Mauve Alert:

by Vasily Pugh

The ONLY absurdist rom-com sci-fi action-adventure satire you'll ever need! “Absurdity is the only reality.” - Frank Zappa Welcome to Quoz, known to some as the Escuniverse, a place where reality and absurdity cross over on a daily basis, tipping their hats to one another as they do so. This is just one of many stories that take place in a world very much like our own, but with slightly nicer soft furnishings. MAUVE ALERT (or ‘Ava Birchcroft Saves the World and Gets Very Little Thanks For It’) Ava Birchcroft is a writer who has it a city apartment, a legion of adoring fans and a literary agent with a metallic hand. But she’s having a bad few days. She’s down to her last bottle of Dooley’s, her Writer’s Block keeps reappearing to mock her latest work and her place at the top of her chosen genre, Funeral-Based Romance (Professional Mourner Love), is being threatened by Swedish enfant terrible Zaara Ibsen. The chance of a lifetime emerges when Ava is invited to travel to the home of mysterious philanthropist and wonderfully hirsute trillionaire Vermillion Bhatt, and write his long-awaited biography. At last, the opportunity to gain respect from her peers and write ‘Important Non-Fiction’ emerges and she can almost smell a Pulitzer in the air (a vaguely peppery aroma, she’s told). But things are not as they seem and soon she is thrust into a world of naked philosophers, German writing prodigies who hum to themselves, reality television stars and masked horror authors*. Her years as the pre-eminent voice in feminist burial/cremation romance never prepared her for this! Prepare to enter a world that is uproariously funny, stingingly satirical, and deliciously sweet as you follow Ava Birchcroft from hero to zero, back to hero, briefly stopping at zero again before triumphantly standing up as the Greatest Writer/Heroine of All-Time.** For lovers of the absurd and mildly odd, for those who enjoy ‘The Mighty Boosh’, ‘Monty Python’ and Mongolian Throat-Singing (not necessarily in the order), comes the first dip into Quoz. Vasily Pugh, author of ‘Gusto’, ‘So You’ve Got Fibromyalgia’, ‘The Insomniacs’ Club’ and ‘Basically Frightened’ warmly invites you to embrace the lunacy.

“Dance first. Think later. It’s the natural order.” – Mr. T

*Not Dean Koontz.**Even better than Louisa May Alcott who was a cracking writer, but never had to fend off assassins while wearing inappropriate shoes.

364 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 28, 2021

Reviews

[Nik O.K. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mauve Alert is a comedy that thinks before it speaks, and I enjoyed every minute of it. Absurdism isn't just the style here, it's the world. Anything can fit into this story, just as long as it is absurd enough to stand with everything else, and that's the beauty of it. There is an almost Picasso-esque quality to this fun book. Everything is slightly skewed, but it's so consistently skewed that after a while, it all seems perfectly normal in it's own space.

This is the perfect tongue-in-cheek book. If you want to keep a straight face while reading, it may not be the book for you. If you try to keep a straight face while reading, this one will get you good. Mauve Alert is a book that you can't read without laughing, and I think that there is no better quality than that.

I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to really get some enjoyment out of reading.