Weathering the Storm with Rebecca Mix

It was a cold afternoon in January when I spoke with Rebecca Mix. Snow had been threatening all morning, the kind of winter light that makes it hard to tell what time it is. Our conversation focused on I Killed the King, the novel she co-wrote with Andrea Hannah, a book built on pressure and the narrowing of space and time.

We spoke about weather as an antagonist, the mechanics of a countdown, the way pacing reshapes intimacy, and what it means to write a story this tightly wound, whether alone or in partnership. The energy in Rebecca’s voice felt aligned with the book itself: alert, quick, and breathless.

I’d read I Killed the King in my car, over the course of a week, during the short windows of my toddler’s moving naps. I would park and sit perfectly still, aware that the clock started the moment the engine turned off. The book is about confinement, so it made sense that I felt confined too.

“The characters don’t get a break, and neither do you.”
—Rebecca Mix

I was on edge from the very first page. No longer in the driver’s seat, I was dropped directly in a palace, in a single room, with six other characters. I knew there was a deadline until dawn for a prince to marry a princess and sign a peace treaty that would end a decade-long war, but I didn’t know much else. The King was clearly worried, stressed to the point of unraveling. Everyone felt slightly off. I was as unfamiliar with these characters as they were with each other, and that was a genuinely fun position to occupy as a reader.

Read the full article on Substack.