As part of activities marking St Valentine’s Day, Abuja-based publisher Cassava Republic Press, under its Ankara Press imprint, has launched two romantic books. The event took place yesterday in Abuja.
Love Me Unconditionally by award-winning writer, Ola Awonubi, is set in London and Lagos and explores issues of family pressure and expectations, while This Crazy Paradise by Aziza Eden Walker takes place in South Africa and is the second in a series, featuring characters from her previous novel The Seeing Place.
Ankara Press Publishing Director Emma Shercliff stated, “We are thrilled to be releasing two more Ankara novels and delighted that these are both by authors with whom we have worked already. True to the Ankara ethos, the books feature rather unconventional heroines – the first is a woman in her late thirties who is facing increasing pressure from her family to produce a child, the second a romance writer seeing solace on an island resort near Cape Town after a bruising divorce. Both are enormously entertaining, and feature characters whose lives are not as uncomplicated as those who often appear in romance novels. We want our books to reflect the reality of women’s lives, whilst also being engaging and uplifting reads.”
The e-books are available for purchase on the Internet.
Awonubi won first prize in the National Words of Colour competition and Wasafiri’s New Writing Prize for Fiction. Walker on the other hand is a former actress and psychologist. This Crazy Paradise is her second novel with Ankara Press, following the success of her debut novel The Seeing Place.
