Merissa Racine grew up on Long Island, New York. When she was a teenager her family moved to Miami, Florida, where she lived for several years, and where she went to school and became a court stenographer. Missing the change of seasons, she decided to leave the Sunshine state and settled in an even sunnier locale- who knew there was such a place - Cheyenne, Wyoming, where she grew to appreciate the open spaces that the High Plains offers, and views of the Rocky Mountains. After many years of working as a court reporter, Merissa began a new adventure, writing the novel that had been in her head, waiting for the right time to make its debut. Merissa's career in the legal profession has provided authentic flavor to her book Silent Gavel, the first in the Crawford Mystery Series. When not tapping away on her steno machine by day, Merissa is busy working on her next novel.