Q.  “Tell us about your book Shanghaied.”

A.  “It’s about a 15 year old boy who wakes up on an African ship with no idea how he got there, where he’s going or if he’ll ever get back.  And it happened to me.”

Read the Review

“None of the numerous coming-of-age memoirs, fictionalized accounts, or nonfiction historical books of sea-going adventures have captured my imagination as magically as David Paul Collins’ novel Shanghaied, based on his own true story as a merchant seaman.

Collins conveys an amazing depth of feeling in his portrayal of protagonist Jack Sligo. Written as a first person narrative, Jack relates the story of his brutal initiation into survival at sea. Spellbound by his Irish grandfather’s tales of adventure, Joseph Conrad’s “Lord Jim,” C. S. Forester’s “Horatio Hornblower,” and Richard Henry Dana’s “Two Years Before the Mast,” fifteen-year-old Jack Sligo dreams of traveling around the world as a part of the crew on a cruise ship.

Shanghaied captured my imagination from the very first page – entertaining and informative – destined to become a classic in the genre of Adventures on the High Seas.”  by Richard R. Blake for Reader Views