The Ugly Duckling Unknown - 1996

From the publisher

From her award-winning first novel to her latest spectacular success, Iris Johansen has triumphed as a national bestseller and been heralded as a dazzling
storyteller of incomparable brilliance. Now she reveals a new side to her talent, weaving a thrilling tale of contemporary romantic suspense that gives the age-old myth of transformation a stunningly unique twist...as an ugly duckling becomes a breathtaking beauty whose burning wish for revenge entangles her in a precarious world of sinister intrigue and dark desire. For Iris Johansen's millions of fans and for anyone who loves the novels of Sandra Brown and Nora Roberts, this is explosive, enthralling, powerfully engrossing entertainment.
Plain, soft-spoken Nell Calder isn't the type of woman to inspire envy, lust--or murderous passions. Until one night on an exotic island in the Aegean Sea, at an elegant gathering that should have cemented her husband's glorious career in finance, the unimaginable happens...and in the space of a heartbeat, Nell's life, her dreams, her future are shattered by a spray of bullets and the razor edge of a blade. Though badly hurt, Nell emerges from the nightmare a woman transformed. Delicate surgery gives her an exquisitely beautiful face. Rehabilitation gives her a strong, lithe body. And Nicholas Tanek, a mysterious stranger who compels both fear and fascination, gives her a reason to go on living: revenge--at any price.
Enigmatic, with a shadowy past and more secrets than Nell could ever imagine, Tanek knows far more about the attack than he is willing to admit. Yetwhen he divulges the identity of her assailant to Nell, he makes the biggest mistake of his life. For as Nicholas gets closer to his quarry, he'll find his carefully laid plans jeopardized at every turn by a bold woman daring to strike out on her own. And Nell will find her mission imperiled by Tanek's dangerous magnetism, a temptation to which she can not afford to surrender. Relentlessly paced and filled with the marvelous touches you've come to expect from this extraordinary author, this is gripping, sophisticated suspense the way only Iris Johansen can tell it.