The Education of Nia Simone Bijou

Book excerpt: Eric Jerome Dickey, author of fourteen New York Times bestselling novels, imagines the formative college years of one of his most popular heroines, Nia Simone Bijou. This Penguin Special includes a preview of Decadence, coming April 2013. From her first days at Virginia’s Hampton University, impressionable, creative Nia falls smitten with Chris Eidos Alleyne, an athlete and a scholar. “Love is sweet nothings and beautiful promises,” Nia writes in her journal. What her girlfriends know, and her mother doesn’t, is that Chris’s expression of love is deeply physical. Wielding powerful charisma, Chris soon has Nia abandoning innocence for experience. Believing that Chris will reward her sacrifices with lifelong commitment, Nia thrills to her newfound pleasures. She knows in her heart that each act of intimacy draws them ever closer. But when the Big Man on Campus learns to take what is freely given, without regard to love, Nia finds herself newly enrolled in Heartbreak 101. The Education of Nia Simone Bijou is a rousing tale of youthful passion, once kindled, never extinguished.