Melina Morel http://www.melinamorel.com Books: Smolder, January 2010 Prey, September 2008 Devour, October 2007

Melina Morel

Born in New Jersey, I've lived there all my life, with four years away at college in New York metro area. Since childhood I've enjoyed reading, especially anything with a foreign setting, and in eighth grade I created a play in which my classmates and I acted.

In college I enjoyed meeting people from various backgrounds and visiting New York City. Who knew that when I started working at a large school that many of my students would also be foreign born? In my teaching career, I've worked with students who came from all over the Caribbean, Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Venezuela, and Bangladesh. And those are the countries I can remember. My colleagues were equally diverse.

I've loved history all my life — ever since I was a child — and trips to Europe have given me a great opportunity to visit the places where so many favorite historical characters actually lived.

Writing a paranormal was a challenge for me since history was always my first love, and in fact, I published two historical novels set in Europe and Russia a while ago under a different name. Creating DEVOUR, a novel about werewolves and vampires was much different, and in writing it I had to be aware of the dual nature of shape-shifters and how much that nature can influence their lives. Vampires have other considerations, of course and can be quite snooty about shifters. Nobody can be quite as crushing as a vamp with attitude.

Putting so much time into creating Pierre the werewolf in DEVOUR led me to consider other shapeshifters, and out of that came PREY, the story of two werecats whose love affair broke all the rules in their clans' traditions and involved them with an international conspiracy of rogue werecats on two continents.

Creating a paranormal world was a lot of fun, and always exciting. In my own life, I enjoy mundane human activities like going to the shore, visiting new places, going to the movies, the theatre or the opera. Most of all, I love getting together with old friends and enjoying good company and Italian cooking.