A Rake by Midnight

A short conversation with Gail Ranstrom will convince readers that she should have written a book titled "Jobs I Have Had. " Before taking up the pen, her work experience ran the gamut from a seamstress making waitress uniforms for a German beer garden, to inventory clerk at the University of Montana where she was attacked by a chimpanzee, stepped on dead lab rats in dark basements and located missing satellite spy cameras in--oh, wait, that's classified--to advertising coordinator and PR writer. Most recently Gail was a commercial property manager in the Los Angeles area, troubleshooting incidents as wide ranging as having a SWAT team surrounding one of her buildings, a naked men in the ladies' restroom and rattlesnakes coiled in front of tenants' doors. In between, she partnered with a good friend in an antique business. Don't even get her started on her experiences at antique auctions! She enjoys traveling frequently to see her children in Montana and Florida and to visit friends and a brother in London. As an unabashed Anglophile, she says she could easily spend months in the Cotswolds, an entire summer in Scotland or a year in London. Sometimes that "other Eden" feels more like home to her than her real home. Gail writes historical romance fiction because she loses herself in the past more completely than she can in the present or future. Combine that with her lifelong love of words and reading, the desire to entertain and the fact that she's too shy to do stand-up comedy, and what was left?To aid her in writing romance fiction, she credits fabulous friendships with remarkable women, from family and bridge clubs to work mates and writers' groups. They are the models for her heroines: strong, intelligent and beautiful, while still managing to be caring and vulnerable and very human. Gail says that it is their strength of character and grace under fire that have been her inspiration. And every hero must be a man worthy of them. Readers can contact Gail at GailRanstrom@cs. com.