Description

Gladys Eborah arrives in Lagos with one box, a hand-sketched map, and an aunt she barely knows. Her family and Aunt Isioma have not spoken in years, and moving into her estranged relative’s home is a gamble taken out of necessity: Lagos is where the jobs are. When Gladys lands a position at one of the country’s top oil companies, the plan seems to be working. Then she meets a man who belongs to a completely different Lagos, the one of boardrooms, gated compounds and old money.

Edward Bestman is the chief executive of a conglomerate listed on the stock exchange, wealthy, controlled, and carrying wounds from his own beginnings that he has never let anyone near. The attraction between them is immediate. The problem is everything else. She will not marry a man who cannot say he loves her. He is not sure he believes love exists. And while they circle each other, a hostile acquisition battle and share price games in Nigeria’s turbulent banking years threaten to pull Edward’s empire, and their fragile trust, apart.

What sets this novel apart is its address. Whitman writes romance that is unmistakably Nigerian, moving between Balogun Market and corporate towers, church construction sites and shareholder meetings, with themes of illegitimacy, class-climbing and family estrangement woven through the love story rather than pasted onto it. Written from both leads’ points of view, it is also a business novel in disguise, and the deals are plotted as carefully as the courtship. The question underneath is a fair one for any reader: can you build a future with someone who guards his heart like an asset?

A warm, full-length Nigerian romance with real stakes beyond the couple.

One of the books that helped open the door for the current wave of African romance fiction.