Cover reveal!

So this nice young guy from up in Vermont is having a bad week. Catches his fiancee ‘under’ the dude who runs the town snow plow. Widowed mother will only talk to the nine porcelain baby dolls living at her dining room table. He’s fired for doing an excellent job. And while taking his honeymoon alone the engines of the jetliner go dead silent 35,000 feet over the South Pacific.

Surviving the crash might be the easy part, considering an eight-foot tall naked guy with the head of an angler fish just sat down on the lava bench next to him.

DASH IN THE BLUE PACIFIC won’t hit stores for another 202 days, but I’m incredibly happy to share the bright, shiny new cover just forwarded to me by Catherine Treadgold, publisher at Seattle’s Coffeetown Press.

And now for the cover …

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Meet My Character Blog Hop – Dash, from DASH IN THE BLUE PACIFIC

I was tagged by E.E. Giorgi in the MEET MY CHARACTER BLOG TOUR. I met Elena at the Watercooler, and have had a crush ever since. Her debut novel, CHIMERAS, is an ultra cool story that grabs you by one of its taglines: Detective Track Presius has a unique gift: the vision and sense of smell of a predator. And I hear she has two new books set to go. So thanks for the tag, lovely Ms. Giorgi. Here are a few words about DASH:

Q. What is the name of your character? Is he fictional or a historic person?

Dash is a fictional guy who’s had a bad run of luck. His girl cheats. He’s fired from his job as a reporter after netting a great scoop. And when he decides to go on his honeymoon solo the jetliner crashes in a remote area of the South Pacific. Things get weird when he’s awakened in a damp lava tube cave by two women who might want to eat him.

Q. When and where is the story set?

Um, yesterday. Tomorrow? The story takes place on the island of Valelailai, which translates to toilet in the local language.

Q. What should we know about him?

Dash would very much like to have faith in god. Any god, that is, other than the Volcano God, who might be responsible for his plane crash. He is introduced to a variety of deities by a young island girl who’s hoping to be the next child chosen by marauding slave traffickers. Dash is torn by the fallibility of gods, and the strange balance of their power and selective effectiveness. His best friend on the island, by the way, is a former god who allowed his people to die during one of his alcohol-induced blackouts.

Q. What is the main conflict? What messes up his life?

Dash would be totally on board with fathering a white child as an offering to the slave traffickers, but was injured in the crash and cannot produce the goods despite some spicy ceremonies from the single native women.

Q. What is the personal goal of the character?

Sometimes his goal is to save himself. Sometimes it is to save the villagers, even though most hate him because of his skin color – and the fact that his crashed jetliner’s fuel poisoned their lagoon. Mostly his goal is to not become a human sacrifice.

Q. Is there a working title for this novel, and can we read more about it?

Dash in the Blue Pacific. Everyone is welcome to stop by at ColeAlpaugh.com, or join me on Facebook. I used to have a page for each new book, but tossed that idea. Readers and co-authors are family. You might want to turn away during soccer season, since I tend to rant a lot.

Q. When can we expect the book to be published?

The wonderful folks at Coffeetown Press tell me DASH will see the world on April 1, 2015.

Here’s a blurb:

Dash did calculations in his head. He guessed they had about four minutes to live. Not that he was an aeronautical expert—or any kind of expert, for that matter—but sitting alone in the upright position, he had nothing better to do after the engines went silent. When he’d attempted small talk, the elderly woman in the aisle seat had responded with an unfriendly grunt.

He shielded his eyes and craned for a view out the oval window, searching for flames and sniffing the air for trouble. Perfume and sweat. Someone close was a smoker. Setting fire to model airplanes as a kid seemed less cool now that he was aboard a full-size jetliner about to crash.

He had rubbed the fingertip pads that turned rough from pungent glue those summer days, hands trembling as he tied string to one wing and then held a lighter to the tail. He turned fast circles, flaming goo spraying across the lawn, black smoke curling into the trees.

The cabin speaker was full of static, and then a mouth came close to the microphone. “Cindy?”

Dash looked at his row mate. She was too old to be ‘Cindy.’ Cynthia, maybe. The woman caught him staring and glared back. He tried a smile.

“Are you there?”

 

Now on to meeting two great writers who accepted my invitation to join along. Stop by and visit them when they post on August 18th!

My writing partner, Regan Leigh, who has a style and voice that humbles me beyond words. For a taste of her immense talent, you can find one of her beautiful stories in WINTER WONDERS.

The fun and extremely talented author LK Gardner-Griffie. Her first three books in the teen choice award-winning Misfit McCabe series have been conveniently bundled. Her work totally rocks.

peace

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Dash in the Blue Pacific, in T minus …

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A writer friend who took the time to share about my stuff

The lovely and talented E.E. Giorgi, debut author of CHIMERAS, interviewed me about my books and photography today.

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One year from today!

Concealed from search crews on a remote Pacific atoll, the lone survivor of a crashed jetliner is given an ultimatum to father a white baby as an offering to human traffickers, or be sacrificed to an inimical Volcano God poised for eruption. But injuries have rendered the man unable to produce the goods, forcing him to rally help from unlikely allies: a melancholy deity he suspects is imaginary, and a young beauty sure to be among the next children stolen.

Faith is the sole path to salvation for both the castaway and the inhabitants who distrust him for his skin color. DASH IN THE BLUE PACIFIC is the story of an island people’s struggle for survival, and one man’s opportunity to alter their fate.

A new novel by Cole Alpaugh, coming April 1, 2015, from Coffeetown Press.

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Turtle-Girl is #1

Being free on Amazon for three days has pushed The Turtle-Girl from East Pukapuka to the Amazon #1 Bestseller in ‘Sea Adventures Fiction’.

TG #1 Amazon Bestseller

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ForeWord Reviews 2013 Book of the Year Awards Finalist

BOTYA2013
BriefingWire.com, 3/13/2014 – TRAVERSE CITY, MI – Cole Alpaugh’s third novel, The Spy’s Little Zonbi, has been selected as a finalist for the ForeWord Reviews Magazine 2013 Book of the Year Awards in the general fiction category.

Alpaugh’s latest novel is about a young man recruited as a secret agent, where terminating dictators and jihadists is all in a day’s work. He marries a dark beauty and they have a child, his Little Zonbi, who means everything to him. Now that his priorities have shifted, Chase strives for normalcy. But it isn’t easy for a spy to escape his past.

“We feel tremendously lucky to have signed Cole Alpaugh as an author when he was just getting started,” said Catherine Treadgold, Publisher of Coffeetown Press and Camel Press. “They say ‘Write what you know’ or risk sounding inauthentic, but Cole writes about all sorts of crazy stuff and makes it work. He manages to make a circus bear, a shark god, and a crazy dictator seem like beings we’d like to sit down and have coffee with. His novels have just the right mix of pathos and humor, reality and absurdity. I can’t wait to see what he’ll come up with next.”

“Zonbi was a fun book to pull together,” said Alpaugh, who lives in Northeast Pennsylvania with his wife and daughter. “I’m lucky to have an editor who has believed in my stories and made such a commitment. I tend to stretch the boundaries here and there.”

Alpaugh’s next novel is scheduled for release by Seattle’s Coffeetown Press in April 2015.

ForeWord Reviews is distributed quarterly to 7500 librarians and booksellers and is also available at most Barnes & Noble newsstands and by subscription. Its annual book-of-the-year competition offers 180 awards in 60 different genres, along with $1500 prizes to the best fiction and nonfiction titles. In the next two months, a panel of over 100 librarians and booksellers will determine the winners of these prestigious awards. A celebration of the winners will take place during the American Library Association Annual Conference in Las Vegas on Friday, June 27 at 6 p.m.

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Thirteen months and counting!

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a free bear – for a limited time only

So if you have an eReader or know someone who does, The Bear in a Muddy Tutu is free for the next two days at Amazon. No strings, no sign-ups, just a plain old free download at Amazon.

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