The Masobe Books eBookstore boasts of some of the best creative works straight out of Nigeria in the last 2 years. From stories inspired by music, to stories inspired by the state of the nation, to stories lit by the fire of advocacy, your mind will be blown as you travel through the leaves of these page turners. Welcome to Masobe Books A-Z!
- A Broken People’ Playlist (Stories From Songs)
Author: Chimeka Garricks
Year: 2020
Number of Pages: 254
ISBN: 978-978-57281-0-1
A Broken People’s Playlist is a collection of short stories with underlying themes so beautifully woven that each story flows into the other seamlessly. From its poignant beginning in “Lost Stars” a story about love and it’s fleeting, transient nature to the gritty, raw musical prose encapsulated in “In The City”, a tale of survival set in the alleyways of the waterside. A Broken People’s Playlist is a mosaic of stories about living, loving and hurting through very familiar sounds, in very familiar ways and finding healing in the most unlikely places.The stories are also part-homage and part-love letter to Port Harcourt (the city which most of them are set in). The prose is distinctive as it is concise and unapologetically Nigerian. And because the collection is infused with the magic of evocative storytelling, everyone is promised a story, a character, to move or haunt them.BUY NOW - Aviara: Who Will Remember You
Author: Othuke Ominiabohs
Year: 2020
Number of Pages: 327
ISBN: 978-978-57281-6-3
When twenty-five-year-old Anthony Mukoro returns from the city, to his hometown Aviara, it is with news that shatters the hopes of his retired parents – he is dying. This startling revelation sends his family into a frantic search for answers. But the answers they seek will come at a cost.To save his life, he must confront forgotten memories from a traumatic experience in his past and a darkness that swells and grows unnoticed within the town. Unknown to Anthony, this begins a journey that will lead him into a dark world of murder and a town’s history steep in blood and shadows.Aviara explores the complex balance between science and spirituality, fate and ancestry, within the labyrinth of one man’s unravelling reality.BUY NOW - Buried Beneath The Baobab Tree
Author: Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani
Year: 2019
Number of Pages: 343
ISBN: 978-978-57281-5-6
Adaobi brings her years of journalistic endeavour to bear in this gripping story of woe, abuse and admirable fortitude; of a young girl whose dreams of a university education facilitated by a prestigious scholarship, is shattered when Boko Haram Terrorists attack her village and take her and other women captive after killing her brothers and father among others. This is a well-spun tale that traces the experiences of the women in the hands of the terrorists.Based on interviews with young women who were kidnapped by Boko Haram, this poignant novel tells the timely story of one girl who was taken from her home and her harrowing fight for survival.BUY NOW - Dreams and Assorted Nightmares
Author: Adam Abubakar Ibrahim
Year: 2020
Number of Pages: 250
ISBN: 978-978-979-652-6
Zango is a surreal town where men, some with erect manhoods, die when leaves fall from a life tree.Zango is both setting and spectre for ‘Dreams and Assorted Nightmares’, a collection of interconnecting short stories which explore the spaces between life and death and beyond.The stories mostly feel mystical and dark, but the palpable compassion with which they are written give them warmth and light. Like rivulets, the stories easily flow into each other, aided by Ibrahim’s signature hypnotic writing and majestic prose. This is a collection to savour especially for its many enigmas — the silent poetry and tragedies of everyday life, the darkness and tenderness of the human mind, and the crossroads between dreams and the supernatural.BUY NOW - I Do Not Come To You By Chance
Author: Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani
Year: 2019
Number of Pages: 403
ISBN: 978-978-57281-4-9
As first son and graduate, Kingsley Ibe has a load of responsibilities resting on his skinny shoulders. But times are bad in Nigeria, and life is hard. Unable to find work, Kingsley cannot take on the duty of training his younger siblings, nor can he provide his parents with financial peace in their retirement. And then there is Ola his girlfriend, the sugar in Kingsley’s tea. It does not seem to matter that he loves her deeply; he cannot afford her bride price.But when Kingsley’s father falls sick, he becomes desperate to live up to his responsibilities. So he travels to Aba, to his wealthy uncle, ‘Cash Daddy’.Under the avuncular wing of ‘Cash Daddy’, Kingsley is catapulted into the fast-money world of email scamming where he discovers a profitable talent for persuasive storytelling. But, as the stakes grow higher and Cash Daddy grows more ambitious, Kingsley begins to realise he is in way over his head and that, even in Nigeria, nothing comes for free . . .BUY NOW - Odufa: A Lovers’ Tale
Author: Othuke Ominiabohs
Year: 2015
Number of Pages: 340
ISBN: 978-978-56279-6-1
When Anthony Mukoro discovers he cannot father a child, his whole world comes crashing. In a desperate bid to sire an heir, he plunges into the reckless life of a pleasure-seeking libertine. But everything changes when he meets and falls head over heels in love with Odufa, a beautiful young girl with a past. Their coming together is fraught with obstacles and challenges that pits them against everything; from tradition to stereotyped beliefs. But nothing is as it seems as they both get entangled in a love affair so intense and toxic, it quickly begins to spiral out of control.In his debut novel, Ominiabohs graphically chronicles the entire gamut of emotional experiences of a tumultuous affair of young lover’s. A controversial page-turner.BUY NOW - The Mechanics of Yenagoa
Author: Michael Afenfia
Year: 2020
Number of Pages: 305
ISBN: 978-978-57281-1-1
Ebinimi, star mechanic of Kalakala Street, is a man with a hapless knack for getting in and out of trouble. Some of his troubles are self-inflicted: like his recurring entanglements in love triangles; and his unauthorised joyriding of a customer’s car which sets off a chain of dire events involving drugs, crooked politicians, and assassins. Other troubles are caused by the panorama of characters in his life, like: his sister and her dysfunctional domestic situation; the three other mechanics he employs; and the money-loving preacher who has all but taken over his home.The story is fast-paced with surprising twists and a captivating plot – a Dickenesque page-turner. This is Ebinimi’s story but it is about a lot more than him. It is an exploration of the dynamics between working-class people as they undertake a colourful tour of Yenagoa, one of Nigeria’s lesser-known cities, while using humour, sex, and music, as coping mechanisms for the everyday struggle.BUY NOW
A Broken People’s Playlist is a collection of short stories with underlying themes so beautifully woven that each story flows into the other seamlessly. From its poignant beginning in “Lost Stars” a story about love and it’s fleeting, transient nature to the gritty, raw musical prose encapsulated in “In The City”, a tale of survival set in the alleyways of the waterside. A Broken People’s Playlist is a mosaic of stories about living, loving and hurting through very familiar sounds, in very familiar ways and finding healing in the most unlikely places.The stories are also part-homage and part-love letter to Port Harcourt (the city which most of them are set in). The prose is distinctive as it is concise and unapologetically Nigerian. And because the collection is infused with the magic of evocative storytelling, everyone is promised a story, a character, to move or haunt them.
When twenty-five-year-old Anthony Mukoro returns from the city, to his hometown Aviara, it is with news that shatters the hopes of his retired parents – he is dying. This startling revelation sends his family into a frantic search for answers. But the answers they seek will come at a cost.To save his life, he must confront forgotten memories from a traumatic experience in his past and a darkness that swells and grows unnoticed within the town. Unknown to Anthony, this begins a journey that will lead him into a dark world of murder and a town’s history steep in blood and shadows.Aviara explores the complex balance between science and spirituality, fate and ancestry, within the labyrinth of one man’s unravelling reality.
Zango is a surreal town where men, some with erect manhoods, die when leaves fall from a life tree.Zango is both setting and spectre for ‘Dreams and Assorted Nightmares’, a collection of interconnecting short stories which explore the spaces between life and death and beyond.The stories mostly feel mystical and dark, but the palpable compassion with which they are written give them warmth and light. Like rivulets, the stories easily flow into each other, aided by Ibrahim’s signature hypnotic writing and majestic prose. This is a collection to savour especially for its many enigmas — the silent poetry and tragedies of everyday life, the darkness and tenderness of the human mind, and the crossroads between dreams and the supernatural.
As first son and graduate, Kingsley Ibe has a load of responsibilities resting on his skinny shoulders. But times are bad in Nigeria, and life is hard. Unable to find work, Kingsley cannot take on the duty of training his younger siblings, nor can he provide his parents with financial peace in their retirement. And then there is Ola his girlfriend, the sugar in Kingsley’s tea. It does not seem to matter that he loves her deeply; he cannot afford her bride price.But when Kingsley’s father falls sick, he becomes desperate to live up to his responsibilities. So he travels to Aba, to his wealthy uncle, ‘Cash Daddy’.Under the avuncular wing of ‘Cash Daddy’, Kingsley is catapulted into the fast-money world of email scamming where he discovers a profitable talent for persuasive storytelling. But, as the stakes grow higher and Cash Daddy grows more ambitious, Kingsley begins to realise he is in way over his head and that, even in Nigeria, nothing comes for free . . .
When Anthony Mukoro discovers he cannot father a child, his whole world comes crashing. In a desperate bid to sire an heir, he plunges into the reckless life of a pleasure-seeking libertine. But everything changes when he meets and falls head over heels in love with Odufa, a beautiful young girl with a past. Their coming together is fraught with obstacles and challenges that pits them against everything; from tradition to stereotyped beliefs. But nothing is as it seems as they both get entangled in a love affair so intense and toxic, it quickly begins to spiral out of control.In his debut novel, Ominiabohs graphically chronicles the entire gamut of emotional experiences of a tumultuous affair of young lover’s. A controversial page-turner.
