La Paloma by Willard Thompson - Book Tour - Guest Posts - Giveaway - Enter Daily!

Hello, lovelies!  It gives me great pleasure today to host Willard Thompson and his new book, “La Paloma”!  For other stops on his Goddess Fish Promotions Book Tour, please click on the banner above or any of the images in this post.

Be sure to make it to the end of this post to enter to win a $15 Amazon or Barnes and Noble Gift Card!!  Also, come back daily to interact with Willard and to increase your chances of winning!

Thanks for stopping by!  Wishing you lots of luck in this fabulous giveaway!

La Paloma

by Willard Thompson

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GENRE: Suspense/Adventure/Romance

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BLURB:

When Teresa Diaz's father is arrested in an ICE raid in a Los Angeles area city and deported back to Mexico, her family begins to come apart. She is a student at UCLA on a scholarship for undocumented aliens (Dreamers) looking to have a life in the U.S. in communications. Her brother in High school and her elementary school sister begin having serious troubles without a father in the household.

At work in a fast-food drive-through, Teri, as she wants to be known is approached by a Mexican gangbanger who offers to take you to her father. Doubting the guy wants more than picking her up, she resists, but day by day, as her sister is sent home from school and her brother is brought home dunk by the police, she gives in and goes across the border with him. Against her wishes, he takes her to a beach house in Tijuana and leaves her. She learns that illegal activities are going on in the house but without transportation, and without a birth certificate --either Mexican or American-- she can't cross the border alone.

After several days, virtually a prisoner, the owner of the house, a fat woman known as Mama Gorda arranges to get her across the border with a young Mexican man who rides a fast motorcycle. On the way, he takes her to lunch and there offers to talk her deeper into Mexico to find her father. She agrees, travels in his private plane and begins a romance while searching for her father in Michoacan state. The more she becomes involved, the more she is involved in activities she doesn't understand but suspects they're illegal.

Returning to Monte Vista, her LA area home, still without her father, she finds she can no longer return to UCLA, seeks a job, connects with a Latina who bullied her he school. When her brother is arrested for jobbery, Teri returns to Mexico seeking help from the people she suspects to belong to a cartel.

Ultimately, she is sponsored by the people in Mexico to participate in the Miss Mexico contest, not realizing it is the Cartel that is promoting her. In the end, she will face a life-changing decision whether to continue her romance with the son of the cartel's head or try to stand on her own. And whether to remain in Mexico or return to LA.

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EXCERPT THREE:

Javier looks over at me from the pilot’s seat. He must have noticed my clenched hands, or my pallor or the way I sit slumped down in the seat. “First flight in a small plane?” he asks.

“First flight, period.”

He laughs. “An American girl like you has never flown?”

I think I hear a hint of sarcasm in his voice when he says, “American girl.”

I am an American girl, but not a privileged one. Mama wasn’t anxious to go any place that might require IDs. There was no extra money for vacations to places that required a plane ticket. At first, our family spent all our holidays with Rogelio and Lupe, but after Antonio died, mama and Lupe drifted apart.

“There’s only one place I’d want to go,” papa always answered when the question of travel came up, “back to Michoacán where mama and I grew up. I’d like to show you the beautiful land we came from.” At that, he always paused, getting a kind of sad-eyed look. “But we can’t go there, my little dove. So, we’ll go to Disneyland or Magic Mountain instead.”

To Javier, I’m an American girl, To Ryan, I’m a Latina. Mama Gorda said I was neither. She said I was lost. Who’s right? Who am I? I feel lost in this airplane. I sit up straighter in the cushy leather seat next to Javier.

“I am American,” I tell him. “I guess I’m a pretty naïve one though, jumping into a small plane with a man I hardly know. You think I’m a fool, don’t you? Or something worse.”

“Not a fool, Teresa — please let me call you that — but perhaps too trusting. That could get you in trouble in Mexico. Here it is better to trust no one.”

“Not even you?” I tease.

“Not even me.”

I hadn’t expected that. “Tell me why?”

“Please call me Javier.” His smile is warm and genuine, but he keeps his eyes straight ahead and his hands on the controls.

I wait for more.

Reluctantly, in little bits and pieces, as the plane flies on, he tells me about himself. He says his family is in the export and distribution business. They’ve done well, and he is benefiting from it. A little embarrassed, he says he hasn’t done much to contribute to the family business since graduating from Stanford.

“So why were you at Mama Gorda’s?” The question has bothered me from the start.

His eyes scan the horizon. It’s several seconds before he answers. “We each have our embarrassments,” he starts. “Sometimes it’s good not to ask too many questions. I won’t ask you about what you were doing at Carmen’s house, and I hope you’ll do the same for me. Suffice it to say my family’s company does some distribution work for her. Most of her business is over the Internet, of course, but we deliver some DVDs to L.A.”

“Smuggling, you mean?”

“As I said, some questions should not be asked or answered.”

We fly on in silence and land in Culiacán to refuel. Javier leads me into the tiny airport restaurant where we eat a quick lunch in silence. Questions ricochet in my head like the bullets that killed Antonio. What kind of danger am I in? Am I in danger with Javier? Who are all these people? Ever since I agreed to cross the border with Knobhead, it feels as if one bad decision after another is plaguing me. My life is out of control.

Sitting at a table in the small airport lounge, Javier breaks the silence as I sip an iced tea. “Look, I’m sorry if I shock you. I thought it was better to be honest with you from the start. You don’t understand life in Mexico so let me try to explain—”

“Explain? What’s to explain? You all but said you are a smuggler, Javier. what’s to explain?”

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GUEST POSTS:

World-building can be the most important element of your book.  What media outlets, role-models and real-life inspirations did you draw from while writing this book?

La Paloma is a novel inspired by newspaper headlines. Several stories in the press came together in my head over time to form this story. First, and always for me, the character is primary. To begin with, Teresa Diaz, my primary character, is the recipient of an AB540 scholarship given to an undocumented alien by UCLA. Then she grew into the story of a DREAMer being deported from the U.S. and the uproar over their futures. Then came the border walls built to stop migrants coming across. (we used to call them fences now they’re walls.) Finally, the press was filled with stories about Mexican cartels.

My novel is not a gritty crime story, it’s a coming of age novel about a young undocumented Latina college student searching for her place in the world. Is it Mexico, the land of her birth and heritage? Or is it California, the land of opportunity she has been told to aspire to? Teri Diaz, the primary character, falls down a rabbit hole when her undocumented father is deported to Mexico and she must go in search of him to save her family. Her world and everything she thinks she knows is turned upside down. The story unfolds from there.

Falling in Love with the Main Characters:

I write about strong female characters. All my novels, Dream Helper, Delfina’s Gold, Their Golden Dreams and The Girl from the Lighthouse highlight females who are strong, self-reliant women. Virtually all my reviews stress the believability of my female characters. That doesn’t mean I have a formula, or even know how this happens. But I believe it comes from the organic way I write. That is, I do not plot stories; I let them evolve. Plotting, or deciding ahead what will happen in the story, only creates wooden, improbable stories with wooden improbable characters. Throughout the writing of La Paloma and my other novels, I tend to have an ongoing dialog with my primary characters. On more occasions that I care to mention, I’ve had characters tell me that what I have written for them will not work, that they would not do what I have written for them to do. And yes, they tell me how to correct my errors. When the writing is going well, my character, female or male, and I are in sync, and each character is different from all the others; they all have unique personalities; unique strengths and weaknesses. To be sure they have weaknesses, in fact, that’s often what makes them so real to my readers.

Five Reasons You Should Read My Book:

1.)  La Paloma is partly set in Mexico, a country with a bad reputation right now, but a beautiful, welcoming place, too, with an exciting history that may surprise readers.

2.)  Teresa Diaz is a beautiful Latina who is very committed to her family and knows she must step up when her father is deported.

3.)  La Paloma is not a crime story; it is a suspense/adventure about a young woman searching for her place in the world.

4.)  In one way or another, the questions Teresa faces in La Paloma are questions we all must answer as we become adults.

5.)  La Paloma is an exciting story that keeps the reader turning pages to find out what will happen to Teresa next.

6.)  The introduction to La Paloma is by Ocativo Paz: “To live is to be separated from what we were in order to approach what we are going to be in the mysterious future.”

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AUTHOR BIO:

La Paloma is Willard Thompson new suspense/adventure/romance novel inspired by current headlines. It’s set in present day Los Angeles, California, and various cities in Mexico.

The Girl from the Lighthouse published last year is Thompson's Award-winning historical romance set in California and Paris, France in the 1870s.

He is the gold medal-winning author of Dream Helper, the first in The Chronicles of California series of three historical novels set in the early days of the Golden State. He and his wife live in Santa Barbara, California.

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CONNECT WITH WILLARD:

Website:

http://willardthompsonbooks.com

Blog:

http://willard-thompson.com/blog

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/willard.thompson.737

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/RinconPublish

BookBub Author Page:

https://www.bookbub.com/authors/willard-thompson

Goodreads Author Page:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1878522.Willard_Thompson

Goodreads Book Page:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53187716-la-paloma

Amazon Author Page:

https://amzn.to/2Cp5YEE

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BOOK BUY LINKS:

Amazon Kindle eBook:

https://amzn.to/2KZm37V

Amazon Paperback:

https://amzn.to/2YAFzQ4

Barnes and Noble Paperback:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/la-paloma-willard-thompson/1136266389

The Book Depository Paperback:

https://www.bookdepository.com/La-Paloma-Willard-Thompson/9781734005608

BAM! Books-A-Million Paperback:

https://www.booksamillion.com/p/Paloma/Willard-Thompson/9781734005608

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GIVEAWAY INFO:

Willard will be awarding a $15 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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This contest is sponsored by a third party. Fabulous and Brunette is a registered host of Goddess Fish Promotions.  Prizes are given away by the sponsors and not Fabulous and Brunette. The featured author and Goddess Fish Promotions are solely responsible for the giveaway prize.