Product Description

"Breaking Jaie" is a lesbian romance novel featuring a racially diverse cast of characters.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #802339 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 212 pages

From the Author
"Breaking Jaie" speaks to anyone who has had to soar beyond the limitations of racial, gender, sexuality, and class stereotypes in order to become the person they are destined to be. Although I expect much of my readership to be primarily lesbian and gay, I believe that because "Breaking Jaie" is a very human story about one woman's journey from the gritty side of life to the more welcoming arms of love, the novel has cross-over appeal.

From the Back Cover
Twenty-eight-year-old Ph.D. candidate, Jaie Baxter, is supremely confident about three things: She will become a noted writer. She'll win the prestigious Adamson Prize. And she can have any woman who grabs her attention.

Jaie's arrogance begins to slip away however, the day she meets Terez Overton, a woman whose ethnicity matches hers, but whose background is the exact opposite. Jaie's confidence vanishes completely with the arrival of a scheming ex-lover, Seneca Wilson, who re-enters the picture armed with the nightmarish recollections of an unsolved murder and threatening to hold all of Jaie's future happiness hostage. How will Jaie deal with her past's truths and their spirit-breaking power?

About the Author
Born and reared in Philadelphia, S. Renée Bess is a former public high school teacher. Presently she's working part time as an adjunct staff member at Arcadia University, and writing as much as possible.

Customer Reviews

Breaking Jaie is hard to do
S. Renee Bess mixes a fine weave of love, pain and higher education in BREAKING JAIE, the compelling novel that chronicles the romance of two very different graduate students.

Jaie Baxter is a Ph.D. candidate with a overly confident attitude and a harrowing past. After witnessing her brother's murder and living with a dysfunctional mother, she won't allow anyone to get too close. That anguish, coupled with the heartache from the only woman Jaie has ever loved, proved only to propel her success as she grew into an exceptional student and a great writer -- and top-notch player.

Until she meets Terez Overton one day in the English department office. Terez didn't grow up rough like Jaie, instead living in the suburbs and enjoying the comforts of middle-class life. She's never met someone like Jaie; the thought of beginning a relationship with someone so unlike herself tells Terez to proceed with caution, especially once she gets wind of Jaie's gigolo tendencies.

S. Renee Bess put her foot in Breaking Jaie, with its concoction of love and suspense. There are plot twists thrown in to keep you guessing. Bess, the author of Leave of Absence, pleasantly surprised me with the contemporary tone of the book; the maturity of the characters will please both young and older readers. Bess has managed to do it again with this one, and manages to keeps me patiently waiting for the next.

Great read!
I enjoyed this from the first sip of coffee to the last. It's obvious the author loves words and she sprinkles them liberally through out. I found the characters true to life and the situations believable. I'm not a descriptor reader and that was really my only issue with the book. I found that the author detailed things I wanted my imagination to fill in.

Enjoyable Read
START OF BACK COVER TEXT - Twenty-eight-year-old Ph.D. candidate, Jaie Baxter, is supremely confident about three things: She will become a noted writer. She'll win the prestigious Adamson Prize. And she can have any woman who grabs her attention.

But Jaie's arrogance begins to slip away the day she meets Terez Overton, a woman whose ethnicity matches hers, but whose background is the exact opposite. And then Jaie's confidence vanishes completely with the arrival of a scheming ex-lover, Seneca Wilson, who is armed with the nightmarish recollections of an unsolved murder and threatens to hold all of Jaie's future happiness hostage. How will Jaie deal with her past's truths and their spirit-breaking power? - END OF BACK COVER TEXT

A few months ago, I read and enjoyed `Re:Building Sasha' from Renee Bess. I thought it was a funny, thoughtful, well-written book and was compelled to read her earlier books as well. `Breaking Jaie' is also quite good, but the writing is not as mature. This is not uncommon from an author's first or second offering.

Here she brings us Jaie Baxter. Jaie has a good sense of self-worth and is determined to succeed. This is surprising since Jaie had a very precarious childhood. Her mother was a drunk. Her brother was shot by a cop after he stole a car. She sabotaged her high school education because her schoolmates discovered she was a lesbian. All-in-all, she's had a very hard life. It's very impressive that she's worked her way up to graduate school and is currently working on her PhD. Jaie meets Terez Overton, a competitor for prestigious scholarship, and finds herself caring more about Terez than the prize.

Bottom Line - The story shows both the competitive and compassionate sides of the protagonist. I liked Jaie and would recommend this book to my friends as a light weeknight read.

Just a parting note -- If you take a minute to read the `about the author' section, you'll see that Bess prides herself on delivering `African-American lesbian' stories. This is the second book by Bess that I've read. I must say, there is nothing in her writing that is obviously different from any other book I've read in this genre. There are some words/phrases she uses, but nothing is overtly stereotypical about these characters. If you weren't told these characters were African-American, you wouldn't easily guess this was the case. This is just a little more reinforcement that we're all fundamentally the same. Thanks, Renee.