“You and I are from different worlds, Patrick Keen. You call It giving up. I think I’ve had enough. You have no idea what I’ve had to do to survive; the terrible life I’ve had to live. I’ve had to go forty-eight hours without food because I couldn’t afford it. I know poverty and poverty knows me. We breathe the same air. So, don’t sit here and blame me if I decide to leave all that behind and go back to a life I am certain is better.”
A straight-forward, determined girl from a poor village. A rich handsome man, coming from no where.
So begins a story between two people who live in two different worlds and who only cross each other’s path by accident. Omotara struggles against a life of poverty in her beloved village which now represents a serious menace for her. Patrick struggles to hold back the layers of his own identity, and also to win Omotara’s heart. When they come across each other several times, Omotara understands that she is at a crossoards in her life and that radical decisions await her.
In a world where nothing is what it looks like, where no place is truly safe, however familiar it looks, Omotara goes from Lagos back to her village where her people struggle to resist starvation under a newly-instaured dictatorial regime. Her determination to free her village from corruption and terror is also a way for fight her own destiny and to take back her own chance to become a doctor.
Aderonke Moyinlorun’s book is a pleasant reading that takes you across several places and genres almost at the same time, from the classical first encounter of a romance to an espionage novel. The alert style, both inward-oriented and accurate about the outside world, is doubled by a dynamic plot. The result is an interesting book with strong characters, an insightful first person narrative voice, and an unexpected mix of romance, thriller and political fable.
The Promise That We Made by Aderonke Moyinlorun
978-1722191658 / CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (July 14, 2018)
Review by Ioana Danaila
Ioana Danaila was born in Romania. She graduated from University Lyon 2 Lumière with a Masters in African Postcolonial Literature and a First degree in French for Non-Francophone people. She published a collection of short stories and translated books from French to Romanian. She speaks Romanian, French, English, and Spanish, and teaches English language and literature to highschool students in France.