House Woman

“Twisted and intense, this marvelous debut novel transforms from a domestic drama into a story of secrecy and survival you can’t put down.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer

When Ikemefuna is put on a plane from Lagos to Texas, she anticipates her newly arranged All-American life: a handsome husband, a beautiful red-brick mansion in Sugar Land, pizza parlors, and dance classes. 

Desperate to please, she’ll happily cater to her family’s needs. But Ikemefuna soon discovers what it actually means to live with her in-laws. Demands for a grandson grow urgent, her every move comes under scrutiny, and the America she imagined from Nigeria shimmers almost as distantly through the locked windows of the Sugar Land house, unattainable. As Ikemefuna finds there’s no way out, her new husband Nna, a corporate attorney, grapples with the influence of his parents against his own increasing affection for her, juggling their deeply traditional expectations with his own. 

As family secrets boil to the surface, Ikemefuna must decide how to scrape herself out of an impossibly sticky situation: a marriage succumbing to generational cycles of pain and silence. In the end, she may be carrying the greatest secret of all. An unforgettably delicious thriller, House Woman is about a woman trapped in a dangerous web of conflicting desires, melting in the Texas heat.