Apparently, I didn’t learn my lesson the first time.
In 2021, I published my first novel, Tomahawk and Crown. It was an interesting experience. I discovered that writing a book is difficult, publishing one is even more difficult, and convincing people to buy one requires a degree of shameless self-promotion for which even I was inadequately prepared.
Of course, I decided to do it again.
On October 21, my second novel, The Green Flash, will be published.
This officially makes me a repeat offender who like others in their category didn’t learn their lessons the first time around.
The Green Flash will be available on Amazon in paperback, hardcover, and Kindle editions, giving complete strangers yet another opportunity to criticize my work. A privilege my friends and family have enjoyed for decades.
The book is about friendship, loss, love, regret, and the peculiar business of growing older in a world that seems increasingly determined to make the experience unpleasant.
It’s also about the pandemic and the time it gave us to confront our “ghosts.”
Much of the story takes place in Hawaii, where the protagonist travels carrying the ashes of people he loved and a considerable amount of emotional baggage. The airlines, mercifully, don’t charge extra for the latter.
There are moments of humor. There are moments of sadness. There are a few observations about human behavior that probably won’t earn me any new friends. And there is, I hope, something worth saying about the people who shape our lives and never really leave us, even after they’ve gone.
If you are wondering about the title and why the story is not about an alternative universe super hero it refers to a rare optical phenomenon that occurs just as the sun disappears below the horizon. For an instant, under the right conditions, a flash of green appears.
It’s real. Look it up.
Different cultures and storytelling traditions have attached their own meanings to the green flash. In some maritime folklore, it’s a sign of good fortune. In literature and legend, it’s been associated with love, revelation, and the fleeting moment when the ordinary world brushes up against something mysterious. Jules Verne even built a novel around the notion that witnessing it could reveal the truth of one’s heart.
Personally, I like the idea that something extraordinary can happen at the precise moment something else disappears. That endings aren’t necessarily endings. Sometimes they’re just the briefest glimpse of something we don’t yet understand.
Writing this book took longer than I care to admit. There were revisions, rewrites, second thoughts, third thoughts, and the occasional suspicion that I might have been better off taking up Tai Chi. At least with Tai Chi makes you seem graceful.
But here we are.
I didn’t write The Green Flash because I believed the world was desperately awaiting another novel by a man of a certain age with opinions about practically everything. The market for that particular product is already oversupplied. A quick doomscroll on Facebook, YouTube or your podcast app would show you that.
I wrote it because it was a story I wanted to tell, people I wanted to remember, and things I wanted to understand. Somewhere along the way, it became a novel.
And now I’m asking you to buy it.
I recognize the audacity of that request. Particularly since you’ve been kind enough to read my Substack for free, and now I’m proposing to charge you $17.99 for a paperback or $26.99 for a hardcover. There’s also a Kindle edition for those who prefer their literature without the inconvenience of paper.
Apparently, I’ve discovered capitalism rather late in life.
If you do buy it, thank you. If you read it, an even bigger thank you. If you enjoy it, please tell your friends. If you don’t, I’d appreciate your exercising the sort of discretion normally reserved for discussing a friend’s unfortunate second marriage.
And if you feel inclined to leave an Amazon review, I won’t object.
But beneath all the jokes, there is something I want to say.
This book means a great deal to me.
It’s about the people who come into our lives and change them, sometimes for the better, occasionally for the worse, but almost always in ways we don’t fully appreciate until they’re gone. It’s about the conversations we wish we’d had, the things we wish we’d said, and the peculiar way memory can make someone who’s been gone for years feel as though they’ve just stepped out of the room.
And it’s about discovering that grief and gratitude are not opposites. More often than not, they’re traveling companions.
I hope some of that comes through in the pages.
I hope you’ll give it a read.
And to everyone who encouraged me to finish the damn thing, thank you.
You have no idea what you’ve unleashed.
THE GREEN FLASH
A novel by Paul D. Rothkopf
Publication Date: October 21, 2026
Available on Amazon: https://bit.ly/4i9H8vr
- Paperback: $17.99
- Hardcover: $26.99
- Kindle: Available digitally
If you buy it, read it, and like it, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. It makes an enormous difference to independent authors.
And if you made it this far, thank you for paying attention to my nattering’s.
Paul Rothkopf
