Genre Fiction.

Blurb ‘Adamma is a dazzling beauty and Nigeria’s biggest female musician. She has clawed her way to the top through sheer talent, uncommon drive and a shocking ability to adapt to people’s musical needs. And, she intends to stay at the top no matter what.

Obinna Obiekwe is a tycoon and a known playboy, the Casanova of fashionable Lagos society. He loves women, and he spends money on them recklessly. Years ago, he had met Adamma, and now he wants to be back in her life. However, she has kept a deep, devastating secret away from him…a secret he discovers and intends to break her with. He never forgets, he never lets go, and he has Adamma in his sights. He is rich, handsome and powerful, and he wants her to pay.

A heartbreaking, emotional saga, so begins the thrilling, exotic story of Adamma, the woman everyone thinks is living the big dream, but whose life is a living nightmare. In the lush playgrounds of Lagos’s high brow areas, the saga of her life plays out, with a bitter past rearing its head at all turns, and a desperate future waiting for her everywhere she turns.’

Dialogue Written in English with a smattering of Igbo, the dialogue was stilted and unnatural in places.

Themes Abuse, Female Roles, Family and Self-reliance.

Editing Needs better developmental editing. Also has some copy-editing errors.

Plot Adamma, a 28-year-old beautiful musician runs into Obinna, a 34-year-old business owner at an event. They had met once 10 years ago. After their recent encounter, Obinna discovers a secret which Adamma kept from him for these 10 years and decides to punish her for this. His actions set off a chain of events that affects both of them.

What we think about the book

Usually, our reviews are divided into 2 sections – what worked and what didn’t work but for this review, we have decided to share our thoughts on the book together. For starters, this book has not been published so it may be that the author, Kingsley will still make changes before it is published since it is self-published. Kingsley said he wrote this book for his readers. However, this book isn’t for us. Perhaps, we were not the target audience.

Adamma is a story that deviates from the norm in that the heroine is ‘self-made’ despite her harrowing start in life. We are introduced to the main characters, Adamma and Obinna at the beginning of the book but that scene is set 10 years earlier. The rest of the book focuses on the present which is linked to their encounter 10 years prior.

The book is overly descriptive. If one is to concentrate on the story itself, we believe it could be told in about 200 pages. Perhaps as a result of being overly descriptive or maybe this is the author’s writing style, we noticed that Kingsley seems to insert himself and his views a lot in the story and not in a nuanced way. For instance, at the beginning, he referred to women drinking alcohol in a club as bold which suggests a conservative outlook or at least, background. As a storyteller, it’s better to show how certain actions may be viewed in the society where the characters exist without imposing one’s own view.

Kingsley introduced his socio-political views in the book without any subtlety. Buzzwords like patriarchy suggested an awareness of societal issues but this was not carried through in the characters. For example, throughout the book, Obinna said he appreciated Adamma’s ‘sexual liberation’ yet, he called her a whore at every opportunity. It was very confusing, to say the least.

The other way in which Kingsley seemed to insert himself was in the portrayal of the characters. He seemed to be judging his characters. Perhaps his intention was to give us the society’s view of the characters. Instead, we got his own thoughts about their dressing and way of life. We found this weird as it seemed to be conflicting.

The story was chaotic. It was difficult to understand what the actual conflict between the main characters was. There was no rhyme or reason for their angst towards each other. What was worse was that Obinna had no redeeming features so one wondered what Adamma saw and loved in him.

There were also gaps in the story about Adamma’s past. How did she survive losing her parents and subsequently, only sibling at such a young age (that is, the practicalities of how she survived)? However, as this book is part of a series, it may be that these gaps will be addressed in subsequent books.

Overall, we think the basics of a story worth telling lurks behind the verbosity in this one. Kingsley seems to understand what will make for an interesting story but this book as presently constituted is bogged down by too many things happening without logically connecting in a relatable and believable manner.

Number of pages 402.

Publisher Self-published.

Damage $2.93 on Amazon Kindle (pre-order price).

Rating 4/10.

Adamma is available for pre-order on Amazon.

Many thanks, Kingsley for sending us a review copy in exchange for our honest opinions.