Mel Sterling started writing stories in elementary school and wrote her first full-length novel in a spiral-bound notebook at age twelve. Her favorite Christmas present was a typewriter and a ream of paper. After college, she found herself programming computers and writing technical documentation. A few years ago, she rediscovered romance writing during a bout of insomnia and began to indulge her passion with a vengeance. She lives with her computer geek husband in a quiet happy house full of books, animals and ideas. She has a category romance out with Harlequin, and her new dark fantasy, Trueheart, first in the Portland After Dark series, is out January 12, 2016.