Melissa has been a book junkie her entire life. When she wasn't locked away in a practice room studying etudes and musical excerpts over and over again (she was a music major in college), she could be found in the library reading almost everything she could get her hands on.
One of her favorite books as a child was Bunnicula (the Vampire Rabbit). When she was a little bit older, she fell in love with Robin McKinley’s books Beauty and The Blue Sword. When she was in high school, she read Gone With the Wind and Pride & Prejudice at least a dozen times each. She’s not ashamed to admit it.
Melissa still remembers vividly the first time she read Mercedes Lackey’s Arrows of the Queen. She was at the local public library, tucked away at a reading cube near wall-to-wall windows which happened to be located right under an air vent. It was summer and hot outside, which meant that the air conditioning was on full-blast. She sat there freezing her tooshie off, her fingers frozen in claws trying to prop open the book, while she shivered in place. She couldn’t put the book down, she needed to know what happened next.
Melissa is currently living in California, couch surfing at her parent’s house (ah the joys of being single and being free to make this choice). She works for the U.S. Foreign Service. She’s served at U.S. Embassies Port-au-Prince, Haiti and Vienna, Austria.