Brain to Books Blog Tour

Fast Facts

Author: Chrissy Moon

Genre: Paranormal romance, women’s fiction, YA paranormal romance, horror, poetry

Books: Surreal Enemies: Angel City of the God Generation

Bio

Chrissy Moon is the youngest of four girls, born in Orange County, California and raised in the San Fernando Valley. Her parents and sisters came to America from the Philippines in 1970, seven years before her birth.

As a teen, Chrissy wanted to work for the United Nations in New York and work as a translator. Her plan was thwarted when she got married and had a baby.

She continued her attempts to learn the basics to many languages. However, as her baby got older, and especially after her divorce, her days were spent working full-time at various office jobs. Languages have been put on the backburner, most of the basics forgotten.

Now that the baby is a high school graduate and an adult, Chrissy is able to devote more time to her writing.

Accomplishments

The cause Chrissy is most concerned with is domestic violence – its prevention, and the healing of its victims.

Her next goal is to learn about local safe houses for abused women and children.

Blurb

Someone’s been killing Slates and freeing the Melted from their ice prisons in the Heaven embassy.

The God Generation consists of supernatural entities – angels (the Worthy), demons (the Melted), and archaic gods & goddesses (the Slates), born into human flesh and living among the rest of us.

Morgan Constantina is an abuse survivor and a recovering ecstasy addict. She’s been working hard to learn how to be tough and never be anyone’s victim again.

Her new life with her loving, supportive, semi-famous boyfriend – who happens to be her former Living Guardian Angel – grows to include an addition to the family, moving to Los Angeles, meeting his gigantic family, and reluctantly co-starring in their new restaurant-based reality TV show.

Morgan learns there are Worthy authorities who keep a judgmental eye on mundane humans. One of them is quite helpful, but another has a personal agenda that could cause trouble for her.

And as she’s meeting new people, she’s also gaining some enemies.

High on the list of foes is an old family friend who’s made threats to kill her, her own mother who thinks she’s immoral and soulless, and her boyfriend’s former flame – a woman Morgan’s already met!

Surreal Enemies: Angel City is a story about the war of good and evil inside all of us, and the powerful, unforgettable force of parental love.

Excerpt

He stood in front of me, his posture a bit more relaxed than it had been for the last hour or so. Seeing the old Ree in his eyes made me want to take him in my arms and kiss him over and over, but I sensed that something still wasn’t right, so I remained still and simply listened to what he had to say. “I swear I didn’t know I have been deviating from my usual behavior. Baby, this is just me talking, this person standing before you. I am neither demon nor angel, boyfriend nor friend—I’m just this spirit who is in love with this spirit right here.” He pointed to my heart without touching it.

He kneeled in front of me then, not like a marriage proposal-type of kneel, but more like his legs gave way and he collapsed. His arms clamped around my waist so hard, at first I thought he was attacking me. But then he leaned his head on my middle and sobbed. I mean, he really cried harder than I have ever witnessed before.

“Ree, you’re acting like someone died! Please help me understand!”

Instead of the scoff that I expected, he turned to face me slowly, his eyes watering as they regarded me with a sad, faraway look.

“I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you everything…” he said, still weeping. I was immediately frightened. I had to admit this was not the way I thought this conversation would go at all. I thought he might be angry back or that he would make a sad face and tell me I was right, and proceed to reveal whatever stupid secret he had. But this…this was different. I knew then that I was about to hear something that would change me, change us, change everything.

“Oh my god,” I whispered. “Someone did die, didn’t they?” I raised my voice to a normal level. “Who was it, Ree?”

Not meeting my eyes, he continued. “Connie. And then you, less than a week later.”

Interview with Chrissy Moon

ABC: How did you come up with the idea for your book?

CM: Well, I wanted to illustrate a story about a woman overcoming domestic violence and drug addiction. She’s already overcome some really turbulent things, but now she needs to find a sort of happy medium, so she can be stable and happy without shutting out her loved ones. It’ll take her a while, because as much as she’s learned, she’s still got a long way to go.

This book is written as a standalone, but it’s technically the sequel to my debut novel from a couple years ago, Surreal Ecstasy. I had a whole mythology already set, so my challenge was to create a new story that also fits into the first book, but that can act as an entire story in and of itself. Because of this, it took me longer to write this book.

I wanted Surreal Enemies to have more action. I wanted us to delve some more into the God Generation world. I wanted my main character’s relationship with her boyfriend to kind of reach the next level. I wanted to reveal a little more about the love life of a gay supporting character, Dess. But I also wanted to introduce some new situations to the characters as they get stronger and smarter.
ABC: Stories always require some form of research. What kind of research did you do for your book?

CM: Let’s see. The locations didn’t require any research because the main characters move to the area I grew up in. I did have to ask some family members a little about how the entertainment industry works and about reality shows, because Morgan, our protagonist, ends up on one. I also asked my brother-in-law about the angel hierarchy, because he’s an expert on the subject and even teaches at church voluntarily.

Oh, I lied about the locations. I just remembered. I had to look up the Omni hotel in San Francisco and check out their room service menu and hotel suites because Dess stays there in her own narrated chapter.

ABC: Which scene or chapter was the hardest for you to write?
CM: Hmm. I’ll try to explain this without us having to put up a spoiler alert sign. There’s a part where Morgan and her boyfriend begin to grow distant. When she finds out why, there’s an explanation and many related scenes that follow. I kept having to change small details, right up until the last minute. I also kept giving my publisher updated manuscripts when I’d already sworn numerous times that it was absolutely the final version. That whole thing about why Morgan and her boyfriend Ree had grown distant is a very delicate subject, and I had to run over it with a fine-tooth comb, because the slightest mistake would have killed the entire scene and aftermath.

ABC: Please describe your favorite scene or chapter in your book and tell us why it’s your favorite.
CM: I find myself flipping a lot to the chapter where Morgan meets Snaps, the director of her boyfriend’s family’s Food TV reality show. His personality reminds me a lot of some people I know, and I find it entertaining when he says off-the-wall things. What’s even more entertaining are Morgan’s narrated reaction thoughts.

ABC: Which of your characters do you relate to the most and why?
CM: Morgan is my first published fictional creation, and because of this, her life is very personal to me. I have also had issues with possessing or relinquishing control in relationships, dealing with people who assume the worst about me, feeling misunderstood, and having that ‘me against the world’ mentality. I have also had to learn the hard way that a romantic relationship shouldn’t be the sole purpose in life, that a person should build up their core first and then find love out of want, not need.

ABC: I once read that every author is simply a compilation of his or her favorite authors. Which authors have done the most to influence your writing and why?
CM: Richelle Mead is my biggest modern influence. By the time I started writing my first novel, I had already read everything she’d written. Her books are smart, sexy, exciting, and emotional, and that’s always what I wanted to depict in my own work.

Older influences include Pearl Buck. The way she wrote The Good Earth is incredible. The narration is very simplified and nonthreatening, yet at the same time the main character experiences such a vast array of emotions and obstacles. That’s something I strive to accomplish in my work – saying what I need to say without doing a descriptive overkill. I try to make my readers feel comfortable and like they can read my stories without getting confused or having to memorize a bunch of complicated stuff.

ABC: “Story” has always been the center of all human cultures. We need it. We seek it out. We invent it. What does “story” mean to you?
CM: Good question! The way I see it, “story” comes from our spirits. It’s a part of ourselves that we mix with art and then display for others to view, appreciate, and think about. It’s intensely personal and inspires people to feel all kinds of emotions and think terrible and wonderful thoughts. “Story” is a primary example of what’s insightful and extraordinary about the human race.

ABC: Tells us about your next project.
CM: Just as Surreal Enemies is a sequel, I have another sequel I’m finishing up. This one will be the sequel to my YA paranormal romance, DayDreamer. It’s for a younger audience and is clean and sweet in terms of heat level. I had originally created Kayla, the main character of DayDreamer, to balance out my brain, because writing Surreal was too intense. DayDreamer was written in a much more light-hearted manner.

With this second installment though, Kayla’s world is going to be a little more well-rounded. She’s going to face some issues and paranormal situations that’ll challenge her abilities and morals. I have a lot planned for her, and I hope readers will enjoy watching her mature.