Gail Hamilton

My love of stories started with bedtime tales of a black Irish pony that competed against a feisty palomino from Canada. Every night, some adventure prevented either pony from winning the silver cup. The novelist in me began when my little brain suddenly grasped the plot problem. "You don't want the Irish pony to lose," Canadian me cried to my Irishman father. "And you can't let the Canadian one lose either." The story could never end. Fine by me.

My first novels were romances filled with Sahara sands, blizzards in Labrador, life and death passion in the catacombs of Paris, deception in Peru and pure fun as my urban lovers try to survive a wilderness canoe trip fraught with bugs, bears and forest fires.

My historical novel, The Tomorrow Country , is a plunge into the lives of London street children, those fighting to rescue them, skullduggery on every level and the shocking upheavals that make the Victorian era so spellbinding. The Accidental Bootlegger, follows those same children coming of age in Canada as they battle obstacle after obstacle for brave new lives of their own.

I've done all kinds of other writing along the way, including heavy-duty resources for the marketers and fundraisers among us. But my favourite is creating stories and more are on the way. The best place to do this is right where I live, on the family farm in beautiful rural Ontario.