Dutchy's Book Reviews

Wanted to shout out a thank you to a great site, Dutchy's Book Reviews. Witzia Raspe is a book reviewer in the Netherlands who does several sites, and this one was great fun. We have a lot in common in our taste in novels, with lots of romance and mystery in the Barbary Wars and the Ottoman Empire.  Witzia posted my first review for Heart's Blood on NetGalley, and it was such a shot in the arm for a very nervous author.  She's just incredible. 

Heart's Blood: Kindle finally working at Amazon

Amazon's running like a well-oiled machine full of sand right now

After four days of exchanging cryptic messages with the far off exotic shores of distant lands — a Malaysian chatbot — Amazon finally has the Kindle edition of Heart's Blood up and running four days AFTER my official launch day. The B&N Nook version was working on Day One, as was the AppleBooks version. But I suspect this is the byproduct of 10,000 new employees at Amazon in two months and the apocalyptic deluge of business they've had to deal with during the COVID shutdown.

We're still trying to get Amazon to connect the Kindle listing to the paperback edition, but at least it can now be found on their site.

And there was much rejoicing.

Interview: I Love Romance Blog

A great way to officially kick off the start date of Heart's Blood sales today. My first romance blog interview was published this morning by Marie Lavender on her I Love Romance blog! Many thanks to Marie for spotlighting me and the book. She even poked around and found the early NetGalley and Goodreads reviews for the book. She packed an awful lot of information into a single post, and that was a nice surprise. 

In addition to running her romance blog, Marie is a multi-genre author of twenty-one books that include historical romance, contemporary romance, romantic comedy, paranormal romance, fantasy, romantic suspense, science fiction, dramatic fiction, mystery/thriller, literary fiction and poetry. The breadth of her books is downright astonishing! 

Thanks again, Marie! You made my day.

'Heart's Blood' by Alice Von Kannon Released Today

As Robert Burns famously penned, 'the best-laid plans o' mice and men often go astray... An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain.' He must have had a book scheduled to be published during a global pandemic, too.

My new historical novel Heart's Blood is set for release today, April 21st, from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and most every major and minor bookseller. It seemed like a terrific date last November when we picked it, but now most of us are trapped in our own homes waiting out the quarantine period.

I've written and published other books over the years —maybe you've read the 'For Dummies' books I co-authored with my husband, Christopher Hodapp. But Heart's Blood has always been my problem child, so naturally, it is coming out at the strangest possible moment in modern history.

Heart's Blood is a sweeping historical novel set in 1803 that combines romance, adventure, murder and mystery against a backdrop of Salem, Massachusetts in its greatest age of sailing ships and exploration. It's the sort of sprawling story that made historical romance the most popular genre in the world, yet no one wants to publish those anymore. Even though the world is still full of people who want to read them.

I hope that includes you.

The past is like a foreign country - they do things differently there. Historical romance novels used to be million-sellers because they captured an exciting time and place and transported their enraptured readers into it. I believe that the story I tell of Captain Issac McCallister and artist Eleanor Hampton will capture your heart and imagination just as those captivating novels of the past once did.

Despite three agents who believed in this book over the course of a decade, they were never able to shepherd it into print. More than one publishing house reluctantly rejected it after long, tortured meetings on the grounds that they just didn't know how they'd sell it. It didn't fit the chokehold pattern the romance genre has become, at least according to the Big Five publishers. It was smart and sexy and well researched – but it just didn't have any English dukes in it. And yet, every time a hard-edged professional in the publishing business or another author would read the manuscript, they'd all ask, over and over, why hasn't this been published?

Well, it has now.

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Heart's Blood by Alice Von Kannon
It is 1803, and the village of Salem, once known only for the dark horrors of its witch trials, is now a cosmopolitan seaport, the richest city in America. But in many ways, Salem is still a small village. Everyone knows that Captain Issac McCallister lost his mind in the desert, five years a slave in Barbary. He is a damaged man, looking for a reason to go on living.

He finds it when he meets Eleanor Hampton, a hard-headed New Englander living on his property. Isaac is bewitched by this determined, gifted woman, while Eleanor is unexpectedly drawn to him. He's not the man she expected—there is a gallantry in Isaac that couldn't be snuffed out by the hell of Algerian slavery. But Issac's unexpected proposal of marriage sets dark forces out of the past into motion, resulting in a stunning betrayal and a brutal murder. And as her passion for her enigmatic husband consumes her, Eleanor finds there's no danger she's unwilling to face to save him from the hangman.

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR HEART'S BLOOD "An engrossing tale of navigating new love and finding one’s way back home after a perilous journey." - Kirkus Reviews"Intimacy versus desire is explored in depth in HEART'S BLOOD, a sprawling historical romance by Alice Von Kannon, as Isaac and Eleanor learn to fully love each other, not only in body but also in soul." - Indie Reader

Paperback: 480 pages
Price: $8.99
Publisher: MCP Books (April 21, 2020)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1545674582
ISBN-13: 978-1545674581

The paperback is deliberately priced at a paltry $8.99 because I want people to actually buy it and read it, review it, pass it to their neighbors, and tell their friends. It's been available for pre-sale for several months and it should start shipping today. Amazon will also be offering the Kindle edition as of today.

For more about how and where to order 'Heart's Blood,' visit my website's book page HERE.

Podcast Interview: 'Meet, Act & Part'

My first podcast interview in connection with Heart's Blood just went live tonight! 

My husband Chris Hodapp and I have a previous following from our non-fiction books in the For Dummies series, and we've appeared together over the years in several TV programs, too. So it caused a surprising amount of interest in that audience when I announced I had a new historical romance novel coming out, even though it is far removed from the world of secret societies, the Masons or conspiracy theories.

The hosts of the Meet, Act & Part podcast — Bill Hosler, Greg Knott and Darin Lahners — sat down with Chris and I on Sunday night for about an hour to talk about Heart's Blood, Salem and its exciting seafaring past, the Barbary pirates, Freemasonry, world travel, Egyptian ruins, and a whole lot more! After four decades of marriage and fifteen years of both of us writing, I'm afraid when you get us talking together, one thing leads to another. 

Give it a listen: Meet, Act & Part - Episode 11.

Heart's Blood on NetGalley

Heart's Blood is currently available as a free download for advance reviews from the NetGalley website. Release date is April 21st, but this free pdf or Kindle copy is available for the next couple of months for NetGalley members.

If you aren't a member of NetGalley, don't be intimidated by the website. They simply want to make sure that readers really do leave a review (and more detailed than just 'Good book/Bad book).

http://netgal.ly/NMna8H

Now it begins.

Week Three of the COVID-19 pandemic may or may not be the ideal moment in history to release a brand new book, but the Fates always tear asunder the most carefully planned events of mere mortals.

My new historical novel ‘Heart’s Blood’ will be officially released on April 21st. A book isn’t really real until there are a thousand copies parked in Amazon warehouses waiting for release day. 

This book has been such a strange journey. Three New York agents wanted it, over the course of ten long years, and as genre fiction began to sink under the waves, none of them could sell it. Now it's out, and the pre-pub reviews have been good. Me, I think it's a great story. I love my problem child. Sometimes, problem children can do remarkable things.

As we inch toward the big day, it is now available for pre-orders on Amazon.com.