Melody Heck Gatto

I was born and raised in the Steel City, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Home of the Pittsburgh Penguins, Steelers, and Pirates. We are famous for Mario Lemieux, Sidney Crosby, Pierogis, saying “yinz”, and sandwiches with coleslaw and French fries on them (just to name a few). I live with my husband, teen son, and fur babies.\nWe are huge hockey fans and adore our home team, the Pittsburgh Penguins. During the hockey season, our lives revolve around the game schedule.\nI decided one day I wanted to write a fan fiction short story about my favorite hockey player. Eventually, I no longer had a fan fiction, I had a full-length story. Sure the idea got changed around a few times, and names got changed to protect the innocent…lol. And that’s where I started. I wrote one and the rest just followed.\nI love hockey and I love romance novels, I didn’t even know there was a whole genre of books out there when I started writing my first novel. I love making the game part of the overall story (I love the whole experience of being at an NHL game, the noise, the food, the sound of the skates on the ice.) So expect the game to be part of my books. I spend time during the season at Penguins practices watching how they interact, talk, and work on the ice, to make my scenes as real to life as possible. My hope is even if you’ve never set foot into a hockey rink, you will feel as if you had while reading my books.\nMy characters aren’t always rough and gruff, because not all hockey players are goons. I’ve had the chance to meet a few and they are awesome guys. So, I like to show a gentle and caring side along with the rough and tough.\nI am a Hallmark movie junkie. I adore the Christmas movies and all the cutesy (and sometimes cliché) romance, and I love to get swept away in it all. I also love to binge watch some of my favorite tv shows: BONES, SUPERNATURAL, FRIENDS, and CHICAGO PD.\n