{"id":374,"date":"2015-02-27T22:27:48","date_gmt":"2015-02-27T22:27:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colealpaugh.com\/blog\/?p=374"},"modified":"2015-02-28T15:14:38","modified_gmt":"2015-02-28T15:14:38","slug":"a-free-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colealpaugh.com\/blog\/?p=374","title":{"rendered":"A free book?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMG_7049\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Okay, here’s the deal for my closest friends and allies … I have a couple dozen advanced copies of my new novel available. It’ll be first come, first serve for anyone in exchange for an honest review on either Amazon (to review on Amazon you need an account and to have made a minimal purchase at some point), or GoodReads.com. Second caveat is that the (however brief) review be posted during the first week of April. Send me an email at ColeAlpaugh@yahoo.com, or private message me on Facebook.<\/p>\n

What’s it about? Well, here’s the review from ForeWord Magazine in its entirety:<\/p>\n

“Surely Dash\u2019s run of bad luck must be winding down. He\u2019s lost his job and fianc\u00e9e and finds himself alone on what should have been his honeymoon flight from Vermont to Australia. What else could possibly go wrong? Lots of things, as it turns out. In Cole Alpaugh\u2019s darkly comic and richly layered Dash in the Blue Pacific, the defeated Dash never makes it to Sydney but instead crashes in the South Pacific. What seems like a near-death experience at first is actually the beginning of a mind-bending, life-changing journey for a man at the end of his rope.<\/p>\n

Dash\u2019s adventures begin with a familiar trope: a man washes up on a remote island\u2019s beach, worries that the natives will eat him, and plots his escape. In Alpaugh\u2019s hands, however, the story is anything but stale. Instead of building signal fires and rafts (though these will come), Dash is preoccupied with a tribal chief who wants to feed him to a volcano, women who want his help to make the island\u2019s first white baby, and a young girl who hopes to escape the island with the \u201csoldiers\u201d who sometimes come to her shores looking for the prettiest among them. And then there\u2019s the former god Dash spends many hours consulting with, a half-fish, half-man mind reader named Weeleekonawahulahoopa\u2014Willy for short\u2014who has resigned his godly role after failing to save his people from drowning. It gets weirder after that.<\/p>\n

The weird parts work because Alpaugh integrates them into a story that is physically raw and wickedly funny. Dash is as incredulous about all that is happening as anyone, and his self-conscious skepticism keeps the magical elements from seeming off-the-wall. Little by little, Dash\u2019s conversations with Willy reveal Dash\u2019s deeper emotional wounds, and offer another interpretation for his dreamlike visions.<\/p>\n

Taken simply as a comic adventure story, Dash in the Blue Pacific is thoroughly entertaining. When you consider the other elements\u2014racial tensions, human grief, and spiritual redemption\u2014it takes on new levels of meaning. Book clubs will be talking about this one.” – Sheila M. Trask, ForeWord Magazine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Okay, here’s the deal for my closest friends and allies … I have a couple dozen advanced copies of my new novel available. It’ll be first come, first serve for anyone in exchange for an honest review on either Amazon … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colealpaugh.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colealpaugh.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colealpaugh.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colealpaugh.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colealpaugh.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=374"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.colealpaugh.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":378,"href":"https:\/\/www.colealpaugh.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions\/378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colealpaugh.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colealpaugh.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colealpaugh.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}