Carolina Garcia-Aguilera - Mystery...Cuban Style

Carolina Garcia-Aguilera has always loved solving puzzles. As a child, she lost herself in the exploits of Sherlock Holmes, Nancy Drew, and the Hardy Boys. As an adult, she decided to pen some mysteries of her own.  Since she thought it was important to write what she knew, this mother of three became a licensed private investigator so that she could write from experience. Twenty-two years and nine novels later, Garcia-Aguilera is a prize-winning author and the head of her own PI firm.

Bloody Waters, Garcia-Aguilera’s debut novel, is the story of a couple searching for the birth mother of their adoptive daughter, a toddler suffering from a rare disease that requires a bone marrow transplant from her biological mother. Adoption is a subject that has always interested Garcia-Aguilera. “My best friend growing up was adopted. She never felt the need to find out about her birth parents, but when she turned twenty-one she received a manila envelope containing information about them. I was there when she opened it. She found out that she was actually Canadian. I thought about how strange that would feel, to discover you weren’t who you thought you were.”  The Miami Herald praised the Bloody Waters as “Fascinating…witty…compelling.”

Bloody Waters introduced Lupe Solano, a Cuban-born Miami PI with a penchant for Chanel bags, strong Cuban coffee,  and luxury cars. “Lupe is like the traditional male private eye in that she’s a loner and will do whatever she thinks will serve her client,” Garcia-Aguilera explains, “but I wanted her to be intelligent, fashionable, and fun.” Lupe’s exploits continued in Garcia-Aguilera’s next five novels, a series she describes as “fun page-turners that entertain and educate.” In addition to the mystery at the core of each story  is a subplot that involves an element of Cuban history, culture, or politics. “I don’t think the Cuban story has been told in a forthright manner,” Garcia-Aguilera says. “I wanted to instill a little about Cuban exile history.” She has a firsthand knowledge of the Cuban experience. Born in Havana to a family with deep roots in Cuban culture, Garcia-Aguilera immigrated to the US one year after the Cuban revolution.

When her contract for the Solano series ended, Garcia-Aguilera decided to change editors, agents, and genre. She penned two stand-alone novels: One Hot Summer, a book she describes as “a cynical love story about adultery” which was later featured as a Lifetime TV movie; and Luck of the Draw, a thriller set in Las Vegas.  Lupe Solano will return in Garcia-Aguilera’s next novel, Bloody Twist. In this seventh book of the series, Lupe is hired by an attorney  to aid in the defense of the highest-paid call girl in Miami Beach - a virgin (yes, you read that right!) who has been accused of murdering of three men. Bloody Twist has been completed and is awaiting publication.

When Garcia-Aguilera isn’t writing or working on a case, she enjoys reading, going to the gym, and baking “well-liquored cakes.” She is also determined to be “the only person on South Beach with an English garden.” But most of all, she wants to continue entertaining her readers with books that will inspire them to say, “She tells a good story!”

For more about Carolina Garcia Aguilera, visit her website at http://www.carolinagarciaaguilera.com/

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