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Jadine

Julie Bigg Veazey
CreateSpace (2010)
ISBN 9781451597776
Reviewed by Kam Aures for Reader Views (09/10)


One day, when Jadine was twelve-years-old, her mother Lisa Tomecelli, walked out on her family.  A week later there was a letter in the mailbox from her mother claiming that she had gone to Canada to tend to her sick mother. Jadine had thought that her mother’s mother had already died, and was her mother’s home really in Canada?  None of it made sense. 

When her mother never came back, Jadine’s father remarries.  Jadine is forced to live with her step-mother and younger step-sister.   After a tragic accident involving the death of her step-sister, the resultant death of her step-mother, and then her father being disabled from a stroke, Jadine is orphaned.    She is shuttled around from home to home , switching residences every six months.     

We watch Jadine grow and see the lingering effects of the abandonment by her mother.  The instability of her life takes its toll on her but she finds comfort in another orphan, Billy-John.  However, their lives take different paths and Jadine is left to face all of the obstacles in her way on her own.  Can she ever overcome the betrayals of her past?

Julie Bigg Veazey has written a very engaging, thought-provoking novel in “Jadine.”  Apparently the book was inspired by a true story which makes it all of the more interesting to me. “Jadine’s” story is a powerful one and the reader will be taken on a roller-coaster ride of emotions as the book unfolds.  

Veazy’s writing is very gripping and by the end you truly feel that you know the characters inside and out.  I had the pleasure of reading one of Veazey’s other works, “Reckless Indifference” and in that review I had written that, “The characters are very well developed and their personality traits and actions will definitely evoke strong feelings from the reader.”  The exact same statement applies to this current work, “Jadine.” I  enjoy books that draw the reader in that manner and hope to see more books from this talented author in the  future.