Take a shy bookworm from Montana. Hand her a stack of her much older brother’s sci-fi and fantasy novels, James Bond books and horror comics. Later, introduce Barbara Cartland and the world of romance fiction. Get her a teaching job or two in authentic, one room Montana schools, ala Laura Ingels Wilder. Marry her off to a great guy, move her to a big city in Tornado Alley, then pop three daughters out of her in twenty-two months(one set of identical twins). Then, make her a jinx–every great genre TV show she loves gets the ax– Beauty and the Beast, Dark Angel–and Buffy and Spike never have a happy ending! She gets upset about no romance in the world, and fires up to write her own stories with happy endings. Throw this all together into a small house in Wyoming, along with a small bouncy dog and too many cats, shake constantly and pour it out onto a computer keyboard. There! You have me, Melisse Aires.