Heartbroken after discovering her fiancé’s double life, Emem Akpan ends the relationship and moves into an apartment at the other end of Lagos, determined to get her life back on track with no more diversions.
However, a massive dose of distraction bumps into her in the form of Yomi, a sexy younger man who has set his sights on her and will stop at nothing to get her attention.
Yomi Oladipo has always harboured a crush on Sasha, the anchor of his favourite radio show …. who happens to be none other than Emem, his new downstairs neighbour. Enthralled, he wants to get to know her better, but just when she decides to give them a chance, a troubling secret about her shatters his heart.
After experiencing a savage betrayal by someone he once trusted, will Yomi be able to overcome Emem’s devastating revelation?
This week, I’m posting a snippet of the first time Chuma met Ifeoma from Thorns and Roses.
He’d been patronising her restaurant for months before actually meeting her. She’d been ogling him from behind the serving counter before they met.
This was one of my favourite first encounters between my main characters to write.
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Feeling slightly irritated that a waiter hadn’t shown up yet, Chuma rose from his seat intending to find out why. However, before he could take a step forward, a slender light-skinned lady he’d never seen there before, rushed out from behind the partitioned serving counter.
“I’m sorry for keeping you waiting, sir,” she muttered. “We are short staffed today.” She appeared nervous and fidgety.
Chuma sat back down.
“What can I get you?” she asked, rubbing her hands on her apron. He couldn’t see her face clearly because of the way she had positioned her body while she talked to him. She appeared to be avoiding eye contact with him.
“Oha soup, please,” Chuma replied and then added, “some garri as well.”
She turned her face towards him abruptly as if his order had surprised her. A series of rapid emotions registered in her expressive eyes. First, surprise, then panic, and finally fear. She was afraid of him. He caught his breath, caught off guard by her reaction. He was sure that he had never met her before, so why was she frightened of him? Did she think he was upset about the delay in attending to him?
His need to assure her of his state of mind was immediate and unexplainable. He reached for her hand.
“I’m not upset—” he began, but she snatched her hand away swiftly.
The dim lighting in the room made it difficult for him to see her facial features distinctively, but she looked young. A colourful scarf covered her hair, and baggy clothes and a faded blue apron enveloped her slim frame.
“I’m sorry for the delay again, I’ll get your food now, sir,” she replied, scurrying away.
Chuma shook his head swiftly to clear his mind of that strange encounter, although he did wonder about that expression of fear that he had seen in her eyes. He searched the inner recesses of his memory trying to recollect if there was any possibility that he had met her before today, but he kept coming up empty. No, he had certainly not met her before.
Maybe she thought I was someone else, he concluded within himself.
But soon, wondering led to intrigue, and he waited with anticipation for her to return with his meal
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I hope you enjoyed reading this. Please drop a comment.
Two enchanting stories about loss and love: In Ere’s Secret, Ere has a life-changing decision to make. In 223 Bonny Street, Ikenna wakes to the joys and challenges of being a woman.
ERE’S SECRET
I have a secret. In three days, I’ll be turning forty, and I’m in love for the first time. Decades ago, I sacrificed my life for the good of my family. But tragedy struck too close to home, reminding me of the brevity of life. Now, I have a choice to make: continue living in the shadows, or allow my true self to emerge.
223 BONNY STREET
After an accident, waking up in another person’s body seems like a dream until Ikenna realizes that he is faced with the stark reality of Nkechi’s life, the woman whose body he occupies. He experiences the pains and joys, the strengths and sacrifices of a woman.
The two of them make a connection beyond the physical, but matters of the heart are delicate. When secrets from the past are revealed, will their connection be strong enough to survive?
Firi has been an avid reader since she could read mostly because I caught the reading bug from my dad and mum. With reading Roots by Alex Harley and the Odessa file at 8, reading was her mode of escape.
Firi loves all fiction but enjoys being curled up under the duvet reading a hot sizzling romance novel when what being a mum, an adult, a wife, a sister and a daughter.
Writing this book has been a dream come true so I hope you’ll love it as much as I have love writing it. Please do not forget to leave a review on Amazon. You can follow me on for more updates on my incoming books.
Other interesting facts about Firi: she paints ceramic and glass mostly but everything can be her canvas so we would not be surprised seeing that she has painted a plane. You can find her paintings on her Instagram page.
Firi has always dreamt of becoming a pilot. Let’s see how this goes.
Love Africa Press presents Volume One of its Queer and Sexy Collections exploring queer sensuality.
In this debut edition of three Queer and Sexy interwoven stories written by Eniitan, we explore pleasure, desire, love, human nature and godhood. Follow the lives of Ufuoma, Larrie, Ariyike, Fausiat, Halimat and Uduak as they experience the magic that is the otherworldly Tara.
Expressions of a caribbean girl in lingerie with striped hat
Ufuoma was the last off the plane. She had shunned her usual garb of comfortable jeans and tees and worn a cream skirt-suit that clung to her voluptuous figure like wet on water.
The cream showed off her dark skin, and to drive the point of her femininity home, she had the first three buttons of the white shirt open. Her bra pushed up the mounds of her breasts, leaving onlookers in no doubt of the gifts hidden underneath her clothes.
On her feet was a pair of heels, making her appear even taller.
She was determined to make the best of this long weekend away from her regular life.
This would be her first time at an all-female party, and although Loretta had assured her that it would be fun, she was still a little anxious, so she fell into the default of looking extraordinarily good to boost her spirits.
One of the best things, and the worst, was her ability to ‘pass’ and be taken for a heterosexual, cis-gendered woman, but it also made her invisible to other queer women. A blessing and a curse in a country like Nigeria. She remembered her university days with a shudder. Those years she’d spent listening to ‘godly advice’ from classmates and lecturers about how she should stop hanging out with her more masculine-presenting friends, the rumours they felt comfortable sharing with her about how these women were all a bunch of lesbians and that she should avoid being inducted into the ‘cult of lesbianism.’
To worsen her situation, bonding with women was not her strong suit, maybe because she was not primarily attracted to men, not sexually or emotionally. She’d never felt invested in them enough to mind their vagaries; she could take them or leave them, without a backward glance. But with women—she was always so scared, had always been, of the different ways loving women could drive you to a point of madness, of how invested she became in their lives, their well-being. But most importantly of the powerful way a woman could break you … but that hadn’t stopped her from wanting them, loving them.
Misunderstandings are we common in romance novels. As an avid romance book lover, I look forward to reading tense moments between couples. I’m such a drama queen.
In this week’s #LAPLovenotes, I’m sharing a snippet of the spat between Onome and Nnamdi from Starting Over Again.
This occurred the morning after. How awkward! 😩🤦🏾♀️🙂
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“Onome, nothing has to change. We have great chemistry. Why can’t we continue to explore that?”
“But it’s against company policy for us to date.”
“We won’t be dating, we’d just be—”
“Oh,” Onome turned away from him, holding tightly to the bed covers. “Sleeping together,” she finished for him.
“Onome, I didn’t mean it that way,” Nnamdi began, taking a step towards her. She held out her palm to stop him.
“No, I know exactly what you meant,” Onome said, her tone surprisingly calm considering the anger boiling within her.
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I hope you enjoyed this snippet. Please drop a comment.
Inspired by a post on Instagram by Romance Writers of West AFrica, I’ll be posting a series about first encounters between main characters in my novels.
In this scene from Melodies of Love, Ikenna is meeting up with Adaora again at his work place after 12 years of not seeing or hearing from her following a bitter breakup.
Although this isn’t the first encounter between them, it certainly felt like one.
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Ikenna’s heart lurched in his chest. It had been twelve years since he’d last seen Adaora. She was still beautiful. His mind had not prepared him well enough for today even though he had planned this meeting for the past four months. He studied her as she stood across from him.
She was still petite, about five feet four inches, barely reaching his chest, but she was no longer thin. Her body had matured into lovely curves which suited her small frame. Her blue silk blouse with colourful embroidery at the top hugged her slender waist, and her black knee-length skirt fitted her round hips perfectly. She looked confident.
His eyes roamed to her feet which were perfectly tucked into a pair of blue four-inch heeled stilettos. It gave her some height, but it was still not enough to match his slightly-above-six-feet height. He had always towered above her. At one time, she had told him that it made her feel safe.
Ikenna stared at the face that had haunted him for the past twelve years. Her beautiful heart-shaped face, her dark luminous eyes which were large for her face, her small nose and full lips coated with pink lip gloss. Lips he had kissed countless times, twelve years ago, until they were swollen. Lips he had a sudden uncontrollable urge to kiss now.
Her hair was done in tiny braids which she had packed into a single bun. She had always liked braided hair. His Ada, the girl who had driven him to succeed because he never felt like he was good enough for her. The girl who made him feel insecure. The only girl who made him want to be better.
“Ikenna…” she whispered with a smile, jolting him out of his reverie. “I can see you are still never without your saxophone!”
