Get Caught Reading Patricia Taylor Wells

Staff Blogger

C.A. Casey

Every book follows its own path. A novel can take an infinite number of paths to tell a story, and each will produce a work with varying degrees of successful storytelling. So the most important, and often the most difficult, decision a writer makes is how they're going to tell a story. Since stories are about characters, this decision usually means answering a simple question. Whose story is it? If it's one person's story, great. Then you just have to decide first or third person? If it's a two person story, great. Strictly two person point of view, or something more flexible? Once the protagonists are decided, the decision-making comes from how to present them using point of view.

Now what if a submission has seemingly equal multiple points of view, both male and female, and your submission guidelines say, must have a female protagonist? That's what we had when The Eyes of the Doe by Patricia Taylor Wells landed in our pile of submissions. We liked it but who's the protagonist? Well, the secret behind The Eyes of the Doe is the heart of the story is autobiographical. In fact, Patricia has admitted she's often not sure where her real life leaves off and fiction begins when she writes. In the end, it really doesn't matter because the only way to capture the appropriate pathos for The Eyes of the Doe is to allow the reader to experience the aftermath of a single traumatic event through several different people. As one reviewer put it, "I couldn't put it down. The multiple point of view approach was an adventure into the complexity of emotions."

Patricia loves to write and doesn't limit herself to one genre. LodeStar and the soon to be published, Kaleidoscope, are poetry collections, Mademoiselle Renoir à Paris is a autobiographical novella, and The Sand Rose is a novel, once again based on her own experiences, this time living and working in Saudi Arabia as a young single woman.

What's Patricia working on next? Well, let's just say, it's something that requires a lot of historical research and quite a departure from her previous work. But there's no doubt it'll have her special touch in the telling of the story.

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The Eyes of the Doe

"I loved this book. It brought back memories of the 60s to me . . . the way of life, the struggles, the heartbreak & the love from grandmothers."

Mademoiselle Renoir à Paris

The whole world was on fire in 1968. A young girl attending school in Paris, becomes a witness of the aftermath of the May riots that nearly brought about the collapse of France.

LodeStar

"Every poem captivated me and transported me somewhere else. Another time, another place, another season. A true work of brilliance."

The Sand Rose

"The native dress, Saudi customs and male friendships flow throughout the descriptive narrative making this reader thankful for our freedoms we take for granted in the US."

Kaleidoscope

Watch for it, September 2022.