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COMING UNDONE
Available April 2007 from Harlequin Blaze ISBN: 0373793198 ISBN-13: 978-0373793198 Available in eBook Format at: Connected Books: Losing control is the ultimate rush… *** “I want you to start by running your tongue slowly around my ear…” Oh no! Surfer – make that ex-surfer – Carly Winters can’t believe she accidentally faxed an erotic letter to…a secure military line? Now Navy SEAL Jonathan “Hunt” Huntington is at her door, fax in hand, asking her how the fantasy ends. Talk about fate… Because Carly’s parents think Hunt is her new boyfriend, and Carly does need a wedding date ASAP. Hunt’s ready to play – only on one condition. Carly’s got to teach him to hang ten. Problem is, it’s been a while since Carly’s career-ending accident and she’s terrified of anything aqua. But with Hunt, letting go just may make her fantasy a reality! |
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COMING UNDONE “You said you were dating, but you didn’t mention anyone serious, Carolyn. Why haven’t we met this mystery man?” her mother asked. She’d been thinking the same thing. “He’s been away. Traveling. I was going to introduce you at the wedding.” The overactive imagination was good for a lot of things, including making up men in her life. And the traveling excuse came naturally, since she’d done it often for her own career. Why hadn’t she thought of this before? “Why not bring him to the rehearsal dinner?” her mother asked. Yes. That was why. “Or, better yet, the party we’re throwing this weekend?” her father suggested. Sure. She’d just get right on that magic voodoo doll and conjure herself up a man. At least, her parents had stopped mentioning Evan. The phone rang, saving her momentarily. Sam’s number flashed on the cell phone’s screen. “Hey” Carly whispered. “Parents are here.” She leaned her back against the cool, white stucco wall in her front hallway. “Is it as bad as we thought?” “Worse. Remind me to tell you about the trouble I just created for myself.” She heard her parents move into the living room and she made a dash into the now deserted kitchen to start the strong coffee she knew she was going to need. Sam groaned. “With your imagination, I can only imagine. And I don’t mean to bug you, but Joe’s coming over tonight and I really wanted to give him that letter.” “It should be really easy for you to finish it off. Didn’t you like what I wrote?” she asked as she crumbled coconut flakes onto the white icing of the cake she’d baked earlier from a box mix. Coconut therapy, she’d joked to herself when she’d made it, and she’d used an extra thick layer of frosting to hide the lopsidedness. “I’m sure I will, once you send it.” A slight chill went through her at Sam’s words. “I sent it hours ago. It went through, because I got the confirmation.” “It didn’t come through here,” Samantha said. “Can you resend it?” Resending it was not the most immediate problem. That fax contained some erotic stuff, and whoever got it would most certainly be in for a thrill. “Sam,” Carly said, trying to swallow her panic. “If you didn’t get the fax, then who did?” “Maybe it really didn’t go through and you just thought it did,” Sam tried to reassure her as she forgot her parents and headed to her office, taking the stairs two at a time. She pulled the fax confirmation out of the recycling bin where she’d tossed it earlier. She scanned for the number and read it out loud, number by number until… “I reversed the last two numbers and somehow I added a dash,” she said. Oh crap. And then she saw the initials underneath the confirmation. USN. “What the heck does USN stand for?” “I don’t know what it stands for, but I’m sure whoever gets it will just ignore it.” This certainly made the panic of finding a man a little less intense, but at least she’d signed Candy’s name as a joke and not her own. She hadn’t used a cover letter either. Whoever got it wasn’t going to know it was her personal secret fantasy. “I hope so. And I’ll fax it to you again now, okay?” She snapped the cell phone shut and double checked the fax number twice before pushing send. “Carolyn, someone’s at the door,” her mother called up the stairs. “I’ve got it,” she called back. She crumpled up the confirmation paper and threw it back to the bin before heading down to the front door. She opened it without looking through the peephole. Camouflage greeted her. A brick wall of camouflage, leaning against her doorjamb with a very serious look on his very good-looking face. A face she had to look up to see, which, at her own height of five feet, ten-inches, meant this man was a good deal taller than that He was well-over six feet and filled out in all the right places. The army-green t-shirt fit more than fine across his broad chest and shoulders and showed off his sculpted biceps. His dark blond hair was sun-bleached in places, fell across his forehead casually. She was close enough to him to notice the flecks of gold in his hazel eyes, and a primitive thrill coiled in her belly. Maybe just thinking about the voodoo doll had worked, because this was more magic than she could’ve hoped for. “Can I help you?” she asked. “Yes, you can.” His voice was husky and unhurried as he leaned in toward her, his arm still resting on the doorjamb. “You want to explain why you’re sending pornographic faxes to a United States Navy SEAL team?”
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…Strong characters…Hunt is breathtaking. Humor ripples through Stephanie Tyler’s COMING UNDONE as [Carly and Hunt] clash and fight a powerful attraction. This is Stephanie Tyler’s first Blaze and it is a winner for sure! I know I didn’t want to stop reading it for one second. COMING UNDONE is a well-written, entertaining and hot Blaze that’s sure to delight category romance fans. The sensual scenes sizzle and Hunt’s a hero to die for! There’s also a strong secondary romance between Hunt’s brother and Carly’s best friend, Sam. If you like Navy SEAL heroes and hot hot sex, then COMING UNDONE’s the book for you! Stephanie Tyler is a writer whose name you’d do well to remember as she writes sexy tales about sassy women and gorgeous men which hook you from the very first page and which keep you engrossed until the final full stop. Witty, steamy and romantic, Coming Undone is certainly not a book for the faint hearted and readers will love its intoxicating blend of steamy sensuality, hilarious one-liners and sophisticated romance! A winner all the way, COMING UNDONE is an unforgettable story — from the memorable characters and the scorching sensuality to the realization that you can’t always control what happens in your life. If you only had one Blaze to pick up during the month of April, then make it COMING UNDONE. Tyler’s “Coming Undone” is just the read to get you thinking “Summer.” Her straight forward, dead-on writing style invites us to get hot and happy and bowled over by love right along with Carly and Hunt. Which makes being there when they do come undone one of the best things about the novel — next to just how great a romance it is. A fresh new voice on the Harlequin Blaze horizon, Stephanie Tyler is all set to blaze some trails of her own! COMING UNDONE is full of wicked temptation and delicious humor. The characters are charming and sexy and the romance really sizzles. I enjoyed the story’s various twists and turns and also found it carried a lot of emotion—not just in terms of the sex but also the kind that really pulls you in and keeps your attention engaged… hits home with a punch. The sub-plot added a lot of dimension and depth to the story. It’s really poignant and fun at the same time. Coming Undone is full of sensuality and emotion. The chemistry between Hunt and Carly is strong. Hunt is a super sexy guy with a heart of gold and Carly is totally cool. As secondary characters, Ty and Samantha are wonderful. Coming Undone is a sexy, romantic and fun story. “[I]f you haven’t read COMING UNDONE by Stephanie Tyler, what are you waiting for? I loved it.” |
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COMING UNDONE by Stephanie Tyler For my daughter Lily, who is my very favorite surfer girl and who has more courage than anyone I know. *** Coming Undone is a very special book for me – it’s my first Harlequin Blaze! I’m thrilled to be able to bring you Hunt and Carly’s story! My working title for this book was, Over The Falls, which is a surfing term that literally means to lose control. I wanted to explore that theme with a hero and heroine who were both strong enough to handle anything life threw at them. And Carly, a former pro-surfer who’s having some trouble getting back on her board, and Hunt, a Navy SEAL who decides he’s going to help Carly live out her fantasies both in and out of the water, absolutely lived up to that challenge, and then some. I’d love for you to lose yourself in Coming Undone! All best-
Of course, my husband has surfed for a long time – in fact, he was probably bringing in his surfboard as I sat there and thought, huh, I could write about a surfer. Yeah, I know. Anyway, I look through my notes and I see things written like, a surfer, a SEAL and a stalker. Obviously, Coming Undone didn’t go that way at all. No, it wasn’t until I flipped through some old pads of paper (which I do, often, for inspiration for new stuff, since I’m always writing in the margins and along the tops of the page) and I found the words, Mis-sent fax. And I remember when I wrote that, because I was sending a fax of my insurance cards to the hospital for pre-op stuff and I checked the fax number nine thousand times, because I was like, I would hate to have all this information get into the wrong hands. So I put the two together and my surfer and my SEAL ended up getting together because of a mis-sent fax. And then I started thinking – coming up with names. I love the name Carolyn, because it sounds very regal to me – but it also has great nicknames, since my surfer’s from a wealthy family but has a job they don’t approve of. There’s no way she’d let most people call her anything but Carly. Hunt’s name was always there – my heroes tend to walk onstage, alpha and demanding, and he was no exception. It was started in March of 2005. The partial was sent to Blaze in April of 2005 and the full was requested June 1st. (see this article for even more information on this process) I write both in longhand and on the computer. For the purposes of the behind the scenes, I delved into the old paper files because they hold the really interesting information, stuff even I’d forgotten. So spending a lazy Saturday in May (when I’m supposed to be writing any one of 5 books which are due soon) is bringing back a ton of fun memories for me. Somewhere during my initial writing phase, I found this quote, which summed up my characters’ struggles really well: “The things that happen to us (even major, terrible, life-altering things: birth, death, prison, abandonment, illness) do not determine who we are; they reveal who we are.” And then I was very into this quote from Debra Dixon at the time: So I made a list: Fear of drowning = fear of losing your individuality, fear of being overpowered when you’re used to being in control Carly is forced to reevaluate herself as a woman and as an athlete and figure out who she is now – or is she really still the same? Ty walked on, with his tattoos and piercings (he had to lose the piercings for the Blaze, but in my mind, they’re still there) and I knew he had a secret – a really big secret. Since the whole book was about revealing secrets and getting past them / dealing with them, I knew his was pretty big. The book was originally called, Over The Falls, a surfing term that literally means, to lose control. It was a great title, but it wasn’t a Blaze-ish title. So I thought and thought and thought and came up with things like: But nothing really worked for me. In the book, Hunt calls Carly, Surfer Girl, so I looked to that song by the Beach Boys and I found the line, makes my heart come all undone. So I sent the following list to my editor, Kathryn Lye: I believe it was Brenda Chin who picked, Coming Undone. I love writing to music, so I create soundtracks for each of my books. Here was my soundtrack for Coming Undone: Pieces of Me (Ashlee Simpson) *** FOREIGN EDITIONS / COVERS OZ/NZ Cover: (which is really Dawn Atkin’s NA cover!) Harlequin Germany cover (shared with Cindi Myers & Marie Donovan!) - They’ve changed the title from Coming Undone to Hot Summer… Mills & Boon cover |
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