The Promise of Paradise by Allie Boniface - Virtual Tour and Giveaway

Today author Allie Boniface visits on her tour with Goddess Fish Promotions for the contemporary romance novel, "The Promise of Paradise".

Allie will be awarding a $10 Amazon OR B&N Gift Card AND an e-copy of any of her backlist (winner's choice) to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour, so leave a comment today and follow the rest of her tour by clicking on the banner above.

Allie bravely shared five things about herself we might not have guessed. Allie, the floor is yours!

Thank you so much for having me here today! If you visit my website or read any of my official author bios, you'll find that in addition to writing romance novels, I'm a full-time English teacher, I'm married, and I love to travel. Want to know some of the nuttier, more random facts about my life?

1. I clean up after cats every Saturday morning. For the last 5 years, I've volunteered at a local animal shelter. Each weekend I go to the "cat house," where I clean litter boxes, change fleece blankets, and give the kitties lots and lots of attention. In fact, last month I helped out with a massive hoarding rescue. I fostered 2 very scared strays for a couple of weeks and am currently playing foster mom to a mother cat and her kitten. What can I say? I'm a softy when it comes to animals. Just remember, Mahatma Gandhi once said, "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way in which its animals are treated."

2. I once hiked the Alps in a 2-day rainstorm. My husband, sister, and brother-in-law and I traveled to Germany, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic one summer. While the men stayed in Munich and enjoyed the Hofbrauhaus, my sister and I decided to hike the Alps. It was beautiful. It was accessible (believe it or not, it's really tough to get lost, because the trails are well marked). And it rained the entire 2 days we were up there. Ugh. I remember lots of fog and soggy socks and shoes. I'd love to do it again – but only if it's sunny next time!

3. I don't eat cooked fruit. I know, it's weird. But I never have. I think it's a texture thing; I love fresh fruit and could eat it all day long. But when it's warm and mushy, something about my taste buds revolts. This means I don't eat apple pie, blueberry muffins, oatmeal raisin cookies, strawberry shortcake...

4. I had a pen pal all through college. I met a guy one summer when I was nineteen who went to a college in a different state. We hit it off but never dated, and he turned out to be one of those amazing people who liked to write letters. Long ones. Detailed ones. Observations on everyday life, the future, the past, our friendship, favorite books and movies...for the next 5 years or so, we exchanged letters every month. They were old-fashioned, handwritten, and I loved opening my mailbox and discovering them. It truly was a treasured friendship.

5. One of my favorite places to write when I was a teenager was the local cemetery. Kind of weird, right? But it was beautiful and peaceful and quiet – no one ever interrupted me! It was only about a quarter-mile from our house, quite small, and very old. I loved looking at the dates on the headstones, how far back they went and the names and ages of the people buried there. In summer, I would sit in the grass, notepad on my knees, and scribble down poems and ideas for stories.

So there you have it! 5 quirky things about Yours Truly – and yes, all of them in some way have affected my writing. Happy reading!

Harvard grad Ashton Kirk is headed for a promising law career when scandal breaks apart her family. To escape, she changes her name and rents an apartment in the small town of Paradise, New Hampshire, where no one knows who she is.

Ash hopes for solitude, but all bets are off when Eddie West, the town’s most eligible bachelor, moves in downstairs. The sexy auto mechanic loves his women and his cars shiny, sleek, and fast, and when he meets his new housemate, he wastes no time getting friendly. But Eddie is nursing his own recent loss, and the last thing he wants to do is let someone new into his life or his heart.

Can two people from different worlds find common ground and a place to fall in love? Or will Ashton’s past and Eddie’s scars keep them apart just as summer heat brings them together? Is it possible to find your soul mate in the place you least expect?

Enjoy an excerpt:

“You okay?” Eddie glanced over his shoulder.

“Yeah. Just resting.” Ash reached for another chair, but this one sprung open when she touched it, and the next thing she knew, it had pinched her finger in its hinge. Hard.

“Ow! Dammit.” Yanking the finger free, she blinked back tears. “That hurt.” A blood blister welled up immediately, and she put it to her mouth to try and suck away the pain.

In an instant Eddie was there. He reached for her hand and held it under the weak light that shone out from the kitchen. “Ouch. That’s gonna sting for a while.”

“No kidding.”

He looked at her, concern in his eyes, and suddenly Ash knew she was in trouble. Big, huge, complicated trouble. She felt as if someone had pushed her out of a plane from about a million miles up, and in that moment on the roof, when Eddie held her hand in his, she fell and kept falling, past the point where she knew whether it was right or wrong, to some bottomless, buoyant space where all she wanted to do was stay in his gaze forever.

“Ash? You okay? You want some ice?”

God, she loved the way the words sounded in his mouth. She loved the way he took her nickname and made it sound like no one else ever had. Even the pinpricks of desire Colin had once stirred now seemed like long-dead embers.

“No, I think it’s—” She couldn’t finish the thought, not with his eyes on her like that. She wanted to pull her hand away, to run the finger under cold water and make the sting go away. But she couldn’t move. Eddie’s gaze traveled from her hand to her face, and in the next instant there was no more space between them: no floor, no rooftop, barely any air at all.

Allie Boniface is a small-town girl at heart who's traveled around the world and still finds that the magic and the mystery of small towns make them the best places to fall in love and find adventure. From the New England coast to Rocky Mountain hotels to tiny European bars, she's found more character and plot inspirations than she could ever count. Currently, she's lucky enough to live in New York's beautiful Hudson Valley with her own "Hometown Hero," a guy who can fix, build, drive, and grill anything and is the epitome of the strong and silent type.

When she isn't writing love stories, Allie is a full-time high school English teacher who gets a kick out of helping her teenagers negotiate the ups and downs of writing along with the ups and downs of life (because, really, she's still trying to do the same thing!). And while she'll continue to travel far and wide, Allie knows there's really nothing like coming back to the place where the people who have known you forever welcome you home with open arms.

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