A few years ago, Carissa Broadbent was fresh out of college and working her first "big-girl job in corporate America" when she realised she just wasn't into it.
"I had this feeling that I think a lot of 23-year-olds have where I was like, 'Wow, this is it, forever,'" the Rhode Island-based writer tells ABC Arts.
So, she decided to write and self-publish a book — specifically, a book about "magic and kissing".
That first attempt was, by her own admission, "really bad. It was terrible … it was really not great". Her next two were also "really not great", Broadbent says, "but less bad than the first".
Then the anxiety she felt during the first Trump presidency prompted her to write 2020's Daughter of No Worlds, which follows a formerly enslaved woman as she tries to hone her magic to save a friend, all the while navigating a violent and politically unstable world.
That book gave her enough stability to quit her job. And with the days of waking up at 4am to write in her local Starbucks before her 9-5 marketing gig behind her, Broadbent could truly focus on her craft.
Two years later, we were rewarded with The Serpent and the Wings of Night — the book that truly changed everything
The first instalment in the Crowns of Nyaxia series transformed Broadbent from a relatively unknown but financially comfortable indie author to a New York Times bestseller with scores of fans on BookTok.
Suddenly, mainstream publishers wanted her. Last year, she finally let one sign her.
The Crowns of Nyaxia series is divided up into three duologies, and features an epic fantasy plot that spans all six planned books. The latest addition to it, The Songbird and the Heart of Stone, is the third title in the series, and the first of the Shadowborn Duet. It's also Broadbent's first book to be released through a major publisher.
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In the broadest sense, Broadbent describes it as romantasy (the combination of romance and fantasy that has been taking the book world by storm) as she would all her books.
Set in a high-fantasy world, the novel is a spicy, treacherous romance between an illegitimate vampire prince named Asar and Mische, a woman sentenced to death after killing the man who turned her into a vampire against her will.
Many fans of the Crowns of Nyaxia series love Mische already. In its first duology, the Nightborn Duet, she featured as an "optimistic, hopeful, loving and supportive, best friend" to main characters Oraya and Raihn.
But Mische wasn't meant to be the protagonist of books three and four
"I kind of fell in love with her after the first book," Broadbent shares.
"She was a surprise character for me and, in between books one and two, I decided she would be a better main character [for books three and four] because she kind of took over the story, and I just found myself thinking a lot about her."
(For those wondering, yes: Broadbent already knows who the last two books will focus on. But she won't reveal this yet.)
Like many romantasy books, and similar to the first and second books of the series, the romance at the heart of the Shadowborn Duet features a betrayal angle.
"I just really like angst!" Broadbent laughs, "And I really like that the stakes are so high in romantasy — sometimes I read contemporary enemies-to-lovers romance books where the leads were mean to each other in high school, but that's not an enemy!
"An enemy is your sworn rival of 1,000 years."
The result is a delicious slow-burn romance with spice on par with The Serpent and the Wings of Night
But Broadbent likes to think that "once it burns, it burns".
Spice — which refers to the amount of sexual activity in a book and is also sometimes referred to as smut, steam or heat — is a pillar of the romantasy genre, recently repopularised by the A Court of Thorns and Roses series from Sarah J Maas.
Longtime fans of Broadbent's writing may have noticed the spice level of her books has increased over time.
She puts this down to her growing confidence and writing experience.
"On the scale of BookTok spiciness, Daughter of No Worlds was quite vanilla, but it was the first sex scene I had ever written. I didn't even read particularly spicy romances at the time," she explains.
"And it's actually very difficult to write sex scenes. I think authors who are able to write really excellent sex scenes … that is right up there on the craft scale, which is why it's extra frustrating when some people are snobby and act like it's a low art form. Nuh-uh! That is difficult stuff."
So why do Broadbent's novels stand out among the deluge of spicy romantasy books hitting the shelves following Maas's unprecedented success?
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It's all subjective, but some recent additions to the romantasy subgenre are heavier on the smut and lighter on the plot than they perhaps should be. Others go hard on the fantasy of it all, chuck in a few dull sex scenes after a bit of middling tension for the sake of a romantasy label, and call it a day.
Broadbent's novels — and The Songbird and the Heart of Stone is no exception — strike a remarkable balance between those extremes
This is because Broadbent places an intense focus on writing distinctive characters with detailed arcs and relationship dynamics within the epic fantasy setting of her books. It's because she leans into tropes of the subgenre in a way that's effective and feels genuine to her work.
And it's because Broadbent approaches sex scenes the same way she does battle scenes.
"If you think about it, they're very similar in the sense that both are very exciting to you if you're in the situation. But if you're telling someone in words, the actual movement of the bodies involved, it can get very repetitive and very boring very fast," she explains.
"So, when I'm doing a sex scene, I think: 'What is going to be different at the end of this scene beyond the fact that everyone is going to be a lot more moist?'
"And, if someone were to describe the scene to someone else, what two words would they use? If it's, 'Oh, the one where they had sex like they did three other times in the book', then that to me is a boring scene."
Not everyone gets it, but Broadbent is OK with that
She isn't reading your Goodreads reviews. She doesn't go on BookTok. And she's been self-publishing books for a belittled, mostly femme romantasy audience (though anyone can get into the subgenre) for the better part of a decade. That means Broadbent is well past caring whether critics think she's writing "real literature" or not.
Sure, she gets impostor syndrome that still sees her "spend most of the time [she's] drafting thinking [she's] a talentless hack who will never sell a book again". But, for the most part, her focus is on creating stories that deeply resonate with her readers.
"As long as I'm doing that, that to me is a successful book," she says.
"I do, of course, want my books to be artistically appreciated, but I also recognise that there are some people who are never going to think of romantasy as real literature."
Besides, her new publisher definitely gets it.
When asked what might be different about the forthcoming books in the Crowns of Nyaxia series now that Pan Macmillan has taken it on, Broadbent concedes covers have been "tweaked here and there" but that the essence of her writing remains the same.
"They've been very receptive to everything and were very on board with what I had and we kind of just built on top of it," she says.
In fact, Broadbent says the next instalment in Mische's story, which is already being edited, "might be my favourite book I've ever written".
The Songbird and the Heart of Stone is out now.
