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Jaguar Paloma and the Caketown Bar - Book Tour and Giveaway

11/1/2021

50 Comments

 
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Jaguar Paloma and the Caketown Bar
by Jess Wells
Genre: Magical Realism, Historical Fiction 

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In 1865 in the shanty town of Tartatenango, the Caketown Bar is owned by the extraordinary Jaguar Paloma, matriarch of a village that is home to raucous miscreants, cast-off mothers, muleteers, and forgers. Amid drunken monks, a roaring trade in faked marriages just for fun, and the Romani, all balance on the knife-edge between legality and the illicit. Paloma’s life is honed by this community, as their lives are affected by her mystery and magic.

Co-founder of this extraordinary gathering is Orietta Becerra. Breathtakingly beautiful and ambitious, her distillery builds the success of Caketown. But when she crosses the tracks and marries the town’s mayor, her double life severs her friendship with Paloma and the town starts to pay the highest of prices.

Adding to this land of chaos and feminine power is a forger, a murderer, the darker shade of the female heart, and a Civil War that claims men before their time.

Caketown – men want to destroy it. Women want to play in it. The township itself has to fight on all sides to survive.

Told in evocative magical realism, Jaguar Paloma and the Caketown Bar is a tale of wronged women who stand up to be counted.


Goodreads * Amazon

​

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​1875, in the southern country of Calexicobia


Chapter One
1
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After the government had burned it to the ground, it was hard to imagine the Caketown Bar surrounded by a raucous shanty town, home to cast-off mothers and unclaimed children, filled with lively mirth and mayhem together, where every day was a celebration even if not a holiday, where peacocks cawed from the backs of donkeys, and women’s wigs and bunting were playthings for the monkeys in the trees when they stopped playing catch with the dogs. Flowers of unknown origin bloomed in the night and then flew away, and blue mist or green fog rolled in without warning. It was a town where morning was heralded by a rum cask being rolled across a dance floor, and the groggy question of who had arrived in the night; evening announced by the sizzle of lightbulbs in bent sockets and men slapping the dust off their pants with their hard-working hats, women putting a baby to the breast and finally sitting down. Tartatenango, Spanish slang for Caketown, hosted every traveling circus and any Romany family who roamed the southern country of Calexicobia, every soothsayer and shabby hawker of medicinal nonsense, any run-away from the army, convent, or hostile home. No one was turned away for being muddy or misshapen or ragged. Everyone was welcome until proven unworthy and it was just assumed that everyone was on their second chance: at the Caketown Bar, sharing stories of the past was much more intimate than nudity.
In the beginning, seekers from the north trekked through the jungle, veered off a minor mule-train road just after the third hollow acacia tree and followed a wide animal track to find it. Burdened with sadness and loss on top of their possessions, they trudged toward the little town whose name was whispered among the laundresses or spoken low by the cook after a glance over her shoulder. The midwives knew of it, the women of the theater troupes and Romani spoke of it late at night.
Those who used the snaking Magdalena river that was its western boundary had an easier time finding it. The river was calm and narrow at this spot before growing wide and wild as it headed north toward the sea. Boaters set their sights on a beach between two enormous white boulders that were smooth and firm like the breasts of a new mother in the morning.
Its founding was more a protest than a selection. Paloma Marti, who was six foot five, at seventeen far younger than she looked because of her surprising height, saw the hungry glare and familiar danger from the boatmen and two male passengers on the barge she was riding. When the ringleader flashed a knife under the guise of cleaning his nails, she abandoned her small bag and dove off the side of the boat, swimming toward the inviting boulders.


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Jess Wells is the author of six novels and five books of short stories, winner of the Bronze Medal in the 2020 Foreword Reviews Indies Award for Adult Fiction/Romance, the recipient of a San Francisco Arts Commission Grant for Literature, a four-time finalist for the national Lambda Literary Award, and a member of the Saints & Sinners Literary Hall of Fame. Her work has appeared in more than three dozen literary journals and anthologies, has been reprinted in England and translated into Italian and Dutch.


Website * Facebook * Instagram * Bookbub * Amazon * Goodreads


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Animals Carry the Magic in Jaguar Paloma

In fiction, people are driven by motivations that have to be carefully explained and are required to make more logical sense than happens in reality. So, when you’re writing magical realism, how do you introduce magic? In my new novel, Jaguar Paloma and the Caketown Bar, animals fit the bill. Without too many spoiler alerts, here are some of my favorite animals:

-Monkeys steal the wigs from brides and carry them like babies in the jungle
-Crows are harbingers of guilt and entrap a key character
-Insects descend on the village and carry away chicks
-Goats being driven to market won’t leave Paloma’s side, with dire consequences
-Ducks react to Paloma and stockpile eggs like the opposite of cannon balls

There are many more examples and I hope you’ll enjoy discovering them in Jaguar Paloma and the Caketown Bar.


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Follow the tour HERE for special content and a giveaway!

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a Rafflecopter giveaway
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50 Comments
Bernie Wallace
11/1/2021 06:23:15 am

How long did it take you to write your book?

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Kari B
11/1/2021 07:46:41 am

Sounds like a fun world to dive in and town full of characters to get to know.

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Kelly D
11/1/2021 09:31:59 am

The book sounds great, with an interesting plot.

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Beyond Comps
11/1/2021 10:55:07 am

Great cover!

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Rita Wray
11/1/2021 10:55:38 am

Sounds like a good book.

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Sherry
11/1/2021 11:38:51 am

I really like the cover and the excerpt.

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Bea LaRocca
11/1/2021 12:01:49 pm

An intriguing cover, synopsis and excerpt, this sounds like an interesting read. Thank you for sharing your guest post and book details and for offering a giveaway, I have enjoyed reading about you and your work and am looking forward to reading your story

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Marcy Meyer
11/1/2021 12:04:10 pm

The cover looks really pretty. Sounds like a good book.

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Wendy Jensen
11/1/2021 12:17:39 pm

The book details sound great.

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wendy hutton
11/1/2021 12:49:18 pm

love the cover, congrats on the release

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Jon Heil
11/1/2021 01:38:37 pm

Hope doesnt rip the cake to shreads

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Susan Smith
11/1/2021 01:44:37 pm

Sounds like a great book, I like the cover and excerpt.

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Ellie Wright
11/1/2021 04:21:53 pm

Sounds like a great book. I'm looking forward to reading it.

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Abigail Gibson
11/1/2021 04:30:11 pm

Sounds like a great book!

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Paige Chandler
11/1/2021 04:59:48 pm

This is the coolest cover I've seen in a long time. Good work.

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David Basile
11/1/2021 07:01:34 pm

Sounds like a good book

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bn100
11/1/2021 07:42:11 pm

creepy cover

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Terri Quick
11/1/2021 10:23:29 pm

Cool cover

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Debbie P
11/1/2021 10:50:42 pm

This sounds like a great book and I am really looking forward to reading it!

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Thomas Gibson
11/1/2021 10:51:42 pm

Cover looks great! Excerpt sounds interesting.

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Stephanie Liske
11/2/2021 12:59:28 am

I like the book details.

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David Hollingsworth
11/2/2021 01:08:33 am

Very arty and creative cover

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Serge B
11/2/2021 02:40:34 am

I liked the excerpt

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Christina Gould
11/2/2021 10:20:44 am

I love the beautiful cover and the excerpt. Thanks for the giveaway!

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Michele Soyer
11/2/2021 11:40:48 am

Love the cover art - draws me right in.

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beth shepherd
11/2/2021 12:21:58 pm

This looks like a great read.

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Cynthia C
11/2/2021 03:37:56 pm

The excerpt is interesting. Thank you for sharing it.

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Eva Millien
11/2/2021 06:26:10 pm

Nice to meet you, Jess! Jaguar Paloma and the Caketown Bar sounds like a thrilling read and the cover is wicked cool! Thanks for sharing it with me and good luck with the tour and your book!

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Ann Fantom
11/2/2021 06:49:30 pm

This sounds like an interesting book and I also like the cover.

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Leslie Price
11/2/2021 08:14:41 pm

This sounds like a really intriguing and unusual book. I look forward to checking it out!

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Debbi Wellenstein
11/3/2021 01:13:32 pm

I enjoyed the excerpt. Thank you for the giveaway!

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Amy F
11/3/2021 03:41:35 pm

Very cool cover!

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Peggy Salkill
11/3/2021 06:13:05 pm

Love the cover!

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Barbara Montag
11/4/2021 10:46:05 am

I like everything about this - title genre & amazing cover!
Thank you for sharing it with us.

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Julie Lundstrom
11/4/2021 11:02:42 am

I like the cover of this book.

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Karin
11/5/2021 06:49:05 am

Great excerpt

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Tiffany S
11/7/2021 05:06:34 pm

I think the book sounds great.

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sarah s
11/10/2021 10:22:07 pm

sounds interesting that they were going to fake marriages

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Carolsue
11/22/2021 01:14:03 am

The review is amazing! I'd love to read this book!
digicats {at} sbcglobal {dot} net

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Carol G
11/30/2021 12:08:15 pm

I am always interested in learning about new books that I might like to read.

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Jen R
11/30/2021 03:58:52 pm

This book sounds like an interesting mix of history and fun. I love the beautiful book cover.

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Daniel M
11/30/2021 04:45:03 pm

like the cover

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Sarah L
12/1/2021 01:57:16 am

Looks like an interesting book.
Thanks for the contest. 

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Jen L
12/1/2021 10:21:34 am

That's a breathtaking cover!

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ASHLEIGH HACK
12/1/2021 11:14:10 am

NO QUESTIONS, CANT WAIT TO READ

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Christina Pearce
12/1/2021 01:50:59 pm

I like this because it sounds so different than the usual books I read.

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Marie Cantelli
12/1/2021 05:55:02 pm

This cover is everything. So freaking beautiful. Art

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jennifer galindo
12/1/2021 06:19:19 pm

What a twist on a pure name. Paloma means dove so pure and sweet and yes this one is tinged red and full of sin. I love it!

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jose rosado
12/1/2021 06:37:12 pm

What do you think of the book details? Do you have any questions for the author?

Who could play Jaguar Paloma in a movie??

THX

Reply
Sand
12/1/2021 10:34:21 pm

Sounds like a great book!

Reply



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