The Day of The Wave (+$50 Amazon GC Giveaway!)

Title: The Day of the Wave

Author: Becky Wicks

Series: N/A

Pages: N/A

Date Published: 2015

Publisher: Self-Published

Format: Kindle

Source: Goddess Fish Blog Tours
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Synopsis:
Isla and Ben were just sixteen when the Boxing Day tsunami tore through their beach resort in Thailand. Just days after forming a life-changing bond, both were missing and presumed dead. Unbeknown to each other and haunted by one of the biggest natural disasters in world history, Isla and Ben are living very different lives, until over a decade later when a chance encounter throws them back together.

Based on real life events, The Day of the Wave is a story of healing, learning to let go, and figuring out when to hold on with everything you have left.

~Interview with Becky!~

Hi Becky and welcome to Unabridged Andra's today! Thanks for stopping by. I'm glad you could be here today. Let's get right down to it okay??

Who or what was the one who influenced you to become a writer?

I’m not really sure any one person influenced me to become a writer, it was kind of the only thing I really knew how to do, and the one thing I absolutely loved to do. I was always reading books by Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl growing up, so they probably influenced my imagination and made it run wild, but I used to fill entire notebooks with stories, even when I was six years old!

When did you first know that writing was something you wanted to pursue?

Like I said, I was pretty young, and making a career out of it felt like something I had no choice in. I was going to write for a living and that was it!

Is there a place that you picture to be a major backdrop for your stories or do you just pick and choose different places?

A lot of my books have been set in the US as I’ve travelled and lived here a lot, even though I’m British, but I wrote three travel memoirs before I worked on fiction. I have books set all over the world! I guess with fiction, certain stories demand to be set in certain places, like The Day of the Wave – it could only have been set in Asia. I loved the challenge of researching, and I visited Thailand and Sri Lanka too. I needed to be able to picture it.

If you weren’t an author, what else would you have loved to do?

Join NASA and do something crazy-stupid like volunteer on a ship as a gardener or cook. Or maybe work on sailboats. I love photography and I love the ocean… maybe something that combined the two, but travelling would definitely have been involved, it’s in my blood!

If any of your books was to become a movie or television show, which one will it be and why?

This one, definitely. The Day of the Wave. I have so many songs already picked out, which you can listen to on my blog, on the playlist!  I think I’d have Vince and Catherine from the TV show Beauty and the Beast as Ben and Isla – their chemistry is magnetic! I love the idea of all the visuals too, like the scooter and elephant rides, plus the flashbacks to the tsunami. I think it would be quite a powerful movie! Can we make this happen?!

What 3 things would you bring if you were on a deserted island?

Sunscreen. My phone. A solar-charger.

Do you have other authors that you turn to for advice or encouragement and who would that be?

I collaborate with the author/screenwriter Sarah Alderson a lot – we lived in Bali at the same time and wrote a book called The Extraordinary Life of Lara Craft (not Croft) together. I read all her new works and she reads mine – it helps knowing someone who’s going through the same things and who thinks the same way about being a tortured artist! (Kidding. Or am I? Pass the wine.)

Do you ever see yourself as part of the characters you write or do you try not to put yourself in that situation?

Always, it’s hard not to. Especially when I’m writing a female’s perspective and she’s going through a tough time emotionally. It’s important to separate sometimes though and ask myself what the character would do, instead of what I would do. I’ve never been in a tsunami so obviously I look at life a little differently to Isla.

Where do your ideas come from when plotting a new novel?

From the cracks - the spaces in between the tangible - the twists of my imagination as it curls around reality. There’s no set place I go to for ideas. They come to me, probably because I try to keep an open mind. I think most writers operate this way - we see the world as an infinite mess of possible story ideas we need to somehow assemble into something that makes sense!

How did your book come about and what drove you to write it?

The Day of the Wave is based around the catastrophic tsunami that crashed through 14 countries and affected 5 million people on Boxing Day 2004. The idea actually popped into my brain last November when I was on vacation in Sri Lanka. It felt like everyone I met had a story about that day, what happened to them, and what happened afterwards. It really got to me and I KNEW I had to write a book about it. It had to be real and emotional but it also had to be about healing and the power of love.

Do you write anything that you may have experienced in your life?

I think all writers do. We’re told to write only what we know… which can also mean we have to research a lot before we start. Luckily I have travelled extensively, I love it, and a lot of what I write is based on things that have happened to me or people I’ve met in various places around the world. My three travel memoirs (Burqalicious, Balilicious and Latinalicious) were written based on my real-life travels in Dubai, Bali and South America! Working on fiction means I get to travel in my mind, which can sometimes be just as exciting.

~Try an Excerpt!~

The karaoke guy catches me on the way to the bar, and again on my way back with the fresh bucket. 'I've seen you two trying to keep it on the down-low,' he says, beaming. He's huge, hot and sweaty and sounds like he's from Essex. His beer belly is bloating out under the ubiquitous Chang T-shirt. He's boozed up outside and in. 'I'm putting you down for Endless Love - the Mariah Carey version, yeah?'

'Um, no,' I say. 'Don't do that, buddy.'

'Ah, come on, we need a duet!'

I tell him no again, go put the bucket back down on the table. Izzy's smiling lopsidedly. 'Is he going to make us sing?'

'I hope not!'

She's buzzed already, I can see it in her eyes. She's luminous in pinks and greens and sparkles from the lights and the glitter ball. Three girls are dancing, holding a bucket each, wearing nothing but bikinis and sarongs. I'm guessing they've been in here since the rain started, straight off the beach.

'You know,' Izzy says, contemplatively, watching them twirling each other round in an epileptic's nightmare, 'if you're in London while I'm there I'm going to take you to this deli near my office. They have the best hot cross buns, you need to try them.'

'Hot cross buns?' I say, drawn to her mouth again.

'Usually they're an Easter thing in Britain,' she says, 'but this place has them all the time, we go there most days. It's near Covent Garden. You'd love it. You'd love London. I can't believe you haven't been.'

She talks and I lose myself in her voice, the way I did when I first met her. I don't know what the hell hot cross buns are, but she makes them sound like something I could feast on and live inside and be happy with for the rest of my life. I can see her coming back more every day; the confident her, the vibrant her, the adventurous her. I imagine walking round London with her, holding her hand, riding one of those big red buses and taking photos of Big Ben. I'd be little Ben next to Big Ben; that's what she'd say. I smile. I've zoned out. Damn, this rum is strong.

We're halfway through the second bucket when our names are called - or rather, 'Girl in green dress, guy in green shirt! Get up here!' We look at each other, only just realizing our colors match.

'I can't sing,' Izzy says now. Her tongue is pink from the juice.

'Can't because you're full of rum?' I laugh.

'Can't because I really can't!'

She tries to cover her face and bury her head in her arms but everyone's cheering for us now, stomping on the floor, clapping their hands. The three girls are wolf-whistling and one of them has taken off her sarong so she's literally standing on the dance floor in her bikini, doing some kind of weird hippy welcome dance as she beckons us forwards with her hands.

'OK, OK, come on,' I say, holding my hand out to Izzy. She groans dramatically as she lets me pull her up but we're both grinning like drunken idiots three seconds later when we get to the mics. The music's already started. It's a slow one but it doesn't stop the buzz in the room.

My love, there's only you in my life. The only thing that's right.

My first love, you're every breath that I take, you're every step I make.

The rum's rolling round in my brain but I can see it's getting to Izzy, more than me. She can protest all she wants but she's animated now, like she hasn't had this much fun in forever. Maybe she hasn't. She reaches for my hand. I twirl her around obligingly, like we're doing a slow dance. She gets caught for a second in the mic wire and I help her untangle herself as she cracks up, still singing, while the room whistles and whoops and dances.

'Another drink?' a guy from the bar asks us. Obviously he thinks we're too sober.

I pause. 'I don't think so...'

'Yes please, we'll have one more,' Izzy cuts in. 'And maybe one more after that.'

'Are you trying to get me drunk now?' I say.

'It was your idea!' She sticks out her pink tongue, spins again next to me in a kaleidoscope of color and in my mind I'm pulling her in and kissing her sugary lips. In my mind I'm carrying her right out of this bar and right back to that bed.

Two hearts. Two hearts that beat as one. Our lives have just begun...

My love, my love, my love, my endless love.

No. What good would ever come from me starting something? Nothing good at all. But Izzy is another tsunami. She's sweeping me up, faster and faster now and I'm not entirely sure how long I can fight.

~Meet Becky!~ 

Becky Wicks is mostly powered by coffee. She had three travel memoirs published by HarperCollins before going the indie route. Her first book in the Starstruck Series, 'Before He Was Famous' recently reached #1 in Amazon's Coming of Age and New Adult & College categories. The second in the series, 'Before He Was Gone', and the third, 'Before He Was A Secret' are both out now along with 'The Day Of The Wave' - a romance based around the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.

Becky will be awarding a $50 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

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