A warm Love Bytes welcome to authors Kelly Jensen & Jenn Burke, who are visiting us today to talk about the final part of their Chaos Station series “Phase Shift“.

Chaos Station by the Numbers

Now that we’ve finished the series, here are some random facts and figures!

• The project started out with the working title: Space Boys. We didn’t actually name the first book “Chaos Station” until we were nearly ready to submit the manuscript.
• The series is named for the first book because Kristen Ashley already had a “Chaos” series.
• It took us about four weeks to write the first book. We had so much fun, we started writing the second book a couple days later.
• Total time between “Chapter One” being written for Chaos Station and finding out Carina Press wanted the series: about 5 months.
• We dedicated the first book to the role play characters that inspired us to write the series, Aedan and Iain. Yes, we dedicated a book to fictional people.
• We rewrote the first half of Lonely Shore (book 2), during the developmental edit stage.
• The title for Lonely Shore comes from the poem “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” by Lord Byron. The relevant passage is quoted inside the book.
• Lonely Shore is dedicated to Zed.
• No one was supposed to die in the first book.
• Someone was always going to die in the second book.
• Our body count rose as we progressed through the series. (Cue evil laughter)
• We rewrote the beginning of Skip Trace (book 3) three times.
• The plot of Skip Trace changed so significantly during rewrites that we nearly had to change the name of the book.
• Skip Trace is dedicated to Felix.
• It took us eight weeks to write Inversion Point (book 4). We had no significant rewrites. (Yay!)
• We did have to rename book 4, however. It started out life as Ghost Ship. We like the name Inversion Point much better.
• Inversion Point is dedicated to our husbands.
• Phase Shift (book 5) took the most amount of time to write—probably because we were subconsciously putting off the end. (Sad face) Again, we had no significant rewrites. In fact, we didn’t even receive an edit letter for our second round!
• We dedicated the last book in the series to our captain, Elias.
• Apparently we like dedicating our books to fictional people!
• The covers of all the books were designed at once, to ensure there was a solid series feel to each. When we saw the towers on the cover for Phase Shift, we told the team we’d incorporate them into the book—which wasn’t difficult as they certainly fit the theme of the story.
• In order to get a feel for Zed and Felix, and their history together, we wrote back-and-forth scenes in their points of view for two significant periods in their lives before the start of the war. Both were later rewritten as additional stories for readers. “Graduation” is the story of when Felix finally decides to tell Zed he’s in love with him. Champion of picking his moment, he chooses the night they graduate Shepard Academy, which is also the last night they’ll see each other for two years. “Reunion” is set four years and a couple of relationships later. This time it’s Zed’s turn to tell Felix how he feels. He gets a fist to the jaw for his trouble.
• Shepard Academy is named after Alan Shepard, the first American to venture into space. The name is also homage to one of our favorite video game series of all time, Mass Effect.
• We have written two other short stories for the boys and plan to write at least one more. They need a honeymoon!
• We’ve commissioned art for most of the crew and as long as Tami Santarossa continues to enjoy bringing our characters to life, we’ll continue asking until we have everyone done.
• All of the titles of the Chaos Station series are metaphorical.
• We have more books planned in the Chaos Station universe, but Phase Shift is the final chapter for Zed and Felix. We’ve tortured them enough. 🙂

Phase Shift

Book five of Chaos Station

Zander and Felix’s relationship has always pushed boundaries—personal and professional alike—but their love and commitment is stronger than ever. So strong that Zander’s ready to ask commitment-shy Felix the question of a lifetime when he’s interrupted. The Chaos is being hacked, and crucial, top secret information about the project that created Zander—and his fellow super soldiers—has been leaked.

Neither man could have expected the enormity of what’s discovered at the end of the data trail: an entire colony of super soldiers run by the very doctor who changed Zander’s life forever. And now she needs them both—Zander to train her new crop of soldiers, and Felix’s new crystalline arm to stabilize their body chemistry.

With help from the unlikeliest of allies, Zander, Felix and the Chaos crew must destroy the project and all its ill-gotten information. But when the team is split up and Felix is MIA after a dangerous run, galactic disaster is a very real possibility…and Zander may have missed his chance to ask for forever.

Amazon | Amazon UK | B&N | Kobo | iBooks | Carina Press

Jenn and Kelly met in 2009 through a mutual infatuation with a man who wasn’t real. After all but crashing the video game’s forums with daily dissection of their obsession, they started writing together, discovered they really liked writing together and began plotting stories in worlds of their own creation.

The CHAOS STATION series aren’t the first books they’ve written together, and they’re pretty sure they won’t be the last. As long as their so-called smartphones keep making autocorrects that trigger brainstorming sessions, they’ll have enough character ideas and plots to keep them writing for years to come.

www.chaosstation.com

Connect with Jenn: Twitter | Facebook | Website

Connect with Kelly: Twitter | Facebook | Website

Prize: The first four books in the Chaos Station series—Chaos Station, Lonely Shore, Skip Trace and InversionPoint—and a $25 gift card to the online bookseller of your choice.

Signing up for our newsletter gives access to our free Chaos Station story, “Graduation”.

Terms: Rafflecopter runs from 12:01 AM EST 5/2/2016 to 11:59 PM EST 5/8/2016. Giveaway is open internationally. Gift card value is US dollars. Winner will be contacted via email.
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Follow the Tour

5/2       Gay Book Reviews

5/2       Prism Book Alliance

5/2       Queer Sci Fi

5/3       Purple Rose Teahouse

5/4       Smitten with Reading

5/4       The Novel Approach

5/5       Sinfully Sexy

5/6       Joyfully Jay

5/6       Straight Shootin’ Book Reviews

5/6       Love Bytes