Patricia V. Davis

Patricia V. Davis wasn't published until after the age of fifty. She spent the first forty years of her life vying for Best Daughter and Best Wife awards. When she realized none too soon that neither of those awards would be forthcoming despite grueling exertions on her part, she ditched the effort, and finally started on the writing career she'd longed for since she was twelve. Her first writings were non-fiction, conceived with the aim of encouraging women to think and live for themselves. When literary agent Peter Beren came across a blog post she'd written that had gone viral, "Ten Things I'd Tell My Younger Self", he signed her, and a humorous self-help book based on that post, The Diva Doctrine: 16 Universal Principles Every Woman Needs to Know, was published soon after by Cedar Fort Press.

A Deseret News review states, "Davis is like the cool aunt who tells it like it is. With two failed marriages and 50 years of life lessons under her belt, she's comfortable with her role as a horrible warning rather than a good example."

A northern California-based writer, her work to educate and empower women caught the attention of Maria Shriver, who was the First Lady of the state at the time. Shriver invited Patricia to her Women's Conference, being held in Long Beach, and the only available hotel room was on the RMS Queen Mary, an historic ship permanently docked there, and utilized (before Covid hit) as a hotel and museum. At the time, Patricia was unaware that the ship was rumored to be haunted, but during her stay aboard, an experience she calls "mind-blowing" became the inspiration for her first novel, Cooking for Ghosts: Book I in The Secret Spice Café Trilogy. It tells the story of four diverse women who meet on a food blogging site, and decide on impulse to open a restaurant together aboard the modern-day ship. They know little about one another, in particular that they're each hiding a secret, one or two of which might be dangerous. The women are surrounded by ghosts even before they board the ship. Once they do, nothing is quite what it seems. Books II and III complete the series: Spells and Oregano, and Demons, Well-Seasoned, respectively.

The novel trilogy was completed in 2019. It was indescribably gratifying to a writer who'd waited far too long to pursue her dreams for the series to receive the accolades it has, including stellar reviews and a book blurb from magician David Copperfield. With the help of Gordon Warnock at Fuse Literary Agency, Tantor Media purchased the audio rights, and released the series in 2020, with a brilliant narration by actress Ann Marie Gideon. The Queen Mary marketing team embraced the novels as well, initiating what was to be a yearly event aboard the ship, The Secret Spice Café Dinner and Tour. Davis felt launched in her career, as well as vindicated for having gone after it.

Only moments later, it seemed, Covid shut down the ship's hotel operations, and all in-person book events. A veritable swarm of authors took to online promotions. Davis planned to wait it out in her and her husband's rural home in Nicolaus, California, where they live part-time. The house sits in front of a walnut orchard, about three miles from her husband's family rice farm. It was the first time Patricia had been in the area during the spring planting season, and she soaked up the beauty of the blooming orchards, the greening rice fields, and the warmth of the tiny, close-knit community. And then she read about the Juan Corona serial killings which had occurred there decades earlier.

All of it-the beautiful and the profane-inspired her first screenplay, a Get Out- meets-Twin Peaks feature thriller, Lyvia's House. As of this writing, the film is completed, and garnering several accolades at fests, including one for Best Female Scriptwriter from the Toronto Women's Film Festival. Lyvia's House was also granted a prize from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Yuba Sutter Arts Council.