First published 2012
Abike Johnson has everything money can buy. At seventeen, she rides through Lagos in armored vehicles, sleeps in a mansion, and enjoys her status as her wealthy father's favorite daughter. Armed guards watch her every move. One afternoon, she stops to buy ice cream from a street vendor. The eighteen-year-old hawker works the roadside to feed his mother and sister after his father died and left the family with nothing. Their brief transaction becomes something more. Abike and the young man begin meeting secretly, drawn together across the vast divide between her privileged world and his daily struggle for survival. Their romance grows despite the obvious obstacles. Then secrets from their families' pasts surface. These revelations force both young people to confront difficult truths about their relationship and their families. Abike must choose between loyalty to her father and her feelings for the hawker. He faces his own impossible decision about where he belongs.
Genres: romance, african-literature, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, found-family
Setting: Lagos
Period: 21st-century
296 pages · Paperback · Final Kültür Sanat Yayinlari