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Paradise Synopsis

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Melissa Moran was born in Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania, the daughter of two factory workers and the oldest of three girls.  Now a wife, mother, and aunt, she remains close to her family, living just steps away from her parents’ and sisters’ properties in a home she renovated herself. 

Melissa has enjoyed writing since childhood.  She pursued her passion through advanced placement high school English classes (earning Tunkhannock High School’s Senior English award upon graduation).  Four years later, she graduated cum laude from Gannon University in Erie, Pennsylvania, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communication Arts and a double minor in English and German.  While at Gannon, she also worked in radio and television, anchoring the afternoon news on the local AM station, playing weekend DJ for the sister FM station, and co-hosting a half-hour daily television talk show on Erie’s FOX affiliate, WETG 66. 

A former editor and reporter for The Citizens’ Voice newspaper in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Melissa is currently employed in the communications department of a nationwide insurance company where her focus is writing, copyediting, and graphic design.  She is earning her MBA from Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, PA and was recently inducted into Delta Mu Delta, the business honor society.  Melissa is married to Mark Moran, The Citizens' Voice Chief Photographer, with whom she owns a photography and graphic design business.  Melissa and her husband have a daughter, Sabine (named for a friend who offered her Munich home to them after the September 11^th, 2001 terrorist attacks left them stranded in Germany). 

Melissa is a member of Mensa, an avid reader, and a seasoned traveler.  She lived and worked in Salzburg, Austria for a summer in 1992.  In addition, she travels extensively throughout the United States and has visited more than a dozen countries on three continents.  Book titles she might typically pack on these adventures include Ken Follet’s The Pillars of the Earth, Walter M. Miller Jr.’s A Canticle for Leibowitz, or Stephen King’s The Stand.  When they’re not traveling, the Morans enjoy the rural tranquility of their home in Noxen, Pennsylvania.

Paradise Synopsis

After discovering her husband with another woman, Sarah Hennessey initiates a divorce without looking back.  Filled with righteous anger, she shuts Brian out despite his pleas for forgiveness.  But less than four weeks later she’s intensely involved with Garrett, a handsome work associate.  Though she tried to deny her attraction to Garrett over the last year, Sarah begins to suspect that her failed marriage wasn’t entirely Brian’s fault.  Feeling like a hypocrite, Sarah’s guilt becomes overwhelming when Brian is killed at work.  Unsure of what to do next, she cools her affair with Garrett, quits her job, and leaves Arizona to head east. 

After spending several weeks in Fort Lauderdale with her sister’s family, Sarah leaves for a week alone in Key West.  Captivated by the Conch Republic, she buys an old houseboat and resolves to avoid men while sorting her scattered emotions.  But her new friend, John, makes it clear he would like their relationship to go further.  Also hurt by an unfaithful spouse, John is a good listener, and Sarah is drawn into a no-strings-attached affair.

Though John proves to be a devoted friend, their romance fizzles when Sarah admits she still has feelings for someone else.  John seems content to be platonic until Garrett’s arrival in Key West, when jealousy threatens to destroy their relationship.  Determined to make the two men accept each other, Sarah scrambles to preserve her friendship with John, her future with Garrett, and the happiness she’s finally found in paradise.

Melissa regularly contributes articles to DemandStudios.com, an online content provider for web sites including LIVESTRONG.COM and eHow.  She also writes for Examiner.com.

Melissa is currently writing Snowfall, a novel which follows John Yager (a character from Paradise) to Salzburg, Austria.

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