HOUSE WOMAN ADORAH NWORAH

Publication date: June 06, 2023

ISBN: 978-1-951213-56-5

Dimensions: 5x8

Pages: 320

Hardback: $28.00

North American Rights: Unnamed Press

When Ikemefuna is put on a plane from Lagos, Nigeria to Sugar Land, Texas, she anticipates her newly arranged All-American life: a handsome husband, a beautiful red-brick mansion, 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 as her every move comes under scrutiny. As Ikemefuna finds there’s no way out, her new husband grapples with the influence of his parents against his own increasing affection for her.

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 desire, melting in the Texas heat.

Praise for House Woman

“To read House Woman is to encounter characters that are alive in their desires. They want what they want and they want it now. Nworah’s debut is full of twists and sentences that will stun you. A book rich in surprises.”

—Kemi Falodun, writer, journalist and author of Soundbender: The Many Lives of Beautiful Nubia

“An unflinching, unforgettable slow-burn thriller, House Woman reveals searing truths about women’s bodily autonomy and the hidden Gothic horrors of marriage while refusing to provide any simple answers—and the novel is all the more satisfying for it. Adorah Nworah is a stunning literary talent, and her debut will enthrall you, incense you, and haunt you forever.”

—Layne Fargo, author of They Never Learn

“Adorah Nworah has written a deeply immersive and wrenching study of the life of a young woman in an arranged marriage and the thorny paths she must navigate in her quest for freedom. This debut shines with a brilliance that will run through you clean as an arrow. I’ve yet to read a story so gutting, yet tender and thoughtful in its handling of such an important subject.”

—Ukamaka Olisakwe, author of Ogadinma

Adorah Nworah is an Igbo writer from South-East Nigeria. Her stories have been published in AFREADA and adda magazine. Her short stories, The Bride and Broken English, made the shortlist for the 2019 Commonwealth Writers Short Story Prize and the longlist for the 2018 Short Story Day Africa Prize respectively. She lives in Philadelphia, where she practices real estate finance law and is cat mom to a handsome Napoleon cat.