Book Review: Love Me Unconditionally by Ola Awonubi

Blurb
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 and find the unconditional love she is seeking?


My Review
This story delves into a very African society through the eyes of a Nigerian-born woman who lives in the UK and returns home following a bad break-up with her fiance of 5 years! (phew, long sentence). She meets Femi on the plane to Lagos and he turns out to be someone from her childhood - her brother's best friend.

Femi also has his demons. Widowed for 10 years, he still stays true to the memory of  his dead wife.

In a society where marriage and children are an aspiration for many, these two find themselves caught in the web of nagging and potential match-making plots of family and friends. Both Deola and Femi are strong characters with solid background that carry the story; and the story unfolds in a steady manner.

However, the two don't spend enough page time together IMO. Ms Awonubi spends nearly the first half of the book delving into their lives (individually) and their issues without putting them together, thus losing the opportunity to turn up the heat as her characters try to resist temptation while having to work together. It also means the hero and heroine have just about half the story time to explore their romance which makes the romance less satisfying than it could have been.

*Disclaimer: I received an eARC copy of this book and voluntarily chose to review it*