P. J. Rands

I am the third child of six. I was born and grew up in Southern California. I did well in school and won a scholarship to Brigham Young University.

I earned a B.A. in Spanish as well as an M.B.A. from BYU. I interrupted my undergraduate studies to spend six months in Europe--four months at the University of Nancy, France and two months waiting tables in a restaurant in Bern, Switzerland. While at BYU, I met and married Sandi who had earned a degree in French.

I taught English in Puerto Rico, worked for an international bank in Mexico City and Chicago, owned and managed a computer training company, and lastly taught business software applications to inmates at a federal prison. Sandi and I reside in Oregon and will soon celebrate our 45th wedding anniversary. We have five children and twelve grandchildren, all living on the U.S. west coast. These days, I write, play pickleball, and serve in various volunteer positions.

In the 1990's I became an avid genealogist. While studying about my Rands' ancestors' 20-year sojourn (1848 to 1868) in Cape Town, I learned about Portugal's age of discovery and it's 15th century activities in Africa. One incident in that era by King Joćo II caught my attention and became the inspiration for The Portuguese Gambit.

I'm currently working on my second novel with working title False Parting. The work is inspired and informed by my Rands' ancestors' rail and wagon journey from New York City to Salt Lake City in 1868. Future projects include a family saga of my wife's ancestors from Switzerland in the late 1600's to Wurttemberg and on to Philadelphia just before the American Revolutionary War. I've also planning a series of novels about a teenage boy and his widowed mother based in various Hanseatic League towns in northern Europe in the 15th Century.