These Broken Roads

One woman’s story, every woman’s nightmare

Donna Marie Hayes had a fortitude and smarts. She already survived so much. In this gripping memoir, Hayes recounts the story of her impoverished Jamaican childhood and eventual immigration to the United States at 14. She weathers hardships, including a strict church upbringing, family abandonment, and marriages fused with domestic violence. Then she breaks free as a single mother.

Decades later, Donna is educated and at the top of her game in New York City. Her career is soaring on Wall Street and she is starring in her own one-woman show off Broadway. Yet at the peak of her triumph, she is scammed and robbed of her life’s savings by the “love of her life” who she meets on an online dating site. The mastermind was not the usual faceless online fraudster, hiding behind a computer screen in a faraway land; rather, he slept beside her for a year and a half, pretending to be the love of her life.

This is the story of how that woman rose yet again to find her power, making the scam and her choice of such a man the last run along the broken roads of her past.

“From the outset of These Broken Roads, author Donna Hayes finds herself asking, “How did I get here?” The answer is a doozy. A corporate executive at an international investment bank in New York City, Hayes arrived by way of a small town in Jamaica where she grew up among chickens, superstitions, and grief at having been abandoned by both of her parents. In her teens, Hayes’ mother returns to bring her into an unfamiliar family in America where she continues her quest for safety and love. These Broken Roads is Hayes’ Cinderella story beginning in the Jamaican countryside and ending in an Uptown Penthouse. It is a journey from betrayal to self-discovery. It is a coming of age that is at once human and hopeful. Hayes’ life, though complicated by duplicity is consistently buoyed by a strength and competence that is in moments, breathtaking. Pick up this book. You will not be able to put it down.” —Joselin Linder, author of The Family Gene

“Although Donna Hayes’ first book, These Broken Roads, is the story of the empowering and indomitable feminine spirit, it is not a feminist book. It is a story of a woman that faces seemingly insurmountable odds not just to survive but to flourish and thrive. Magical, painful, cathartic and thrilling at once.” —Thomas G Waites, Actor, Teacher, and Filmmaker

“A riveting memoir, These Broken Roads, is an against all odds story, told with brazen honesty by Donna Hayes, a woman whose childhood abandonment leads her down a path driven by a desperate need for love, only to find herself in abusive relationships with three damaged men. Ultimately, she finds the strength she needs to leave her troubled past behind and begin the healing process through her enduring power of faith.” —Robin Bobbé, Modernager Casting, Owner

“A glorious testament to the triumphant spirit we all have within. Donna shares her remarkable life story with incredible vulnerability and clarity. Taking us on a journey from rural Jamaica to the high rises of the Upper East side of Manhattan, filled with challenges that are ultimately turned into lessons…for us all. Bravo, a beautiful read.” —Annie McGovern, Actor, Director/Producer, Singer and VP of Simulations, Inc.

“There are so many levels to enjoy and learn from in Donna Hayes’ amazing new book. There is a vivid depiction of the sights and sounds of Hayes’ both difficult and joyous Jamaican upbringing as well as the twists and turns of a young woman struggling to find success and romance far from home. The disappointments she experiences and then her eventual triumph both professionally and romantically add to the compelling and wonderful read that is Hayes’ memoir.” —Ellen Sherman, Writer, Producer and host of the Binge or Bomb podcast

2023 NEW YORK BOOK FESTIVAL COMPETITION: HONORABLE MENTION, MEMOIR

New York City resident and performer Donna Marie Hayes can be found on a stage or in front of a camera, and is a SAG-AFTRA actress and cabaret singer. She has been featured on the Show (Defy Your Age), Orange Is The New Black (Netflix), Black Girls Rock (BET), Celebrity Ghost Stories (Biography Channel) as well as in several other New York City Off-Broadway and TV productions. Most recently, she was cast in her first regular role in a TV series Miss Education which is expected to debut in 2023. Her corporate life includes serving as a senior human resources professional in the financial services industry. She is an ICF-certified coach and owner of a coaching practice company. Hayes immigrated to the United States from Jamaica at age 14.

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