I have Renee Dugan with me today and I am so excited to share this fun chat with you! I shared about The Chaos Circus yesterday and we will learn more about the world and what’s next from Renee. A little bit about her first:
Renee is an Indiana-based YA/NA author who grew up reading fantasy books, chasing stray cats, and writing stories full of dashing heroes and evil masterminds. Now with over a decade of professional editing, administrative work, and writing every spare second under her belt, she has authored The Chaos Circus, a horror-lite fantasy novel, and The Starchaser Saga, an epic high fantasy series.
It was wonderful to connect with her! Enjoy the interview, and get some insights about the book. You can click on my reading experience graphic below to head to the review post later.
- What was the moment when the idea of the book first came to you? What made you pursue it?
I love this question! I think a lot of authors want to have a “story” behind their novel’s concept, and I’m lucky enough that The Chaos Circus (TCC) has a pretty fun one!
The idea for The Chaos Circus came to me while I was out to dinner with my husband and brother. They were discussing a video game my husband was playing at the time, and a theory he had for how it ended. I knew he was wrong (I’d already looked up the ending, whoops!) but the idea he had for how it started and ended drilled straight into my brain. When he said it, I saw the beginning and ending shots of TCC, I saw Tessa and Nicolai clearly, and that was the moment!
The reason I chose to pursue it is a little more complex; I had been praying for a long time about how to launch into publishing since I wasn’t gaining traction with my fantasy epic series. But I felt like God was telling me the inspiration would come for the book I needed to publish FIRST, and when TCC came, it was like a green light. I knew immediately that was THE BOOK, so I jumped straight into working on it, and the rest is history!
- Tell us a bit about the history of the world! How did the Rift come about?
So I actually have a very fleshed out history for the Circus and TCC that didn’t make it into the book—basically the Mirror Lands is a deep hive of magic, and that power often has surges that get out of control. What’s now the Chaos Circus used to be just a little hamlet in the Mirror Lands, but when it was discovered as a heartbeat for magic, more and more Mirror Folk started congregating there, and eventually they built this hive of revelry around the heartbeat of magic. That hive was the Chaos Circus!
Nowadays the Circus acts as a kind of channel or conduit to keep the magic from going out of control, but before the Circus came, the magic tore holes in the fabric of reality—those are Rifts! Now that the Circus gives the magic a place to flow, new Rifts don’t really pop up much. Which the Mortal Folk are happy about, because it allows them to control who goes in where, and when! Mostly. 😉
- I loved Tessa, the protagonist, in The Chaos Circus. She has a past she can’t recall and in the beginning she is struggling to be who others want her to be. Late teens and early twenties are a time full of turmoil, even with the memories. Did you bring any of your life experiences to this book through Tessa?
I absolutely did! The idea of being “too much” for the world has haunted me ever since I was a preteen, when I first became aware that among all my friends, I was the spastic, over-enthusiastic one who did “weird things” like run outside to get drenched in the rain, or danced with my headphones in to music no one else could hear, or liked anime, or read weird books; like Tessa, I spent a chunk of my teen years trying to dull my edges so I wouldn’t cut anyone else’s idea of normal with my weirdness.
So Tessa’s journey reflects a lot of my own, the growth toward self-realization and embracing that while the person I am may not be “right” for everyone I meet, that doesn’t make me wrong—and none of us should round out all our edges just to make others happy. That’s not how we were created to be, and we need to celebrate our eccentricities…they help make us who we are!
- Do you plan to explore this world more by sharing about the other Deathless and how they came to be, the Mirror Folk or the Circus itself?
There’s always the possibility! As mentioned above, I have a lot written just for myself that helped shape the world of TCC; whether that will ever make it into a format I feel comfortable sharing with the world is still up in the air! Part of what I love about TCC is that it’s very rooted in Tessa’s head and the way she sees the world; that means we only get let in on the mysteries as much as she does, and I’ve wrestled a lot with the concern that saying too much about the Mirror Lands especially would take away some of that spooky wonderment, or that it wouldn’t feel quite the same if it’s not happening through Tessa’s eyes, the way she relates to the world.
But it’s also a world I know readers want to see more of, so…long story short, we’ll have to see what comes along! 😉
- The Chaos Circus reminded me of The Night Circus and Alice in Wonderland. What are some books you would recommend for readers who loved your book?
Definitely I recommend picking up Caraval and The Night Circus! Alice in Wonderland offered some inspiration (good catch there!!) as well as Something Wicked This Way comes by Ray Bradbury and, to an extent, The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke, An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson, and Heartless by Marissa Meyer. While none of these books were a direct launching points for The Chaos Circus, they were all really formative in my love for all things either creepy circus, fair, and carnival-themed, or truly fey and fanciful. So if you like that sort of otherworldly tale, I highly recommend these reads!
I hope you enjoyed this interview! You can connect with Renee Dugan on Twitter and check out information about her books and writing services on her website.
** The Chaos Circus is available for purchase on Amazon! **
Amazon Print
Amazon Kindle
(available on Kindle Unlimited)
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