The writing of this novel is stunning. It's so atmospheric.
The narrative unfurls at a good pace and it will make your hair stand on end.

I was very intrigued by the story and initially felt like there were enough teasers to make it into a decent page turner, but I found the characters completely unbelievable, seeming to change personality from page to page, thinking one thing and then behaving in a way that didn't follow at all. I gave up at about 30% when I just felt like I had no idea who the characters were supposed to be / who we were rooting for.

I'm afraid I just could not get into this book. I tried really hard, and it seemed to be setting up for some suspense, but it wasn't enough. The frequent references to the smelly genitals didn't help.

(Review copy from NetGalley)

I found this book very unsettling and didn’t know where to place it. I’ve had to sit with it before writing this review.

I decided on 3 stars because I enjoyed the fragmented/non-linear/multi-character narratives. By constantly jumping between past, near-past, present, switching between America and Nigeria, changing narrative voices so we have multiple perspectives, Nworah is able to build to an evocative crescendo.

There were elements of the novel that didn’t sit well with me but I can understand Nworah’s (possible) intentions behind them:
- the constant references to breasts jarred with me as it felt very ‘male-lens’ but probably to show how Ikemefuna’s body was never her own (she had to share with the readers too)
- the incessant domestic and emotional abuse, gaslighting and rape women was heartbreaking in isolation, but the descriptions of such acts were so clinical that you almost got used to such ugly crimes. Again, probably to incense the readers how these acts can continue as it makes the readers complicit in the abuse
- the ending to show how no one was able to support, liberate, look out for Ikemefuna. Not the neighbours, not the people who raised her, not her husband, not people within her community, not the petrol station guy, and definitely not the police. Heartbreaking.

I read this book constantly on edge and sometimes even out of breath. I look forward to more from Nworah.

Thanks to NetGalley who provided a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

House Woman by Adorah Nworah is described as a domestic thriller for fans of My Sister, the Serial Killer. I enjoyed MSTSK a lot, so I was intrigued by the premise of this:

Nna Nwosu, a young lawyer working in Philadelphia and son of Nigerian immigrants, walks in to his family home in Houston, Texas, one day, to be greeted by an unknown young woman. The woman introduces herself as Ikemefuna... and she is to be Nna's wife.

Knowing nothing about each other, the pair initially find it awkward to connect - least of all due to Nna's personal hygiene habits or lack thereof (when I tell you, my stomach was turning) but Nna's parents have sacrificed a lot to bring Ikemefuna to America, and they will not settle for anything less than a happy marriage that bears grandchildren. But Ikemefuna soon realises that all is not well with the Nwosu family, and she is determined that her version of the American Dream will not include whatever they've got planned for her...

I really liked this. I thought the short chapters worked well to build tension, and I was engrossed throughout. I was instantly rooting for Ikemefuna, and as I mentioned briefly above, Nna's poor personal hygiene and general attitude of entitlement really grated on me. That man truly though the was the catch of the county. Hmm.

I really felt for Ikemefuna and her desire to have everything she wanted in America - "She would make the Americans love her. She would let them touch her hair."

There's plenty of dark humour in here, but it does get very bleak at times, with themes of domestic abuse, violence, and racism at play. I found it incredibly frustrating to see how other characters behaved towards Ikemefuna when she clearly needed assistance.

Thank you to Borough Press & Harper Collins Fiction for granting me approval to read this via Netgalley.

House Woman was a tough read that unfortunately wasn’t for me.
Ikemefuma has travelled from Lagos to Texas to meet a man she has never met and marry him. Nna is a young black lawyer who comes down to real fast one morning to find Ikemefuwa in his families kitchen looking quite at home and is shocked to find she is his future wife. Ikemefuwa struggles with the idea that she is there basically to be a baby making machine, Nna gets to work on that as fast as possible and meanwhile Ikemefuwa is shocked to find that her future in-laws have taken her phone and her passport and she is not allowed outside the house until she gives them a grandchild. It is unclear what will happen to her when she has given birth so she plots her escape.
This was quite a graphic read and wasn’t up my street at all. The book lacked depth in characters which made it harder to read. The short chapters helped otherwise I think I would have given up.
I would like to thank NetGalley and HarperCollins HarperFiction for this ARC I received in exchange for an honest review.

I struggled with this book but liked the short chapters and this helped me keep going. I felt let down by the ending as it wasn't really an ending and left things unanswered. Unfortunately not for me.

The Iwosus are the perfect immigrant family. Arriving in Houston from Nigeria as asylum seekers, they have spent nearly three decades striving to better themselves and establishing themselves as successful, affluent Americans. Their son, Nna, is handsome, highly-educated and making a name for himself at a major law firm in Philadelphia. Theirs is the kind of life many aspire to. In contrast, Ikemefuma is the unwanted daughter of the Iwosus' friends back in Lagos. When she is hand-picked to marry Nna, everyone tells her that it is the opportunity of a lifetime. So why does it feel like she's walked straight into a trap?

Adorah Nworah's first full length novel is an original, fascinating take on the domestic noir genre which takes readers on a wild ride from Lagos to Texas, by way of the rituals of a little-known Nigerian religion, a convoluted scheme and an exploration of victimhood, masculinity, family and the immigrant experience.

Ikemefuma is a well-drawn protagonist and Nworah helps us to understand her thoughts and behaviour by punctuating the narrative with glimpses of her life back in Nigeria. Through these vignettes, we get a sense of how Ikemefuma sees herself, and how she is seen by her friends, family and community. This makes the way she is perceived and treated by the Iwosus (and others she encounters) all the more shocking. Thanks to brief interludes from the perspectives of characters such as a neighbour and a gas station attendant, Nworah highlights how Ikemefuma's status as a foreign Black woman, who speaks English with an accent and is frightened for her life, means that she is not given the benefit of the doubt - she is not a palatable victim and easy to dismiss as 'crazy'.

Nna too is cleverly written. The kind of self-proclaimed good guy who wears a 'This is what a feminist looks like' shirt to his reproductive rights seminar and expects to be applauded for just showing up, Nworah makes the decision to let Nna speak for himself, confident that most female readers will be able to read between the lines of his chapters to see what he is truly like. His sense of entitlement seeps through his words, and it is clear that his parents have built him up so much, since he was so young, to believe that he is something special. Is it any wonder then that he grapples with the secrets he starts to learn about them - if he was wrong about them, could he be wrong about himself too? Not to mention the fact that his feelings about his parents are complicated by the gratitude he feels to them for the sacrifices they made for him, as well as the cultural expectation that he unquestioningly respects his elders.

The author is Igbo herself, and she is careful to portray the culture with respect and honesty, highlighting both the positive aspects and those which compound Ikemefuma's precarious situation - their deeply entrenched deference to elders is certainly a barrier to her escape, and they are a traditionally patriarchal tribe, raising their sons to see themselves as superior to women, which we see reflected in Nna's interactions with Ikemefuma (and in his descriptions of his previous relationships). Still, Nworah makes sure to separate cruel Igbo characters from the Igbo people as a whole, aware no doubt of the unasked for responsibility of protecting her tribe from generalisations readers may make, given how rare it is to see representations of the Igbo people in mainstream Western fiction.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins UK for the opportunity to read and review an ARC of this book.

Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review this book.

I struggled with this book. There were lots of vivid descriptions (some a little too vivid) but I just didn’t get it and the ending didn’t feel like an ending.

A stark and richly written book. It’ll make you uneasy but also think about how people are abused and how lies are hidden and brave faces put on situations. Very gripping.

This book arrived the day before publication and I couldn’t turn it around quickly enough.
Nnaemeka, Nna for short, Nwosu, a young black lawyer, in a Houston suburb comes down to breakfast to find a strange young woman, Ikemefuma, in his parents kitchen. The young woman is dressed in a beach towel and seems very at home in the kitchen. He immediately likes the look of her but is a little taken aback when she announces that she is to become his wife.
For this will be an arranged marriage by Nna’s parents, Agbala and Eke and Ikemefuma’s, Adina and Dumeye. She has been sent over from Lagos in Nigeria as the two families are old friends.
But Ikemefuma soon realises that she is meant to become a baby machine. Apparently, the marriage cannot take place until she is pregnant and Nna soon sets about ensuring this. She is ostensibly a prisoner with her passport and phone taken away from her and the doors are locked. She will not be allowed to leave until she gives them a child. On her extremely rare outings she is accompanied by the Nwosus and they will not let her escape.
When at last she does become pregnant, Agbala is vague about what will happen to her afterwards. There does not seem to be any place for her in the family once the baby is born and the resourceful Ikemefuma begins to plan her escape. She subtly enlists the help of Nna who has begun to question himself about how much he resembles Adina as he examines an old photo of her. He determines to visit Lagos and find out the truth. He will take Ikemefuma with him and this may be her only chance of freedom. But already she is suspicious of Nna and his motives – will he betray her? Or will she end up in a trap of her own making?
In many ways this was an urban horror story with traces of the Handmaids’ Tale with Ikemefuwa being held prisoner in the Nwosus upmarket home until she is made pregnant. She is allowed nothing of her own and is rendered invisible. Nna shortens her name to Keme which she doesn’t like although she is careful to always remain outwardly compliant. This is not a love match by any means. There are few traces of her in her room and Nna, a self professed feminist, likes to go snooping in there. He takes the only photo she has of Adina.
There is something strange about Ikemefuwa and it is only hinted at in the book. She is prone to blackouts and often finds herself with her hands around someone’s throat. When it happens to Agbala she screams ‘The Devil is in you.’ I would have liked this aspect to have been explored further. She was abandoned by her birth mother when a newborn baby and was adopted by Adina and Dumeye. At 10 she was abandoned again as Adina left her in a busy Lagos street market but she found her way home again. In a way being sent to Houston is yet another abandonment. Ikemefuwa is a survivor and determined to escape.
This novel also explored family relationships as well as friendships between women. The Nwosus and the Azubaikes are intertwined as they were once neighbours. Agbala is upwardly mobile, the matriarch and absolute ruler of the household, but she is in turn ruled by her god. An owner of three hair braiding salons, she is contrasted with downtrodden Adina who is the victim of her abusive husband Dumeye. The Nwosus have bettered themselves in the USA and Nna is equally upwardly mobile. It was intriguing to see how the two families related to each other as the truth was slowly revealed. There was a strong element of tragedy in how the women were treated and how they treated other women.
There was also a strong emphasis on smells and sounds that worked well in the visit to a Houston Nigerian restaurant and in Lagos. However, there was one to which the author kept returning that related to Nna and it was one that I did not constantly need reminding about. However it did show his complete lack of respect for Ikemafuwa in that he couldn’t be bothered to wash himself for her.
At the end, Ikemefuwa seemed completely trapped and I wondered what would happen to her next.
My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an ARC.

House Woman is one crazy ride of a read from start to finish. We follow Ikemefuna and her newly arranged marriage to Nna. Ikemefuna has traveled from Lagos to Texas in the hopes of loving the American dream and is eager to please her new husband and his family. But what she hoped would be a dream turns into a nightmare as she is abused, locked inside, cut off from the outside world and being forced to become pregnant.
This book wasn't an easy read and I thought it would be different than it was from the blurb. It is a shocking read that opens your eyes and I'd advise to please read trigger warnings before reading it. It also turned my stomach in places to the point I felt really sick reading it - IYKYK. The story throws a few curve balls at you making your head spin and navigates between both the viewpoint of Ikemefuna and Nna.

Unfortunately I struggled with this book and think it just wasn’t for me this time.

Thank you to #NetGalley and #HarperCollins for a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Whilst this book is styled as fiction, I cannot help but conclude there is a whole lot of fact in there. The combination works well and certainly gave me lots to think about and enjoy.

Whilst I do appreciate that many cultures, both ancient and modern, require(d) women to prove their fecundity before their "man" would marry them, this tale confused me quite a bit!

We have a successful Nigerian family living in Texas with a very successful son who puts himself around quite a lot until, one day, he returns home to Houston to find his, new-to-him, wife-to-be cooking for him and his parents. OK so far but one of the things this sophisticated son fails to do and he admits, almost as a boast, is to keep his front-facing nether regions clean and so they smell like rank cheese aka smegma. Wife-to-be sets about proving she is fecund, even though the smell frequently turns her stomach during the process. As in this review, it seems to be focussed on in the book too.

Have to say that I was weirded out by this.

The concept of the power of old gods does not weird me out at all but I could willingly get into the face of anyone who uses them solely for personal gain; it is fraud on so many levels.

I found this to be a complex story and a very worthwhile one as not only was it a great read but it made me think too; the perfect combination. It also left me wondering why there was no finite conclusion, which cost it 1 Star.

Upon returning to his family home in America one day, Nna Nwosu finds a strange young woman in his mother's kitchen. Ikemefuna Azubuike has travelled from Lagos, Nigeria to 'audition' basically to be his wife. Nna is taken with Ikemefuna at first but when she starts to tell him things about his parents he doesn't want to hear, their relationship falters. Ikemefuna thought that she would be in America for only two weeks but as soon as she arrived, the Nwosus took away her passport & have kept her locked up for weeks, unable to even go outside. She hopes to persuade the recently arrived home Nna, a self-professed feminist, to take her back to Lagos, but who is he really?

This was a difficult one to read because of some of the subject matter. The reader hears from both Nna & Ikemefuna with their differing takes on what is happening. The sheer horror of expecting your trip to be a two week vacation & it turning into your imprisonment is conveyed but I would have liked to have heard from Ikemefuna a bit more - her side of things is rather vague for the most part. There were several moments when she sort of zones out & then 'wakes up' to find herself committing violent acts but the reader isn't really given any insight into what is happening here. The ending is also rather abrupt & open-ended but you feel that the luckless Ikemefuna is unlikely to have a Happy Ever After. Overall, I found the disparity of what is expected from women as opposed to men was laid out clearly but there are other aspects which could have been expanded on more. It did leave me feeling unsettled.

There's a lot of trigger warnings for this one: domestic abuse, sexual assault, kidnapping, imprisonment, violence, death.

My thanks to NetGalley & publishers, HarperCollins UK/The Borough Press, for the opportunity to read an ARC.

Please let me preface this review by acknowledging that my anticipation to read Adorah Nworah’s new novel “House Woman” and my unrealistic expectations may have ruined the story for me. That being said, I didn’t want to put this down. Let me explain.

This story made me feel a myriad of emotions from anger to excitement (Yes, I was cheering Ikemefuna on when she was attempting to murder her in-laws). I felt hope and despair and frustration, so in that sense, this book was successful in moving me emotionally, which is a characteristic of a good book in my humble opinion.

“House Woman” is the story of Ikemefuna, a young, Nigerian woman held against her will and forced to marry an American Nigerian man, Nna, who is essentially her half brother. This story suffers from moments where the reader has to completely fill in the gaps between the moments of upheaval and calm which take place in and out and around the household in which Ikemefuna is trapped. I’m not sure if these gaps are due to the blackouts that Ikemefuna suffers from, but the stop and start plot is jolting and requires too much suspension of disbelief for me. And yet…I always felt compelled to read on to find out what happens to Ikemefuna.

I think that Ikemefuna has some great female rage in her and rightfully so. I loved her character! I would gladly read more about her. I was a bit disappointed at the loose ending, but that’s only because I wanted to see Ikemefuna get the freedom she deserves.

This a domestic thriller, which I’m not a fan of, but I like Nworah’s spin on the oh-so-predictable tales we’ve already seen published which don’t shed women in a realistic way—especially those stories from male writers who have no understanding of the female psyche. Nworah shows readers how nuanced and complex women are, especially women who are broken by the cruelty and abuse they endure from others, and how those women react and strike back when they’re pushed up against a wall. And in this story, vengeance is sweet—at least it was for me.

I think that Nworah’s story is something special, and I will happily pick up whatever she writes next!
If you’re interested in domestic thrillers, stories about transnationalism, and/or stories about the complexities of mixed heritage (heterosexual) relationships, then this is for you!

Many thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK for an ARC of Adorah Nworah’s new novel “House Woman” in exchange for an honest review.

A book that fills your mind in the gaps of time when you are still reading it but have had to lay it aside for some mundane reason (life). When I began reading, I wasn't sure if I would finish it. Unfamiliar phrases, names; strange religious practices and perplexing dishes being prepared in the kitchen in Texas. It wasn't so long until the story drew me in. It's all there: fear, shame, guilt. Plenty of lies. Gradually coming to terms with unpalatable truths. A girl, sent halfway across the world to find entrapment, tribal marriage by arrangement. Imprisonment and isolation ......in America, where people are free, women have rights and the law protects. Doesn't it?

This was a brutal and uncomfortable read, but one that I just couldn't stop reading. Like a horror film that has your terrified but you just can't turn away, that is what this was like

With its creepy setting and expertly crafted characters, this suspenseful page-turner will keep you up all night, unable to put it down.

Thought the concept of this sounded interesting but unfortunately I couldn’t see enough character development in Ikemefuna to make her change believable.