Vibes: Pro surfer Serena Swift is famous for riding the biggest waves in the world. Also, she might still be in love with her ex-husband but it’s no biggie. Probably. Except she gets a new corporate sponsor who assigns her a bodyguard for her next competitions and – whoops – the bodyguard is her cocky, charming, bearded ex-husband Cope McDaniels. ‘Blue Crush’ vibes for reaaaaaallll. Tropical, sultry, beachy feels. Adrenaline plus danger plus fraught eye contact when the MCs are both trying to be ‘professional’. Suits. Punching. Surfing. Snarky fights, Vegas weddings, steamy sex (of course).
My favorite moments: Cope opening the file and having to pretend that the woman in the photo isn’t his legit wife. Seeing each other again for the first time after four years. The wipe-out scene (forever!!). Serena training to hold her breath for four minutes beneath the water. Marilyn, Dora, Quentin and Caleb. The first time Serena says ‘husband’ and not ‘ex’. When Cope braids her hair. When they talk about his dad and Serena admits that she sees him in the water when she surfs. The Elvis Presley sisters (!!!). The weddings rings they’ve kept in their wallets.
Line most highlighted by readers: “On this planet, our actions have more impact than our words. So we always have to do the right thing.”
My favorite lines:
“Bodyguards that are ex-husbands of mine don’t command jack shit.”
Serena’s chin tilted up in full defiance. She thought she had me.
Making sure I held her gaze, I bent down until our noses were barely two inches apart. Her pretty eyes darted down to my lips, and I smiled—slow, confident—to let her know I caught the mistake.
“I’m not your ‘ex’ anything,” I said. “That would imply either one of us had filed divorce papers, and we surely haven’t. Legally, you and me? We’re still married as hell.”
What Cope and Serena taught me: From a craft perspective, this book forced me to revise and revise until I could weave together a second chance love story with a suspense plot that had its fair share of complicated structural bits. This was my first time writing a married couple and I loved discovering Serena and Cope’s limitations – and how that might lead to their break-up when they were young and especially hot-headed. But I had to figure out how these two could find their way back to each other with bruised hearts that weren’t fully broken. They taught me so much about tenderness and communication between your characters!
Personally, I wrote Serena Swift at a time when I needed to be surrounded by as many strong-willed, out-spoken, pissed off women as possible – women who refused to stay quiet in the face of injustice, women who were dismissed when their feelings weren’t ‘polite’. She reminded me that our anger is a gift, and that same anger, with time, can be translated into the real work of creating a better world. Our words our powerful. Our actions even more so.
I spent hours watching videos of women surfing the biggest waves I’d ever seen. It’s hard to describe the joy of witnessing that kind of human achievement. Every time I see Maya Gabeira ride that 73-foot wave in Portugal, I cry. Because I can’t stop thinking she did it, she did it, she did it.