LoveReading Says

If you love novels focused on intriguing relationships, and stories that see complex characters forced to face their past, then Kehinde Fadipe’s In Such Tremendous Heat should be moved to the top of your summer reading list. Add to that family drama, social commentary, unravelling relationships and a sense of mystery and subterfuge escalating around an attractive male newcomer, and you're in for an immersive, page-turning experience.

In low-tax, high-temperature Singapore, Dara, Amaka and Lillian, young women of Nigerian heritage, are brought together by a book club of (mostly) high-earning women. Ambitious lawyer Dara works all hours in pursuit of being made a partner, while banker Amaka over-spends on luxury items while her personal life teeters on the brink. Meanwhile, Lillian, a former musician, sees her marriage crumble as a result of unsuccessful IVF procedures and growing distrust.

Into this, the women meet Lani, who’s been sent from Geneva to work on a crucial case with Dara. As a result of meeting him, all three women’s lives unravel even further, forcing them to reflect on their pasts, and how they might forge their futures. 

While Lillian believes, for a time at least, that a “large, invisible hand” is at play in her life, In Such Tremendous Heat is ultimately a novel about losing and finding yourself, and realising “that nothing was ever meant to stay the same.” It’s also incisive on the complexities of female friendship, and the experiences of Black ex-pats in Singapore.

Joanne Owen

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