Welcome to The Sarcastic Palmtree and the Chasing Forever Down
Blog Tour!
I'm so excited to bring you my interview stop with Author Nikki Godwin!
Title: Chasing Forever Down (Drenaline Surf #1)
Author: Nikki Godwin
Date of Publication: March 14, 2013
Genre: contemporary YA romance with sports
After seventeen-year-old Haley Sullivan meets a mysterious
stranger who plays by his own rules, she's more than determined to learn every
trick of the trade from the master himself. But her dream-chasing mentor
disappears after that night, and according to the local newspapers, he's been
dead for years. Knowing he's very much alive, Haley enlists best friend Linzi
to join her on a scavenger-hunt-style road trip that ultimately lands them in
the surf town of Crescent Cove, California. Mystery guy is no mystery here,
though – he's Colby Taylor, the west coast's biggest professional surfer.
If Haley wants to talk to the wave rider again, she'll have
to get past his four intimidating bodyguards who are highly skilled in the
business of sending starstruck fangirls back to where they belong. Haley is up
for the challenge if it means chasing her dreams and escaping the perfectly
corporate future that's been planned for her. But dealing with these bodyguards
isn't exactly what Haley imagined it'd be. Sure, being thrown off a jet ski
sucks, but falling in love with one of them might just be worse.
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If you would like to read my review of
Chasing Forever Down
you can find it here.
My interview with the talented
Nikki Godwin.
How did Chasing Forever Down start to formulate in your head? What was the initial main idea that came first?
CFD is actually a mixture of a lot of ideas. I had Haley, Vin, and Reed in another book that wasn't going anywhere, so they were recycled into this book instead. Reed has always been associated with boating, so that carried over too. I actually was on my lunch break one day at my former day job (from hell), and I saw a helicopter circling around. I instantly wondered who it was looking for. (This went into CFD too - if you've read it, you know!) And then there was this idea to write about a dead surfer, which really jumpstarted a real plot for the book.
Why did you choose a beach location and surfing for your story?
What finally set this story into motion was an episode of Face Off (which I don't even watch - so I have no idea why I was that night). The episode was zombie-themed, and one of the makeup artists was planning to design a zombie surfer who had been bitten by a shark. It intrigued me because I'd never given surfers a second thought. No one really writes about surfers. There's no big surf movie franchise. It's not "a thing." So of course, I instantly wanted to make it MY thing and decided I'd someday write about "a dead surfer." (As for the location, obviously surfing has to take place on the beach.)
You are a huge fan of surfer John John Florence. Were you a surfing fangirl before writing this book?
I definitely love JJF! I honestly didn't know a thing about surfing when I wrote CFD. I literally knew the name of only one pro surfer (CJ Hobgood, for anyone interested, and I only knew him because To Write Love On Her Arms was one of his sponsors). I researched some surf terms and lingo, so I could sound somewhat legit. It wasn't until I decided to write this as a series that I invested some time into learning about professional surfers. I was definitely hooked! JJF was the first one who was “my surfer,” which is another story for another time. It's such an extreme, exciting sport, and no one else in Mississippi even cares about it, so it's my own special obsession. And you know, *some* of the guys don't look too bad either ;)
(Side note: If you would like to know how Nikki became such a big fan of JJF you can check out her
Guest Post at Paradise of Pages here.)
Who is your favorite character to write and why?
This is actually a tough call. My gut instinct is to say A.J. Gonzalez because he's a character who had been in my head for a very long time. He came across perfectly on the page. He was a lot of fun, had the best lines, and really showed the range and depth of a person. However, I also really enjoyed writing the Hooligans. Topher came to me as naturally as A.J. did, although he's much more charismatic than A.J. The funny thing with Topher is that he was intended to be a "one scene character" but his personality was too big.
I love your beach location in the book. How did you come up with the name Crescent Cove?
I wish I had a cool story behind this. It's literally just one of those names that popped into my head, and I thought, "Wow, that sounds so pretty!" The same thing happened with Horn Island. The place just came already named.
You are a huge music lover. I know you have a writing playlist, but what is the one song that best sums up this book?
"With You Around" by Yellowcard. I could go on for days about this song. I really just recommend listening to it. It captures this novel completely...and you may hear where the novel's title came from as well!
I always seem to have favorite parts of every book I read, and I enjoy books that make me think and feel emotionally. What is your favorite thing about Chasing Forever Down and what do you hope for your readers to gain from reading it?
I hate to get all "the moral of the story" about my books, but the theme of CFD is about chasing dreams. That theme continues throughout the rest of the series. So I hope somewhere, at some point, a reader is inspired after reading this book and does something to make his or her own dreams come true. I just really want someone to chase forever down.
Special thanks to Nikki for taking the time to talk to us.
About Author Nikki Godwin
Nikki Godwin is a Young Adult/New Adult author from the
southern USA. She is a city girl who can't live without Mountain Dew, black
eyeliner, Hawthorne Heights, and candles from Bath & Body Works. When not
writing, she's not-so-secretly internet-stalking her favorite bands. She may or
may not completely love One Direction.
Make sure you enter the rafflecopter below to win an ecopy of Chasing Forever Down!
Absolutely love the interview! I fell even more in love with the book as I read the answers!! Now I wanna go and read it all over again!!!!
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