See that girl on the cover of Coming Undone? That’s P.J. Morgan. She and Jared Hamilton were a couple of teenagers living on the streets of Denver in my book Hot & Bothered. When I began their storyline, Jared was the brother of H&B’s heroine and central to the plot of her book. P.J., on the other hand, was only intended to be a walk-on character.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the drawing board. That little girl captured my heart and my imagination like no character before her has ever done. Usually it takes a great deal of writing before I fully understand who my characters are, but I knew P.J. in a way I can’t explain. I could see her as clearly as if she stood before me—and I am not a visual woman. She was something no child should ever be—a throwaway kid scorned by her own mother, but with a core of sweetness that nothing could alter.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the drawing board. That little girl captured my heart and my imagination like no character before her has ever done. Usually it takes a great deal of writing before I fully understand who my characters are, but I knew P.J. in a way I can’t explain. I could see her as clearly as if she stood before me—and I am not a visual woman. She was something no child should ever be—a throwaway kid scorned by her own mother, but with a core of sweetness that nothing could alter.
