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Thursday, April 2, 2015

Blog Tour- GODS OF CHAOS by Jen McConnel and a Giveaway!


Hey y'all! I have an interview from Jen McConnel's amazing paranormal book GODS OF CHAOS for you today! Oh and stick around for the giveaway!

Haven't heard of GODS OF CHAOS Check it out!



Title: GODS OF CHAOS (Red Magic #2)
Author: Jen McConnel
Pub. Date: March 31, 2015
Publisher: Month9Books, LLC.
Pages: 288
Formats: Paperback, eBook
Find it:Goodreads| Amazon | Barnes &Noble | Kobo |iBooks


The gods of chaos cannot be trusted.

Since battling her best friend, Darlena’s grip on Red Magic has been shaky. She heads to Scotland after the Winter Solstice in search of another Red Witch.

On a sightseeing excursion with girls from her hostel, Darlena arrives at The Vaults, a mysterious underground city beneath Edinburgh. But there is something there that make Darlena’s instincts go haywire, as she lets loose a defensive burst of Red Magic, putting everyone around her in danger.

If there was ever a time when Darlena needed the help of another Red witch, it was now. But beware the witch who wields Red Magic.





Now on to the interview!

Hi Jen! First I want to say welcome to Two Chicks on Books! DAUGHTER OF CHAOS rocked and I am so happy that you could stop by for a visit!

Thank you! I’m thrilled to be here! :)

For the new readers: can you tell us a little bit about the RED MAGIC series and the characters?

Sure! The series focuses on Darlena, a sixteen-year-old Witch who made a very bad choice. She’s been raised to believe that there are three kinds of magic: Green, which her parents practice; White, the path Justin, her ex, is drawn to; and Black, the magic her best friend, Rochelle, likes. Lena doesn’t feel pulled to any of the three, and when Hecate pops up in her living room one night, demanding that she pick a path, Darlena says the first word that flashes through her mind: RED. Turns out, Red Magic is real (and destructive), and with that one impulsive word, Lena’s plunged into a world of gods and goddesses, chaos, and powerful magic.

So what has Darlena been up to since book 1?

Not much! The events of the first book left her traumatized (no spoilers!), and she’s basically been hiding out in her room, wallowing in guilt and depression. From Halloween until the Winter Solstice, she’s basically avoided magic…and people. Her mom and Justin haven’t given up on her, though, and eventually, their combined efforts pull her out of her slump, which is when we meet her again in GODS.

Were any of the characters in the book inspired by people from your real life?

All my characters have a pinch of myself or people I’ve encountered in them, but they’re all fully themselves, too. Darlena has a lot of my teen self in her in some ways: the impulsiveness, the need to be active rather than passive, and the need to make her own path are all things that echo my sixteen-year-old memories, but then again, Lena isn’t just a stand in for me. She’s sassier and braver than I think I could ever be, and she also makes choices I like to think I’d be able to avoid.

Who was your favorite character to write? What about your least favorite?

I think Lena wins that one, not just in this series, but out of all my books so far. I’m not sure why I love writing her so much, but she’s a character it’s easy for me to come back to, even when months (or years) pass between revisions. Conversely, her best friend, Rochelle, was hard for me to write, and I didn’t really feel like I got a handle on her until I’d been working on the Red Magic series for a really long time. 

What is your favorite passage/scene in GODS OF CHAOS?

Without giving too much away, I’ll say that one of my favorite scenes happens once Lena has found the other Red Witch, and they’re posturing, showing off their magic and trying to threaten the other one. Spoiler alert: Lena may be powerful, but she’s no match for the other Red, and she knows it. J

What kind of research did you have to do for the story? I know there’s a lot of mythology involved.

I’ve always loved global mythology, and I’ve read a ton of myths from different cultures long before I started this series, so I didn’t so much do specific research for the Red Magic books; I’d been doing the research my whole life, and it was all there, hanging out in the back of my mind and waiting for me to find a chance to use it. I loved creating characters out of the gods and goddesses of familiar mythology, and there are even more new faces in GODS and the upcoming TRIUMPH, so that was a lot of fun, to stretch myself beyond the classic Greco-Roman pantheon.

What are you reading right now? Or what do you have on your TBR that you’re dying to read?

I can’t wait for WINTER, the final Lunar Chronicles book by Marissa Meyer: I ADORE fairy tale retellings, and that series has been awesome so far. I’m also eagerly awaiting the next Sarah Maas book; I absolutely love her world building!

Who is your ultimate Book Boyfriend?

My teen self is torn between Phoenix from Jessica Shirvington’s VIOLET EDEN CHRONICLES, and Thorne from Marissa Meyer’s series. I love misunderstood boys :)

As an adult, I’m also torn: Rhett Buttler from GONE WITH THE WIND vs Jamie Frasier from OUTLANDER.

What inspired you to write YA?

The biggest thing was my teaching; I taught middle school for four years, and I LOVED working with that age, especially my eighth graders. While I was teaching them, I was reading everything they were reading (and trying to stay one jump ahead of them, too), and my love for YA lit that developed in college was rekindled.  My teaching has such a huge impact on my writing; I started the Red Magic series during my last year teaching middle school, and now that I teach college, I’ve found myself writing a lot of NA, too.

Lightening Round Questions

Twitter or Facebook?
Right this minute? Facebook. I go in cycles. J

Favorite Superhero?
My hubby. J

Favorite TV show?
Loving ONCE UPON A TIME and DOWNTON ABBEY.

Sweet or Salty?
Both! Love popcorn and M&Ms together!

Any Phobias?
Hospitals terrify me. Not sure why.

Song you can’t get enough of right now?
The entire 1989 album by Taylor Swift.

Spring/Summer Movie you’re most looking forward to?
I fail this question; don’t even know what’s coming out!!

Thanks so much Jen for answering my questions! It was a pleasure to have you on the blog!


My pleasure! Thank you for hosting me! J







About Jen:



Jen McConnel first began writing poetry as a child. Since then, her words have appeared in a variety of magazines and journals, including Sagewoman, PanGaia, and The Storyteller (where she won the people’s choice 3rd place award for her poem, “Luna”).

She is also a former reviewer for Voices of Youth Advocates (VOYA), and a proud member of SCBWI, NCWN, and SCWW.

A Michigander by birth, she now lives and writes in the beautiful state of North Carolina. She's a graduate of Western Michigan University, and she also earned her MS in Library Science at Clarion University of Pennsylvania.

When she isn't crafting worlds of fiction, she teaches writing composition at a community college. Once upon a time, she was a middle school teacher, a librarian, and a bookseller, but those are stories for another time.

Follow Jen on Twitter @Jen_McConnel, and visit www.jenmcconnel.com to learn more.



Author Links:  Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads





Giveaway Details:


Five (5) winners will receive a digital copy of Gods of Chaos by Jen McConnel (INT)



a Rafflecopter giveaway




Go to Chapter by Chapter to check out the Tour Schedule for more awesome posts!


4 comments:

  1. I love these covers :) thanks so much for the great spotlight and giveaway!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I want to read this series so bad. I need to go and get the first book.

    Great interview!
    You made me even more excited to read it

    Michelle @ Book Briefs

    ReplyDelete
  3. The title says it all. Gods of Chaos automatically brings images of the Greek/Roman Gods.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks so much for hosting me! :)

    ReplyDelete

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