From Cape Town with Love: Now showing on an iPad near you! (Or an iPhone...or your computer...)

    
       One glance at our new novel, From Cape Town with Love (Atria Books), will tell you that it wants to be a movie.  The title is a riff of the James Bond movie From Russia with Love.  The cover looks like a movie poster, and the book has its own iMix soundtrack.

         That was the idea behind the Tennyson Hardwick series the three of us envisioned:  me, my husband, Steven Barnes, and actor Blair Underwood.  We want to give readers good books, and we want to see those books on the big screen.   Why not? 

            This week, Tennyson Hardwick came to life in the Vook (video ebook) version of our novel, which officially launched today for $6.99.  The Vook and the hardcover versions are the same story, but the Vook is only about 85 of the novel’s 350 pages.  The writing is less steamy, with an eye toward a younger audience.

            But the Vook has something the novel doesn’t:  Video webisodes to illustrate key scenes. In the scene below, an Oscar-winning Hollywood actress hires Tennyson to be her bodyguard when she visits an orphanage in a South African township—setting From Cape Town with Love in motion. 


 [WATCH THE SCENE ON YOU TUBE's VOOK TV CHANNEL HERE:] 

(Blair Underwood and Noa Tishby.  PHOTO CREDIT:  Tananarive Due)

       As soon as he heard about Vooks from Atria Books publisher Judith Curr, Blair jumped at the chance to direct, produce and star in the webisodes.  His book trailer blew us away. 

            When I downloaded the Vook to my iPhone and experienced it for the first time, I giggled at how much the experience reminded me of being a kid reading a book with pictures, delighting at unexpected video stills that captured the moment just right.  I missed the text we cut out, but the videos added a new dimension.  (Also available for iPad and computers.)

        For this writer with long-held dreams of crossing from books to film, this process has been a magical Hollywood affair.

One sizzling video stars Underwood and Kellita Smith (“The Bernie Mac Show”).   The actress playing Oscar winner Sofia Maitlin, Noa Tishby, is the co-executive producer of HBO’s “In Treatment,” the series where Blair was nominated for a Golden Globe.  
The shoot was covered by “Extra,” and its coverage will air Saturday and Sunday.   (Check local listings.)

(Blair Underwood and Kellita Smith.  PHOTO CREDIT:  Maria Rivera Savoy)

Blair interviewed on the set by "Extra"'s Terri Seymour

(PHOTO CREDIT:  Maria Rivera Savoy) 

            Buy the hardcover too.  But when you’ve read From Cape Town with Love, you won’t want to miss the Vook.