I am so honored to take part of Peace Adzo Medie’s blog tour for her debut novel, His Only Wife. If you are looking for an engaging novel that never slows down, it’s perfect.
Afi is a young woman from a village in Ghana. She works as a seamstress and lives at home. When her mother arranges marriage for her with the son of an “aunt”, Afi does what any good daughter would do. She agrees.
Eli is from the same village, but has made it big in Accra and owns multiple homes there. When it comes time for their wedding ceremony, Eli is supposedly in Hong Kong on business and cannot make it back in time. So his brother, Richard, stands in. It will be months until Eli lives with Afi as husband and wife.
The situation becomes even more complicated because Eli has a young daughter named Ivy with Muna, a woman from Cote d’Ivoire and he just cannot leave them now. Ivy is sickly and Muna, according to Eli and his family, is so unstable there’s nothing she wouldn’t stoop to–including harming herself–to hold onto Eli.
As Afi becomes more accustomed to Accra and builds her career as a fashion designer and a boutique owner, she starts demanding that her husband live with her, and not just in the apartment where Eli has put Afi, but in his main house. The only problem is that Muna and Ivy live in that house. Afi isn’t afraid to issue an ultimatum, especially when she becomes pregnant.
His Only Wife includes quite a few twists and turns, so don’t worry that I’ve given away too much. It’s a powerful story of women’s relationships. I especially enjoyed the friendships Afi developed after she moved to Accra. At least than 300 pages, the novel is short and reads as if it were even shorter. It’s heard to find engaging books when we have so much time at home these days, but this one really hits the spot!
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