House Woman

When Ikemefuna Nwosa 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 college courses. Shy and willing to please, she'll happily cater to her family's needs before her own. Two Nigerian families with deep ties have made their match, but Ikemefuna soon discovers what it actually means to live with her in-laws. Demands for a grandson become desperately urgent and the freedom to do as she pleases is put under lock-and-key by an enabling husband. As their marriage succumbs to violent generational cycles of pain and silence, family secrets boil to the surface, and Ikemefuna must decide how to scrape herself out of an impossibly sticky situation. An unforgettably delicious thriller, Adorah Nworah's debut is about a woman alone in an unsettling collision of desires melting in the Texas heat.