Unforeseen Circumstances — Brenda Smith

In the first book in the Circumstances series, Insane Circumstances, Brandi L. Brown hears the fate of a college student who experiences hazing and is leaving the college because it is more than she can bear. Images of the distraught young lady evoke memories of her own college days, ones that had lain dormant for a couple of decades. She leaves work with the intent of writing a letter of consolation to the university student who is returning home. Under the watchful eye of her husband, she begins to tell her own story. The protagonist's own story takes place during early integration, and she is among the first colored students to get a scholarship to Claxville University. Her parents do not want her to attend, but she does. While at the university she does experience some hazing and other acts that support her parents' arguments about her being unable to succeed at the college. The psychologically traumatized Brandi also has a chance meeting with a taxi driver who proves to be more than that…Thaddeus Jerome Pennington becomes her friend, that listening ear that she needs, and soon is the love interest and support she needs to continue at the school. When the story begins, it is Brandi Leigh Brown's story. As events happen, the male character (Taxi) frequently appears. A trip to her hometown in Wester with her ends when a storm comes and the duo returns to Claxville prematurely. The man drops her at the dorm and disappears. The saga of the Browns and the Penningtons continues in the second novel in the series, Unforeseen Circumstances, a contemporary fiction that begins, "And when they were older."