Hi everyone! I’m Vanessa North, and I’m touring this week to talk about my new release, Double Up: how it got started, a scene that almost happened, and the sport of wakeboarding–how it influenced me, why I love it so much, and how it shaped the characters in the story.

Join me on the tour and leave a comment on this post to enter the giveaway for a $15 Riptide Gift Card! Be sure to include your email address in the comment so that I can contact you if you win! I’ll be drawing the winner at the end of the blog tour.

The Monster Effect

With every character, there’s a moment they stop being an idea to me, and start being a person. With Ben, it was the first time he mentioned energy drinks. Monster, Ben’s favorite brand, has a long association with the sport of wakeboarding, and drinking something cold on a warm summer morning makes a lot of sense.

What I didn’t expect was how much Ben’s sweet tooth and state of perpetual caffeination would affect his character—how it shaped his playfulness and even the exuberance of his narration.  When I first sat down to write, he was gruff—maybe even surly—but with a soft spot for wakeboarding, punk music, and candy. When I read back through the story dozens of drafts and edits later, I see so many moments that came about because of that “aha!” moment when Ben shared his love of Monster.

I’m really not one of those authors who inserts herself into her characters or claims “this character is me,” but I found while writing this story that I could identify deeply with Ben (though, like Davis, I take my coffee black). I share his love of caffeine and candy—gummi bears are a particular weakness of mine. Bonding with Ben over those things made writing the more difficult aspects of his character a little easier.

On the non-fiction end of things, most of the first draft of this book was fueled by my own Monster addiction, and at least one of my beta readers is now a Monster aficionado as well (sorry, boo!) .

Blurb:

Knowing he’s loved can make any man fly.

Fifteen years ago, Ben Warren was a wakeboarding champion: king of big air, ballsy tricks, and boned grabs. Until a career-ending injury left him broken in ways he still has no hope of fixing. Now he takes his thrills where he can get them, and tries not to let life hurt too much.

Then Davis Fox arrives in Ben’s sporting goods store with a plan to get in touch with his estranged brother by competing in the annual wakeboarding double-up contest. The catch? He’s never ridden before. It’s crazy, but Ben’s a sucker for the guy’s sob story—and for his dimples, too—so he agrees to coach Davis.

Davis is everything Ben isn’t: successful, confident, and in love with life. And he wants Ben to love life—and him—too. But before Ben can embrace a future with Davis, he needs to remember how to hope.

About the Author

Author of over a dozen novels, novellas, and short stories, Vanessa North delights in giving happy-ever-afters to characters who don’t think they deserve them. Relentless curiosity led her to take up knitting and run a few marathons “just to see if she could.” She started writing for the same reason. Her very patient husband pretends not to notice when her hobbies take over the house. Living and writing in Northwest Georgia, she finds her attempts to keep a quiet home are frequently thwarted by twin boy-children and a very, very large dog.

Connect with Vanessa:

• Website: vanessanorth.com
• Facebook profile page: facebook.com/AuthorVanessaNorth
• Twitter: @VanessaNWrites
• Goodreads: goodreads.com/VanessaNorth 

Elizabetta did a review for this title just this week find her review  Here !