About Melissa

Faced with telling you all about me, I realized...I'm not very interesting! So, rather than bore you with useless trivia about my life, [I was an only child, born and raised in Texas], I'll share the story of how I came to be a writer.

First and foremost, I am a reader. Some of my best memories are of my mother taking me to the local library every week during the summer to check out armloads of books. I could hardly wait to get home, dive into the stories, and get lost in a whole new, wonderful world. My prized possession as a girl was an entire shelf of Nancy Drew Mysteries. I adored Nancy Drew.

My first experience with writing a book came at age 13. I developed a fascination with genealogy and, after spending time visiting older relatives to gather information, I found I had all sorts of wonderful family stories. What on earth could I do with all those [mostly false] tales? Why, I'd write a sweeping, 600+ page novel of course! A tale of life through several generations, spanning two centuries. It would be fantastic.

Armed with purpose and enthusiasm, I sat down at my big typewriter, [yes, I'm dating myself...typewriter, not keyboard], and began Page One. Hours later I had almost completed two whole pages. [double spaced, of course]. Hmmmmm... An entire day and I had barely two pages to show for it? [rather boring pages, at that].

Maybe I wasn't cut out to be an author after all.

In spite of my writing setback, I retained my passion for books. I simply concentrated on reading other people's books. Lots of books. All kinds of books. Until I discovered Romance. Finally, a world I could escape to where I knew I'd always find a happy ending! I devoured them, literally reading hundreds.

Years passed before the writing bug seriously bit again. I was working in downtown Denver and, as so many writers advised, every lunch hour I took my pad and pen [actually, I preferred a pencil] and headed for my favorite coffee shop to spend my 50 minutes writing.

Unfortunately, my favorite coffee shop was in a book store. Invariably, I'd end up writing nothing. There were too many fascinating people to watch, too many interesting conversations to hear and then, of course, there were all the books to distract me.

Still, I had these two characters living in my head, wanting their story told...

Then came the summer we took our second family vacation to Scotland. On the Black Isle [ which isn't black or even an isle ], near the pretty little town of Rosemarkie, we parked our rented car and hiked back into a magically beautiful placed called Fairy Glen. Resting on a large rock at the edge of a waterfall and pool, lulled by the lush nature of the setting, I suddenly realized THIS was the place for Cate and Connor. For the remainder of that trip, I'd catch glimpses of them, in a castle, standing at the foot of a crumbling staircase, or riding through a highland meadow.

Once I finally sat down at my keyboard and decided the time had come to give those two life, I found, amazingly enough, they weren't the only characters running around in my head. There were a bunch of them... all clamoring for their own turn!

My GOAL, as a writer, is to give each of those noisy characters a life in their own story.

My HOPE, as a writer, is that you'll enjoy reading their stories as much as I enjoy writing them!