Jess Harding has devoted her life to playing and coaching basketball and has always been successful until she meets Justine Cain, a student with her own agenda. With the help of her lover Stacey will Jess find a way around Justine and her demands or will she be forced to give up the game she loves?
FAST BREAK is a short but multiple-layered lesbian novel. Mostly it's about Jess Harding and her love of basketball and high-school coaching. Secondarily it is a love story in which almost by accident, Jess meets a lesbian photographer, Stacey, and they gradually and sweetly develop a potentially lasting relationship. Thirdly, it is a conflict between Jess and a new student, Justine, who wants to be immediately a starter on the basketball team, while Jess feels she has to earn it. What Justine threatens to do when her wishes aren't granted presents another plotline. Set in the Seattle area, FAST BREAK is quick and smooth reading and a very enjoyable story. It would deserve, in my opinion, five stars it is weren't for inadequate editing and poor formatting in the version that I read. M.L. Skinner is a good writer and has created a very nice and likable story. But she or someone dropped the ball when it came to polishing the material for publication. I will continue to read her work because her writing has real strengths.
The despair of false accusation in the teaching profession.
They always believe the accuser. An ugly, sophomoric axiom runs the Fast Break in this tightly wound novel. Jess Harding is the target/victim of a driven player named Justine. Jess is the head coach of a basketball team in Salish, Washington. Justine's motivations are as clear as they are destructive. As much as the reader learns about Justine, the more she becomes an ink blot. She doesn't come off as an enigma though just a scheming plot device. Her character should have added depth to this triangulated storyline. Justine, Jess and Stacey, the white knight girlfriend to Jess, make one triangle. Justine, Jess and the Salish Eagles are another. Then, there is Jess, Justine and Justine's dad.
The question to be answered in this short novel concerns the price of winning. Do ends justify means? Fast Break demands a resounding answer. Take a seat in the stands or on the bench and watch the players vying for position to make the call in this taut drama.