Book Spotlight (and a Giveaway!): Beyond the Rising Tide by Sarah Beard

Beyond the Rising Tide by Sarah Beard

Kai met Avery only once–in the moment he died saving her life. Now when he’s not using his new healing powers to help people, he watches helplessly as Avery’s life is unraveled by his death. To help her, he risks everything by breaking the rules, dangerously blurring the barriers between life and death.

GENRE: Contemporary, Young Adult
PUBLISHER: Sweetwater Books
RELEASE DATE: June 14, 2016
PAGES: 229

1. When I imagine Kai, I see a young Alex Pettyfer. Especially his eyes.

2. The town where the story is set (Avila Beach) is a real place where my family has vacationed every December for the past few years. There’s a family in Avila Beach that we house swap with, so while we’re playing at the beach they come to Utah and ski.

3. I’ve written music on my guitar to go with all of Kai’s lyrics in the book. And no one will ever hear it but me. 🙂

4. Almost every time I worked on chapter 27, I was brought to tears.

5. More than once, I almost scrapped this story. In earlier drafts, there were so many plot holes that I thought there was no way I could make the story work. But something inside told me to press forward, that it was a story worth finishing. I’m so glad I did, because everything worked out and it turned out to be a beautiful story.

6. In one draft there was a menacing character from the Briar who would show up every now and then and try to steal the ring from Kai. I originally wrote him in to add tension, but I ended up taking him out because he changed the tone of the book into something I didn’t want.

7. I wrote three alternate endings because I wanted to explore different possibilities. But I ended up choosing the ending I felt the characters had earned.

8. The working title was “Borrowed Heaven,” but I thought it sounded too cheesy so my husband and I brainstormed until we came up with Beyond the Rising Tide.

9. The setting of the afterlife was inspired by Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake. I had a vague idea of how I wanted the afterlife to be set up, but was having a hard time with the details. So I drove out there one day in the middle of winter (there’s a road that goes out to the island). I was the only one out there, and as I walked along the barren shores, all the details came to me. It was a magical day.

10. The name “Kai” is short for Zackai, which is Hebrew for “Pure.” I chose this name in the brainstorming phase when I imagined Kai as a perfect angel-type character. But as I got further into the story and his character developed more, his flaws and idiosyncrasies and demons surfaced and he became a more real and imperfect person. But I still loved the name, so it stuck.

Sarah Beard is the author of YA novels Porcelain Keys and Beyond the Rising Tide. She earned a degree in communications from the University of Utah and is currently pursuing an MFA in writing from VCFA. When she’s not writing, she referees wrestling matches between her three boys and listens to audiobooks while folding self-replicating piles of laundry. She is a breast cancer survivor, a baker of sweets, a seeker of good love stories, a composer of melancholy music, and a traveler who wishes her travel budget was much bigger. She lives with her husband and children in the shadow of the beautiful Wasatch Mountains.

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Music as a Muse

When I’m actually writing, I prefer to work in silence. But before I sit down to write, I’ll usually imagine the scene I’ll be working on. And that’s where music comes in to play the part of muse. Almost all the scenes in my book were imagined while I listened to music, because the right song helped me feel my characters’ emotions more deeply and authentically. Here are some of the songs that inspired scenes in Beyond the Rising Tide:

Kina Grannis – Sound of Silence
John Garrison – Never Far from Me
Susie Suh – Here with Me
Ben Howard – Promise
Matthew Perryman Jones – The Angels Were Singing
Kodaline – All I Want
Patrick Watson – Lighthouse
Garrison Starr – Sit With Me Tonight
Matthew Perryman Jones – Only You
Aqualung – Take On Me
Katie Herzig – I Hurt Too
Daughter – Medicine
Aqualung – Thin Air
Jose Gonzalez – Stay Alive
Coldplay – Death and All His Friends
Mree – Breathe Easy

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