At age ten, Shara Lanel thought research meant hopping aboard the local steam engine and writing the equivalent of The Great Train Robbery. Nowadays as a multi-published, award-winning author, she gets hands-on research at her local Citizens’ Police and Fire Academies. She’s much better at walking down the side of a building than she is at firing a gun, but she swears her characters are great shots, hitting the bulls-eye with the villains and the heart. Don’t put her in the kitchen unless you want to burn it down, and her green thumb is hit-or-miss, but she excels as a bibliophile, hoping she never has to pack up and move, since her hubby might see just how many volumes she really has.