This week my guest is Patricia C. Hernández, although you might know her by a few other names such as Tricia Lee, Lea Chan, Patrice de Chauncy or Chancey Hernandez. No, she’s not a criminal on the run and trying to hide her true identity – she’s a writer, and one whom I enjoy. She writes romance and mystery, along with children’s books. In fact, keeping it in the family, her granddaughter has created the covers for her children’s stories. I’m glad you could be with us this week, Pat.

Marja:  Patricia, please fill us in on a bit of your background. What made you decide you needed to write?

Patricia:  Hi Marja, and thanks so much for inviting me. The first five years of my life were spent on a farm in east central Oklahoma during WWII. We had no water or electricity but had a cistern a few feet away from the kitchen door. Heat was provided by a coal burning stove and a wood burning stove. (No need to dwell on the outhouse.) My mother was a city girl who had married a country guy. The change from all the luxuries of city living to country living must have been quite an ordeal for her but she handled it quite well. Okay, this is leading up to my great love of stories and eventually reading and writing. My mother read stories to my little brother and me all the time and one of my older cousins would walk down the road to listen to them also. All three of us became lifelong bookworms. I’m sure that early introduction to childhood stories led to my desire to write. I’ve never thought of “needing” to write unless feeling compelled to write is the same thing. I can’t imagine not writing.

Marja:  What an interesting story. It touches my heart. You’ve created a very interesting island called Palmaltas for some of your stories. You even show a bit of political turmoil in this location. How did you come up with the idea for this fictional location?

Patricia:  In 1969 I worked for Sears in Laredo, Texas and asked for a transfer to Sears in Puerto Rico.  I was by then a single mom with a son who was almost three years old. I saved money, left Laredo and went to Puerto Rico. The first hotel we stayed in is the one described in my first published (not the first one I wrote) novel, The Pig Farm. The antics of the residents in that hotel stayed with me forever.

In 1993 I went to England and stayed with a friend (a British naval officer) whom I had met some 20 years previously in Puerto Rico. I told him about my dream to be a novelist and the stories in my head. He told me in so many words to put up or shut up about writing. So, one evening I sat down in his living room and wrote the first draft of The Pig Farm. (Please note that I had already written the draft for a romance novel and a novella but hadn’t done anything with them.) I wanted the island to be a fictional one so I could create my own landmarks and fictional society, although much of it does resemble Puerto Rico on a much smaller scale. We got out a map of the Caribbean and picked out a location for this island. Then we started discussing names for the island. I settled on Palmaltas because it’s shortened from palmas altas, Spanish for tall palm trees.

Marja:  I have to admit it is kind of fun to dream up a fictional location and give it whatever type of “personality” you want to. I appreciate the fact that many of your stories include humor. What made you decide to write with humor? Is it difficult?

Patricia:  I don’t think that was something I decided. It just happens. The residents of the Pig Farm hotel were totally nutty from my perspective as were the apartment residents in The Pool Lizards, the sequel to The Pig Farm. I observe people and seem to see craziness that no one else sees. When I was writing Who’ll Kill Agnes?, the characters, especially the police chief and his assistant, weren’t too terribly bright. I knew I couldn’t create policemen who were smarter than I was. The scene where Marcel, the fake French chef, offers them canapés just popped into my head and had even me laughing out loud. There are other scenes I have written, which turned out to be funny but I had no idea they were. That happened in my romance novel A Colorado Destiny when my hero undertakes a stakeout with various disguises. I worried about those scenes and asked a romance novelist friend who read the manuscript if I should omit them. She told me to leave them in. When my editor at Wings was editing the manuscript, she e-mailed me and said she literally laughed out loud. Curious, I immediately went back and read that section and I laughed also.

Marja:  I have to admit, it made me laugh, too. By the way, I thought Who'll Kill Agnes? had a bit of a Hitchcock edge to it. And what are you working on now? (As if I didn’t know. I love the title.)

Patricia:  I guess you mean Death by Salsa. It’s almost ready for submission. I need to work on the dialogue for two of the main characters—two husbands who are clueless about what they are doing and take everyone at face value, never suspecting they might be involved in murder. Last year I wrote the draft for The Groundhog Lounge, which ends my human zoo trilogy started by The Pig Farm and The Pool Lizards. As you know, no animals were harmed in these books. In fact there aren’t any animals—except for the humans. As soon as I polish Death by Salsa, I will do the same with The Groundhog Lounge.

Marja:  Great titles! Who are some of your favorite authors, and have any of them influenced the way you write?

Patricia:  Mary Stewart probably influenced my desire to write about romance and adventure in other countries. My Tricia Lee and Patrice de Chauncy personas will cover those stories. My current favorite authors are Janet Evanovich, Carl Hiaasen and Elmore Leonard. And in my opinion, there is no one funnier than the late, great P.G. Wodehouse. I don’t think any of them influenced the way I write unless it was subliminal. I have no idea why I write the way I do.

Marja:  Just for the heck of it, what are you reading right now?

Patricia:  Double for Death by Rex Stout, his first of three novels featuring Tecumseh Fox. I went online trying to find a Nero Wolfe that I hadn’t read and stumbled upon Tecumseh. I had no idea that Stout had created another detective besides Wolfe.

Marja: I didn’t know that either. You have some very interesting titles for your books. How do you come up with these? The Pig Farm and The Pool Lizards definitely got my attention.

Patricia:  The Pig Farm is part of the plot although no pigs or farms appear in the novel. I wanted all three books in the trilogy to have an animal in the title. The Pool Lizards was inspired by the term lounge lizards. As for The Groundhog Lounge, I hope you will be intrigued enough to want to read it to find out why I chose that title.

Marja:  Absolutely. Do you ever use real life experiences in your books?

Patricia: Yes, The Pig Farm for the most part is based on a real adventure I had in Puerto Rico. I changed the names of the characters, except for one, and the narrator is a composite of many male chauvinists I’ve met.

Marja:  Sounds like you’ve met a few. When you’re not writing, what do you enjoy doing?

Patricia:  Right now, it’s mostly reading and cooking. Travel was always a passion but at this time of my life, I need to write all those stories bouncing around in my head.

Marja:  Is there anything in particular you’d like people to know about your and/or your books?

Patricia: I have probably told more than you ever wanted to know. My mystery novel The Chameleon Chase will be available on Kindle this month and soon in paperback. Of all the things I’ve written, it’s my favorite and I have no idea why. Although it has an animal in the title, it’s not part of the zoo trilogy.

Marja: Patricia, it’s been a pleasure having you visit today. I’ll be watching for The Chameleon Chase, and I hope you’ll come back again. And here's a preview of the book cover.

Patricia: Thank you so much, Marja, I have enjoyed this immensely and appreciate the opportunity.

If you enjoyed this interview, take a run over to Patricia’s blog  at palmaltas.blogspot.com/ where I’m doing an interview. This has been fun for both of us.

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And coming in February from Oak Tree Press, Bogey’s Ace in the Hole – A Bogey Man Mystery