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