Mel Sanders emerged from a Sifton convenience store and stopped in front of a car that was ripe for the picking. Door open, keys in the ignition, motor running — and no driver in sight.
“I just stood there thinking, wow, if I was a different type of person,” she thought, “I could get in this car and drive away.”
But she’s not that kind of person — she’s a writer. So she stole the car and headed off on what turned into an amazing romantic adventure — in her imagination.
The story turned into a manuscript called “Grand Theft, Auto,” which just won third place in a Harlequin Romance contest called “So You Think You Can Write.” Sanders, who owns Cover to Cover Books, 6300 N.E. St. James Road, Suite 104B, and publishes under her maiden name, Mel Sterling, said romances don’t get much respect but must follow rules as definite and demanding as any genre fiction, such as detective stories or Westerns — which she calls “romances for men.”
