Abuja-based romance publisher Ankara Press has just released two new e-book titles, published on 14th February 2017 to coincide with Valentine’s Day.

Love Me Unconditionally by Ola Awonubi is set in London and Lagos and explores issues of family pressure and expectations. This Crazy Paradise takes place in South Africa and is the second in a series by Aziza Eden Walker, featuring characters from her previous novel The Seeing Place.

Ankara Press publishing director Emma Shercliff said:

“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.”

ABOUT THE BOOKS

LOVE ME UNCONDITIONALLY by OLA AWONUBI

Deola Banjoko has it all. A wonderful career, an accomplished fiancée and great plans for the future. But as the years pass and Deola fails to become pregnant, the foundations of the wonderful life they have built together begin to crumble, unable to withstand the pressures of life, family and cultural expectations.

Recovering from a broken heart, Deola takes up a chance to work in Nigeria. She crosses paths with businessman Femi Da Silva and ends up working as a consultant for his PR company. She soon learns that Femi has issues of his own, having been widowed ten years before, and tries to fight her attraction to him. Can Deola move beyond the pain of the past and the constrictions of societal pressures to find the unconditional love she is seeking?

THIS CRAZY PARADISE by AZIZA EDEN WALKER

It takes a divorce for psychologist Dr Onele Dlamini to realise she wants to write steamy love stories. She’s given herself one month on a Greek-style resort on the West Coast of South Africa in which to prove she can do it. Daniel Lindo is the red-hot workman who arrives to fix her roof and ask for her help with his insomnia – over another woman. Onele really, really shouldn’t play therapist here, but she’s curious… there is more to this man’s past than meets the eye.

Is Daniel the cure for Onele’s writer’s block? Or will she find the truth is not quite as it seems in this crazy paradise?

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Ola Awonubi is an award-winning writer and her short stories have featured in Story Time, Brittle Paper, Naijastories.com, Siren and various other publications and anthologies. Ola won first prize in the National Words of Colour competition and Wasafiri’s New Writing Prize for Fiction. Her first novel, Love’s Persuasion, was published by Ankara Press in 2014.

Aziza Eden Walker is a former actress and psychologist who now writes full-time. She began writing love stories on a little blackboard as a teen, the advantage being that she could rub the risqué bits out before anyone saw them! She has published short stories and poetry. This Crazy Paradise is Aziza’s second novel with Ankara Press, following the success of her debut novel The Seeing Place.

ABOUT ANKARA PRESS

Ankara Press is an imprint of groundbreaking Nigerian publisher Cassava Republic Press. Ankara Press was founded with the aim of publishing ‘a new kind of romance’, challenging romance stereotypes and providing an outlet for romantic fiction written by African authors. Ankara Press was launched in December 2014 and is devoted to publishing easy-to-read, purse-sized books with African settings, storylines and characters. There has been a global response to the stories, with media coverage and readers from around the world.

Information about all ten Ankara Press titles is available at www.ankarapress.com.