Melanie Milburne read her first Harlequin at age seventeen in between studying for her final exams. After completing a Masters Degree in Education she decided to write a novel in between settling down to do a PhD. She became so hooked on writing romance the PhD was shelved and soon after she was signed on to the London office of Harlequin Mills and Boon line, becoming the first not previously published Australian author to be contracted for the Presents line in over a decade.