was really jealous because my friend got to. I can't even remember what I got to do, but I was like, are you kidding me? Like I read this book for fun and you get to do it as like, you know, for credits. But yeah. Yeah, I mean, that series was great.
Was there a lot of books also that were set? Because part of it's set in New Zealand, especially later in the series. Yeah, I forgot about that, yeah. Was that common for books that were not published in New Zealand?
Not really. I mean, it's quite nice now seeing, we're seeing a bit more of that. Speaking of Nalini Singh, she's got some thrillers set in New Zealand, which is quite cool. I haven't read them yet, but they're, like, on the list. But I think it was nice the way they gave a good nod to the Kiwi series.
Yeah, they were really the heroes of that series, yeah. I remember thinking that when I read them when I was young as well and I was like, yeah, New Zealand would come and try and help us. We'd do our little best.
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Chapter 4: How does Stacia Stark incorporate elements of ancient Rome in her fantasy world?
We'd do our best. We're here for you. All right, well, we're here today to talk about We Who Will Die.
Can you give a quick elevator pitch for the book for the audience? Sure. So We Who Will Die is a Roman-inspired romanticie. pitched as Gladiator meets Vampire Diaries. It follows my heroine, Arvel, and six years before the book begins, she's lost pretty much everything that's ever mattered to her. She's just got her brothers who she's looking after.
And so when a vampire shows up at her door and blackmails her with one of her brother's lives, she's really just got no choice but to kind of do what he wants. And what he wants her to do is enter the Sundering, which is these gladiator games, to get close enough to kill the emperor.
What gave you the idea to put vampires into ancient Rome?
You know, that actually came from a vow. So originally, you know, I had the sigil marked, which was me just really wanting... I really love the idea of people being able to see at a glance, like, how powerful people are and, like, what that does to a society. And then I knew... I'd never written vampires before and there was always in the back of my mind that I'd like to play with that, you know.
But... with our Val, her mum's an addict, so with vampires, you kind of get to, you know, as authors, we really just like to give characters big wounds and then continually sprinkle salt all over them, right? So any way that you can take those wounds and, and do that. With the vampires we see, you know, there's the blood addiction. We've got the people who are addicted to vampire blood.
We've got the longing for the sun and sun madness. And so it allowed me to kind of play with a lot of those things throughout the series as well.
I think it's always fun reading different vampire fiction because authors like to pick and choose the bits of myth that they take. I thought it was really creative how you used the sun madness as well because it takes that and it really like ratchets up that part of it.
Yeah, I love the idea of like losing the sun too, like for born vampires, like what it would be like to know that you're going to say goodbye to that one day and then the idea that you could go like want it so bad that you'd go mad. Like I just, I thought it would be fun to play with.
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Chapter 5: What unique vampire elements are featured in 'We Who Will Die'?
Right?
Yeah.
And what age is it again when they?
Like late in our years, it would be more like late teens. So they've had like a solid chunk of their lives where they are just going about their business, enjoying the sun, and then they slowly start losing it until they can't tolerate it.
That's so nuanced. I think it brings such a great richness to the story. It's not just like they're evil because they're vampires. It's like they actually have trauma.
Yeah. And what I liked about like doing that is it allowed me to do things with the sigil marked, right? So if the vampires can't go out in the day, but they want business to be done, they have to work with the sigil marked. And so that brings kind of, you know, its own political implications as well.
Can you explain the sigil marked?
So the sigil marked are a... So we've got mundanes, which are kind of your powerless humans. Your rego humans. Yep, that's right. And then we've got the sigil marked, who you can be sort of bronze, silver or gold, and that kind of denotes your power level. You can have different powers within that. So like the power of wind or fire or different things that you'll kind of see in the series.
And then everyone sort of has a sigil if you're sigil marked. And as you sort of grow in power... It will grow with you. And so the sigil was sort of on their foreheads. Our vows has never grown. And it really just at one point it will stop. Right.
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Chapter 6: How does the author balance character development with world-building?
I love character art.
I feel like my brain is so bad at formulating images of people. And then I'm like, oh, that's what they look like. That's amazing. It's why it's useful when there's like movies of things because you're like, now the picture in my mind is so perfect. Were you always fascinated by ancient history and especially Roman history?
Yeah, so I did classics in high school. And looking back now, it's like there were very specific things that I was interested in. I'm I've got ADHD, so it's like if I'm all in or I'm all out, right? And it was, I remember that last year just learning about like ancient Rome, the gladiators, but like all of that. And then I kind of like tucked that away and then in my 20s went to Europe.
stood in the Coliseum, had that whole, like, oh, my gosh moment where you're trying to visualise, like, you know, it's just so big. And then I don't think, like, I didn't really know at any point, like, that I was tucking it away, right?
And it was only after I was sort of wrapping up Kingdom of Lies that I kind of was like, oh, this could be a really fun world and then had the idea for our vow and how that world would work.
Yeah, that idea pulled me in immediately when literally just like the pitch line was like Roman gladiators, vampire diaries. I was like, was this book made for me? Standing in the Coliseum is such a powerful moment and I loved how you worked in there all the really interesting technology about like the animals and everything underneath because that was amazing. Oh, it's crazy. It's crazy.
And all the real science like behind how they, you know, they flooded the Coliseum and you must have had so much fun pulling that in.
Yeah, because, you know, I mean what I love about fantasy is like I could take some of that but also like – In my world, it's like, it's magic that allows that to happen, right? Magic makes it so easy. Yeah.
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Chapter 7: What romantic tropes are present in 'We Who Will Die'?
But the naval battle was one of my favorite scenes to write, for sure. And just thinking about what it would have been like back then to see. I don't think they ever flooded the Coliseum, but they did smaller ones, for sure. Did they? I might be wrong.
Nobody fact-checked me.
Yeah, I know.
I'm not a historian.
I've forgotten everything from my hand. But yeah, the visual was amazing. How did you choose which other bits of Roman history to pull in to be like not too overwhelming in the world building, but keep like those little Easter eggs almost of the society?
So there was a scene kind of after the midpoint, nearer to the end, the circus scene with the horses where we see the populace begin to chant about taxes. And that's based on something that really happened. And so I was like, I already had the idea for that scene. Like I knew what I wanted to happen.
But then having like seen that and kind of expanding it, I feel like sometimes it's like you'll see a nugget of something in a book and expand it. And then other times I'll have the idea and be sort of flicking through a book and be like, oh my gosh, that's like, That's perfect.
It just works, yeah. Was the emperor in the book based on any of the real emperors?
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Chapter 8: What can readers expect from the sequel to 'We Who Will Die'?
I feel like he's just like a lot. Do you know what I mean? Yes. He's just kind of a figurehead that represents a lot of the emperors. But at the same time, he's got his own unique motivations, which you'll see a lot more of in book two.
Yes. I mean, the characters were amazing. And my favorite thing, of course, is your two brothers, who are the emperor's sons. Tell us about them. Describe them to me.
So Tienan was Arvel's kind of childhood sweetheart, one would say. She didn't know who he was. And He was very much treating her as his escape from his life. And then he abandoned her on essentially the worst day of her life. So it's not until she gets to the Ludus and realises, oh, he's the one standing in my way of what I need to do here. So that was very fun.
And then Rorik, he was one of those characters that just – like, surprises me sometimes. Do you know what I mean? Like, he wasn't supposed to be, when I first pitched this book, like, before I pitched it, it was just going to be a second chance romance, which I'd never written before.
And that's why, like, you know, Tianan and Abel really do have, like, it was important to me that that felt real because it is real to those characters, right? And it's not just a case of, like, oh, this is the old love interest. He's got no shot, right? But with Rorik, I feel like he just kind of,
just took over in some scenes and it was fun yeah couldn't resist the love triangle could you yeah that always makes it really fun as a reader have where you have like oh you're like here's the beautiful brother who she has the past with you like interesting and then the dark shadowy seemingly evil brother comes and you're like okay yes I I can see where this is going and I love it but at the same time I'm like I don't want people to think that like Rorik is in game like
TNN definitely has a shot, right?
They are like... Yes. I think you've done that well because I was like, well, obviously I know who I'm rooting for because I'm so Damon Salvatore obsessed. But it is still like that door is still open. Yeah.
Because I guess it's like... Yeah, the choice is going to be basically, like, I mean, this is the man that was there until he wasn't, right? But then we've got another man who's, in book one, the definition of, like, sociopath, essentially.
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