(cont.) Have you read Frank Peretti’s and Anne Rice’s angels and demons books, or any other books in the growing angels and demons genre? Did you know angels would become the new vampires when you started writing POTH eight years ago? What are some of your favorite fantasy books?
I grew up loving Frank Peretti, who was and probably always will be my favorite Christian author. I read Frank Peretti’s This Present Darkness when I was 14 or 15, and to this day it has remained my favorite Christian novel. Since then, I’ve read the sequel as well many of his other works. Whether it’s This Present Darkness or Door in the Dragons Throat or The Oath, I love anything to do with magic, angels and demons, sin-conjured monsters, and the like. But I’ve not read either Darkness book since I started writing Prophecy of the Heir. I remember that mortals’ prayers strengthened his angels, whereas their obedience strengthens POTH’s, and that his angels were ethnically diverse, where mine are all a burnished bronze, and that his demons come back from the Abyss, whereas mine can’t. But that’s really all I remember.
Um, angels are the new vampires? I guess that’s what happens when you never leave your computer. I thought vampires were still all the rage. However, I have seen some angels on book covers, but I thought it looked like erotica. Maybe they were romance; I really wouldn’t know. I find romance too sappy. I’ve intentionally not read ANY biblical fiction books with angel and demon perspectives. I don’t want to steal from anyone, and I don’t want to be labeled a copycat. I already had ideas that I had to scrap because my husband told me it was already done in the Star Wars prequels (which I’ve never seen), or that something my character said was a famous line of dialogue in a popular movie. So, no, I stay very far away.
Anyway, the majority of what I read is nonfiction. My nonfiction library consists of over 350 books – either on writing, ancient cultures, theology, biblical history, etc. My fiction library probably has fewer than 50 books. As far as fiction stuff, it’s more speculative than actual straight fantasy, except for Narnia and the Harry Potter books. Mostly I read Dean Koontz (speculative suspense/thriller), though I enjoy a cozy mystery if I want something light to read before bed. And if it counts, I am a hard-core LOTR movie fan. I can almost quote the whole thing; I’ve watched it so many times.
Do you belong to a particular Christian denomination or tradition?
I currently attend a non-denominational church that likens itself to a hospital for Christians—a place to be emotional and spiritually restored and healed, rather than condemned and judged, and where you leave equipped to go back out into the world, prepared to withstand attacks and able to share God’s love with others.
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Ichthus77 