🥤Tomilola Coco Adeyemo Writes Women in All Their Complexity

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👋Hi there! How’s August treating you? While we count down to the live-action adaptation of The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives coming this December, why not revisit the book—and dive into a few more reads where betrayal takes centre stage?

In this issue:

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Tomilola Coco Adeyemo Writes Women in All Their Complexity

We love talking to authors and getting to know them better. In this issue, we have romance writer Tomilola Coco Adeyemo, author of A Very Gidi Christmas, A Nollywood Christmas, and the recently released Efun’s Jazz.

You’ve built a career across screenwriting, content production, and fiction writing. Writing has become a part of you, but how do you manage to balance the three worlds? 

It’s crazy juggling all, but I’ll say I thrive because I love being a creative. Also, I don't see it as three different worlds, but as part of a world. 

After my NYSC in 2011, I was writing a life update series called Coco’s Crinkles for a blog called 360, while simultaneously studying a diploma course at a film school and honing other crafts. I also started fiction blogging in 2016 before publishing my first ebook under Okada Books. 

I always tell creatives to explore different sides of themselves. It can be stressful, but at the end of the day, it is sweet stress, and I love it here.

Was there a particular experience that inspired Efun’s Jazz? Also, the story first appeared on Brittle Paper in 2022. What did you feel needed to change before you were ready to put this version of the story into the world?

There wasn't an inspiration per se, but I was raised in a conventional Yoruba home. Sooner or later, that part of me was bound to reflect in my life. In the early 2000s, Thunderbolt by Tunde Kelani was a beautiful romance story about intertribal marriage.  It was based on Yoruba spirituality, which really inspires me. 

I don’t want to say much because of spoilers. I needed to open the story in different ways. So this time, I wrote things realistically to explore the first layers of this story.

Nicole spends Efun’s Jazz navigating love, marriage, and the realization that something you once always wanted may no longer be good for you. What did you want her journey to say about staying in love versus knowing when to let go?

I want women to know that if you are in a situation that doesn't serve you, it is okay to pack your bags and go. 

The bad marriage with Nicole was taking more from her. When something isn't good for you, it affects more than one part, be it spiritually, romantically, or every area of life. I wanted her to be able to speak to people in the same situation to take the first step, and the universe will listen to them and show them the way out.

As with most of your books, how do you choose the songs that follow your books? In the case of EJ, were there songs you listened to while writing?

With Efun’s Jazz, I wanted people to come up with their own playlist. The music inspiration depends on my mood. I write with music, although there are days I don't want music.

While writing, I pick a song as I write and let the shuffle do the rest. I was playing Teledalase’s Ayanfe while writing Efun’s Jazz. That’s just what I do, and in a way, the songs also choose the story for me.

What exactly inspired Efun’s Jazz, and why did you feel a need to tell this story?

For me, it was a spiritual journey as well as a romantic tale. It explores scenes of karmic death, generational curses, fated soulmates, and not regular romantic tales set in contemporary times. I was also setting it in a world where Yoruba spirituality was being practiced, so I listened to songs on Isese (Yoruba spirituality), Osun chants, and music on astral mates (Egbe Orun). 

It helps me get in a spiritual mood. I explore many Yoruba love songs, Jazz, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, Fela and his Koola Lobitos, especially his Ololufe Mi song.

One thing that stands out to me across your writing is how closely you bring readers into a character’s physical and emotional experience. When writing about sex and intimacy, how do you decide how much detail is enough and what to leave out for the readers’ imaginations? 

For intimacy, I like the characters telling me what they want. Sometimes, I dedicate a whole day to writing intimate scenes, I have to figure out and layer the characters first. I add intimate scenes when I know they are important in that moment/scene. 

For instance, with Nicole and Laja, Nicole has fantasies she can’t explore with her husband, and with Laja, she holds back a little bit at first, and as she starts to soften up to him, she starts exploring her sexuality. I had to follow Nicole’s lead in the sense of what she would do, want, or feel at a particular time. 

The women in your stories are rarely just one thing; they can be ambitious, vulnerable, difficult, loving, and flawed at the same time. Is there a particular kind of woman or female experience you find yourself repeatedly returning to when you write?

Yes, I completely think there’s a specific type of female experience I return to, and that's women who are strong-willed, but flawed and have agency. 

In my life journey, my maternal and paternal families are filled with independent women. They take action and run shit without waiting for what anyone has to do or say, and I gravitate toward that.

What should your fans expect next from you?

They should expect stories that will age well and gracefully, stories that reflect time and characters they can relate to more. And who knows, maybe there will be another romance they can relate to sometime this year. Who knows? Let’s just all look up to God. Thank you.

August 5 was Book Lovers Day, which feels like the perfect excuse to remind you that there is life beyond the glowing rectangle in your hand.

Just as touching grass is said to keep us connected to reality, picking up a book might do the same (and we are slightly more convinced about the latter).

For this week’s recommendations, we have five books about secrets, complicated relationships, shifting loyalties, and the uncomfortable truth that people are rarely exactly who they seem.

Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives - Lola Shoneyin

Like Julius Caesar, Baba Segi had his Et Tu, Brute? moment when not one, not two, but three of his wives joined forces to keep a big secret about his children’s legitimacy from him. Everything was going well in the family until Baba Segi brought home his new and educated wife, Bolanle. Her arrival begins to reveal cracks and shed light on decades of hidden truth.

This story reflects that behind the wealth, big family, and picture of a successful man was a whole lot more. Follow each character’s story and find out how far their secrets take them by getting your copy through Ouida or local bookstores nearby. 

Stay With Me - Ayobami Adebayo

Men will show you shege, and Yejide’s husband was not left out of this mix. After years of battling childlessness and the pressure to have a child, Yejide is pushed to drastic lengths, including visiting spiritual homes as her marriage to her university lover threatens to unravel. 

However, there’s more to her husband’s side of the story. Stay With Me is packed with desperation, betrayal, marriage drama, and death. Everyone has something to hide, and Yejide is on the journey to finding out. Stay With Me is available on Masobe Books and Amazon. 

Sanya - Oyin Olugbile

What happens when the sibling you would kill for ends up betraying and overthrowing you? After Sanya kills a man defending her brother, she flees, changes her identity, and eventually rises to become a powerful warrior and king. Meanwhile, physically weaker Dada also finds his own path to the throne.

Years later, fate brings the siblings back together when Sanya helps Dada’s kingdom survive an invasion. But instead of a happy reunion, a dangerous alliance turns brother against sister. And when Sanya’s biggest secret is finally exposed, she's forced to make a decision that costs her everything.

Sanya is a Yoruba mythology gift that keeps giving with every turn of the page. Copies are available on RovingHeights and Bookpeddler. 

My Sister, the Serial Killer - Oyinkan Braithwaite

What would you do with a sister that keeps killing her lovers and leaving you to clean up after her? Ask Korede; this isn’t her first rodeo. Things get complicated when she falls for Dr. Tade, a doctor at the clinic where she works, only for her beautiful and charming sister, Ayoola, to set her sights on him too.

Now Korede has a choice to either protect the sister she has spent years covering for, or save the man she loves from becoming the latest name on Ayoola’s growing death roster.

My Sister, the Serial Killer is dark, twisted, and shocking. Get your copy from Narrative Landscape, Masobe Books, or The BookmarketNG. 

His Only Wife - Peace Adzo Medie

Our top recommendation for this week is Peace Adzo Medie’s His Only Wife because it tells the story of expectations set for women, and how Afi, the main character, separates herself from that. 

At 20, Afi leaves her rural hometown for Accra after entering an arranged marriage with Elikem, a wealthy and philanthropic man. Except there’s one tiny problem: her new husband already has a family and a life in the city that Afi knows nothing about. The deception, which starts as a marriage she had little choice in, soon becomes a journey of self-discovery.

His Only Wife is a story about marriage, family influence, identity, and what happens when a woman finally decides to choose herself. Available on Amazon and RovingHeights.

We are taking you back to 1971 with our backlist gem, Ola Rotimi’s The Gods Are Not to Blame, a 1968 play that was later published as a book three years later.

Some context: Ola Rotimi was one of Nigeria’s top playwrights in his time. Also a theatre producer, Ola Rotimi wore many hats, including being an actor, dancer, director, and designer. He was an academic who taught in institutions abroad before returning to Nigeria to teach at the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) and the University of Port Harcourt.

Origin: The Gods Are Not to Blame is a recounting of the Greek tragedian Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. Oedipus Rex is a tragic story about King Oedipus of Thebes who unknowingly fulfills a prophecy that he will kill his father and marry his mother. In The Gods Are Not to Blame, the story follows Odewale, who, after a prophecy at birth, was cast away by his royal parents. 

Odewale is saved by a palace messenger and handed to a couple to be raised. He grows up and moves to his original hometown to be a farmer. One day, he gets accused by a man with many bodyguards of stealing the piece of land he farmed. During the altercation, Odewale hits and ends up killing the man. Unbeknownst to Odewale, the man was a king and father who had abandoned him.

This play was first performed at the Ife Festival of the Arts in 1968 and has since birthed several remakes on stages and screens.

Why you should read: The Greeks told beautiful stories, oftentimes ending in tragedy. It’ll be a worthwhile experience to read the retold versions of a man who contributed to the growth of theatre arts in Nigeria.

📌 Tamara Sindio-Apaun's new book to be released on September 9 

Screenwriters are writing more book pages, and we absolutely love it! Masobe Books has revealed September 9 as the release date for Tamara Sindio-Apaun’s forthcoming romance book, Soft Landing in Kumasi, which was acquired earlier in June. 

Soft Landing in Kumasi is a story about a hurt, broken woman who is seeking healing, hope, and finding love. The book is promised to be a warm and deeply relatable reading experience. 

📌The Alhaji Arole Agarawu Foundation releases its 2026 Poetry Prize Longlist!

Established by poet Adedayo Agarau this year, the foundation awards poets across Africa and the diaspora. The longlist of 30 poems includes Bright Poems of Lyric by Bright Aboagye (Ghana), Decolonized Ear by Daniel Naawenkangua Abukuri (Ghana), Tattoo For Survivors Of Suicide by Adegoke Adeola (Nigeria), Alfred: Cantos by Isaiah Adepoju (Nigeria), In the Fusillade by Samuel Adeyemi (Nigeria), Dog Fighting a Heron by Ameen Animashaun (United States), EGG RACE & other poems by Kayode Ayobami (Nigeria), Tegument by Olumide Manuel Ayodele (Nigeria), Ordinary Tenderness by Emmanuel Chukwu (Nigeria), to list a few. Check the full list here. 

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