Heart's Blood: New Novel by Alice Von Kannon Released Today

by Christopher Hodapp

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.

Alice's historical novel Heart's Blood has officially been released today from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and most every major and minor booksellers. 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.

She's written and published other books over the years —maybe you've read the 'For Dummies' books we co-authored. But Heart's Blood has always been her 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 for decades, yet no one wants to publish those anymore. Even though the world is still full of people who want to read them.

She hopes that includes you. Or maybe your spouse, mom, sister or significant other.

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 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. Alice hopes the story she tell of Captain Issac McCallister and artist Eleanor Hampton will capture hearts and imaginations just as those captivating novels of the past once did.

The paperback is deliberately priced at a paltry $8.99 because we want people to actually buy it and read it, review it, pass it to their neighbors, and tell their friends. It can be pre-ordered now, and it should start shipping after this weekend. Amazon , Barnes & Noble and AppleBooks will also be offering Kindle/Nook/eBook editions.

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

If you watch enough of the History, Discovery or American Heroes channels, you've probably seen us both. In real life, Alice is my wife, henchwoman in all things devious, fellow poodle wrangler, occasional writing partner, Airstream co-pilot, and check co-signer, and we have been manacled to each other for well over four decades now. Just like Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis in The Defiant Ones, but totally different — more gender-traditional, and minus the hip 60s racially-exciting symbolism. 

In college, they called us the Nick and Nora Charles of the film department. 

Bobbing along together in life's dinghy on a continuous voyage of discovery, and having learned — through experience or observation — both patience and humility (along with noting with some alarm that the appalling cost of divorce has far outpaced inflationary forces), we have evolved the theory that any marriage that hasn’t at least reached year twenty simply doesn’t count. You have no license to substantively grouse, gripe or otherwise creeb until you’ve endured at least five presidential administrations and your second bottle of Tabasco sauce together. Anything less is just puerile bellyaching. Of course, children alter this formula by introducing entirely too many chaotic variables, so we prefer dogs, as the bruises don't show through the fur.