Raising Chaos: Blog Tour, Giveaway, Interview, Review

Welcome to my stop on the Raising Chaos Blog Tour, organized by Red Adept Publishing. Here you can find out all about the book, a bit about the author, and my thoughts. Don't forget to enter the giveaway at the bottom and visit other stops.

Raising Chaos (Earthbound Angels #2)
Author: Elizabeth Corrigan
Author Website/Blog:
http://www.elizabethrcorrigan.com/
Publication Date: February 4, 2014
Genre:

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Summary: When good fails, chaos rises to the challenge.

The daily life of a chaos demon is delightfully sinful—overindulging in Sri Lankan delicacies, trespassing on private beaches in Hawaii, and getting soused at the best angel bar on the planet. But when Bedlam learns that the archdemon Azrael has escaped from the Abyss in order to wreak vengeance against the person who sent her there—Bedlam’s best friend, Khet—he can’t sit idly by.

Only one relic possesses the power to kill Khet, who suffers immortality at Lucifer’s request: the mythical Spear of Destiny, which pierced Christ’s side at His crucifixion. Neither angel nor demon has seen the Spear in two thousand years, but Azrael claims to know its location. Bedlam has no choice but to interpret woefully outdated clues and race her to its ancient resting place.

His quest is made nearly impossible by the interference of a persnickety archivist, Keziel—his angelic ex—and a dedicated cult intent on keeping the Spear out of the wrong hands. But to Bedlam, “wrong” is just an arbitrary word, and there’s no way he’s letting Khet die without a fight.

Rating: 4.5 Stars 

Review: Bedlam was my favorite character in Oracle of Philadelphia, so of course when I saw he was at the center of Raising Chaos, I had to read it. This book is different from the first and to be honest I like it more than the first. Khet didn’t feel the same to me in this book, but I think that was part of the point. Khet seems to be moving through a change in a cyclic way that she does every so many years. 

Bedlam is a demon with a good heart on a journey to protect Khet from Azrael. His journey is much more interesting than the journey that Khet went through in Oracle of Philadelphia – it was written better and held my interest. 

This book has a different style than the first, it is told from different point of views. We meet a new character, Siren, the angel of truth and learn more angelic/biblical history – of course Corrigan’s take is totally unique, not preachy, and somewhat comical. 

The ending and epilogue are my favorite parts of this book. I don’t want to give anything away, but I am happy with the changes of a certain character and I am super excited with the hint of what’s to come in future installments.

Interview

Your personal blog has a really interesting bio page with lots of fun facts. You said that you make Sims of your characters, why do you do this? Does it help you envision them and move the writing process along or is it just for fun?
I actually play a lot of computer and tabletop role playing games (geek alert!), and any time I need to make up a character for anything, I use one of the many fictional people I already have in my head. Sims is especially helpful, because it lets me picture my characters (I’m not naturally visual), but playing any of them in other scenarios helps me think about them in new ways and sparks ideas for character development.

What genres would you say your Earthbound Angels Series falls into? How did you choose to write in this genre (these genres)?
I generally consider Earthbound Angels to be urban fantasy. I’ve been a fan of the genre since the early days, and since the beginning I wanted to write it. I was just immediately drawn in by the idea of writing supernatural characters in an alternate version of our world. In those days, I didn’t know the name of the genre and called them “supernatural detective stories.” Earthbound Angels technically isn’t a detective story, which makes me a little sad. I am working on a detective story, which ended up being more straight fantasy than urban fantasy.

One of my favorite parts of your books is that they take traditional biblical stories and put a unique, non-preachy, sometimes comical spin on them - where did you come up with this idea?
I have long believed that what happened in the Bible probably didn’t occur exactly how it was described, or that even if it did, there had to be a lot more to the story than that. I mean, the Bible is told from such a distant viewpoint. Sometimes, like when Bedlam tells the story of the Israelites in the desert, I didn’t even change what happened in the story, but putting a human (or demon) viewpoint on it completely changed the tone. But in some cases… Do we really think that Mary’s parents were on board with the virgin birth thing? I dunno. It seems unlikely to me.

In The Oracle of Philadelphia, there are several flashbacks to various times during Carrie’s long life, which was your favorite to write and why?
Oh, definitely the Regency period scene. Okay, so technically it was a little pre-Regency, but the same social rules applied. I’m a huge Jane Austen fan, and I took a whole class on the social world of the books in college, so I actually know a lot about the period. That meant I got to add the historical details without having to look something up every two minutes.

Bedlam was my favorite character in The Oracle of Philadelphia, how did you decide to bring him to the forefront in book 2 of the series?
When I first envisioned Oracle, it was a standalone novel about an immortal girl trying to save a boy from eternal damnation. But somewhere along the line I decided that she should have immortal friends, and since the story already had angels and demons, I decided to give her one of each. And then Gabriel and Bedlam ended up being SO AWESOME that I decided they needed books of their own.

You plan for the Earthbound Angel Series to be seven books – what is your plan like (just private ideas in your head, a skeleton plan that you fill in as you go, a detailed outline, or something else)?
Wow, you have just reminded me that I need to update my website, because I’m actually up to plans for 12 books in the series. Yes, yes, I know. Very ambitious for someone who really needs to finish writing book 3. I basically have an overarching plot for each book in the series, which has an ongoing storyline. When I sit down to write the book, I have to come up with enough plot to fill 60,000+ words, which can be a challenge, as I’m not particularly verbose. I generally just decide what I want to happen in each chapter and write from there.
If you could steal any character from any book, movie, or TV show and make them your own, who would it be and why?
Interesting question.  I don’t know that there actually are any characters I want to poach. I used to write lots of fan fic when I was little, in the days before fan fic was a thing, and Oracle started out as imagining a storyline for Supernatural. Now, though, I tend to be a character writer, where the plots are just things that happen around the characters, whom I’m way more interested in. So… I kind of like working with my characters, and don’t know that I want anyone else’s.

What has been the toughest criticism given to you as an author? What has been the best compliment?
Sadly, there are always going to be people who don’t like my book. I accept this. I mean, there are swaths of books I wouldn’t give the time of day to. So when people say, “I didn’t like this book,” I’m okay with it. But sometimes what people are really saying is, “This book is bad,” and that’s harder to take.

I recently had a blogger tell me in confidence that she liked Raising Chaos better than any book since a release from her favorite big-name author three years ago. I had someone else put Oracle of Philadelphia on her top ten favorite fantasies of all time. This kind of feedback is invaluable to me as an author, because it reminds me why I write. If even just a few people love my books that much, writing them is worth doing.

What is the last 5 star book that you read?
The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer. It’s three books so far, but, they need to be taken as a unit. I was actually reluctant to read them, because I usually dislike dystopia, but they are extremely readable. I love the way they turn fairy tales on their head and how the girls are all super-competent.

Oh man, those are on my TBR list and I really need to get to them! 
Is there anything else you’d like to share with your current readers or potentially new readers?
I love to hear from readers! You can find all my contact information on www.elizabethrcorrigan.com. (There’s an “r” in the middle of that!)

About the Author: Elizabeth Corrigan has degrees in English and psychology and has spent several years working as a data analyst in various branches of the healthcare industry. When she’s not hard at work on her next novel, Elizabeth enjoys singing, reading teen vampire novels, and making Sims of her characters. She drinks more Diet Coke than is probably optimal for the human body and is pathologically afraid of bees. She lives in Maryland with two cats and a purple Smart Car.

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