(linked to Recuerda Mi Corazon.)
Showers
midnight showers
a sound of silence
in each droplet
Celestine Nudanu – 03/05/19
Haiku My Heart: Showers
03 Friday May 2019
Category Archives: Ghana Association of Writers
Haiku My Heart: Echo of Silence
22 Friday Mar 2019
linked to Recuerda Mi Corazon.)
Echo of Silence
to the end
that my hallelujahs
rise up to you
favour me O Lord
in this
Cover Reveal: Expecting Ty’s Baby By Empi Baryeh
28 Thursday Feb 2019
Posted in African Women Writers, Events, Ghana Association of Writers, Guests, Publication, Romance
Tags
Africa, Black Opal Books, Contemporary Multi-cultural romance, Empi Baryeh, From Ghana with Love, Ghana, romance
Author: Empi Baryeh
Series: From Ghana With Love #2
Stand-Alone: Yes
Publisher:Black Opal Books
Genre: Romance, Contemporary, Multicultural
Heat Level: Sensual / Expected Publication Date: March 23, 2019/Cover Artist: Kim Killion
#WTMOETB
Abandoned by her father at a young age, beauty therapist, Patricia Owusu, has learned the hard way that men can’t be relied on. She’s determined to make it on her own without falling into the cultural trappings of marriage. However, when she finds herself pregnant after a torrid love affair with African-American financial consultant, Ty Webber, she discovers one man’s resolve to stick around.
When Ty discovers Patricia is carrying his baby, he offers marriage; because real men take responsibility for their actions. He isn’t prepared for Patricia’s stubborn determination to make it on her own. But nothing will prevent him from claiming his child or the woman he considers his.
Can Ty convince Patricia to take a chance on him to help provide a loving home for their baby, or will Patricia’s mistrust lead her to miss out on true love and rob her child of the type of father she never had?
Add (Expecting Ty’s Baby) to Goodreads
Available March 23, 2019
Missed Book 1 in the series?
Grab it in ebook, paperback or audiobook formats
(+ meet Ty and Patricia from book 2):
Black Opal Books |Amazon US | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | All Other Buy Links
Book 1: Chancing Faith
He didn’t do short-term relationships…
American ad exec, Thane Aleksander, doesn’t date co-workers either—until business takes him to Ghana, West Africa, and he meets Naaki. Now he’s at risk of breaking all the rules. Can he stop this headlong fall before it’s too late?
Until he met her!
Naaki Tabika has a burning need to prove, to herself and others, that she’s more than wife and mother material. To do so, she’s prepared to give up everything for her job. Meeting Thane, however, makes her want to get personal. But falling for her boss could destroy her career. Will she be willing to risk it all for the one thing that can make her truly happy?
Two divergent cultures, two different races, two career-driven professionals, only one chance at true love—will they find the faith to take it, or will their hearts be sacrificed on the altar of financial success?
Add (Chancing Faith) to Goodreads
Empi Baryeh is the award-winning author of Most Eligible Bachelor (Book of the year, 2017 Ufere Awards). She writes sweet and sensual African, multicultural and interracial romance, which happens to be her favourite genres of romance to read. Her interest in writing started around the age of thirteen after she stumbled upon a YA story her sister had started and abandoned. The story fascinated her so much that, when she discovered it was unfinished, she knew she had to complete it. Somehow the rest of the story began to take shape in her mind and she’s been writing ever since.
She lives in Accra, Ghana, with her husband and their two lovely kids.
CONNECT WITH EMPI
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Instagram
LINKS
*(only use links if the linked texts above don’t work on your blog)
Website: https://www.empibaryeh.com/
Blog: https://empibaryehauthor.blogspot.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/empibaryeh
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/EmpiBaryeh
Google+: https://www.google.com/+EmpiBaryeh
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/empibaryeh
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/empibaryeh/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5625111.Empi_Baryeh
Songs – a Cherita, and an Award
30 Wednesday Jan 2019
Posted in African Women Writers, Awards, Cherita, Ghana Association of Writers, Haiku, Micropoetry, Poetry, Publication
Hello to you all my lovely friends and a wonderful New Year to you 🙂 It’s good to be back here with you once again. I know I’ve missed a lot and it will take me ages o catch up, if ever I do at all. 🙂 So, here is a small cherita to start my 2019 blogging. Enjoy! 🙂
O yes. I’m excited to announce that my book, Haiku Rhapsodies, Verses from Ghana, has done it again. Haiku Rhapsodies, Verses from Ghana, has won the Accra International Book Festival (AIBF) Literary Awards 2018 under the coveted First Book Award Category. Yay. 🙂 🙂
Songs – A Cherita
beyond velvet
blanket of skies
your song beckons
ululating
enchanting my waking dreams
Meet Me at the Ghana International Book Fair!
29 Wednesday Aug 2018
Hello, lovely people lovers of African stories.
If you’re in Accra, Ghana this week, have I got a treat for you! I and a group of Ghanaian authors (we’re calling ourselves 11 Authors (from) Ghana) have a stand at the Ghana International Book Fair, taking place from 30 August – 2 September, 2018 at the Accra International Conference Centre (AICC). Time is 9am to 7pm daily. This event will bring together, publishers, authors, book marketers, editors; you name it, from all over the globe. There will be seminars, master classes, book readings etc. Exciting, isn’t it? 🙂
Here are some of the great books you can get:
As you can see, we’re catering to a whole array of reading taste buds. Bring your whole family and meet new authors! 🙂 Sure, it will be fun! 🙂
Book Release: Path To Passion By Nana Prah
02 Thursday Aug 2018
Posted in African Women Writers, Events, Fiction, Ghana Association of Writers, Publication, Reviews, Romance
Tags
Ghana, Harlequin, Nana Prah, New release, Path To Passion, romance
My friend and fellow Ghanaian, Nana Prah, a multi cultural romance writer who also blogs at http://nanaprah.blogspot.com/ has just released her eighth book. Did you read that? Eighth book. Yeah, Nana is really making Ghana proud. And guess what I had the privilege of having lunch with her and another romance writer friend Empi right opposite my workplace. A possible Romance Writers of Ghana (RWOG) in the making? 🙂 Just make sure you get yourself a copy of this fabulous Path To Passion I will be reviewing soon. 🙂
Title: Path To Passion
Author: Nana Prah
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Print Length: 224 pages
Publisher: Harlequin Kimani Romance; Original edition (August 1, 2018)
Publication Date: August 1, 2018
BLURB
The man who broke her heart . . .Is the man she now needs more than ever!
Heir to his family’s global empire, branding genius Miguel Astacio turns everything into marketing gold. Only his best friend’s sister seems immune to his magic touch. Until Tanya Carrington comes to him to save her floundering nightclub. Miguel is ready to rectify past mistakes. But will his supreme sacrifice win the heart of the woman he loves?
Add to Goodreads: https://goo.gl/hbCASz
BUY LINKS
Amazon US: https://goo.gl/nbTvYU
Amazon UK: https://goo.gl/jkwRjj
Barnes and Noble: https://goo.gl/5gx7Mx
iBooks: https://goo.gl/cLpN6p
Kobo: https://goo.gl/YwVpWN
EXCERPT
Miguel’s blood heated as she gave him a wavering smile. She was just too beautiful, with clear skin marked only by a dark mole at the corner of her nose, angled dark eyes and full lickable lips.
“I mean,” Tanya continued, “I won’t even be able to recognize the place when it’s completed. Everything sounds incredible, but I may have to draw the line at the cages for dancers.”
He thought she might. “Trust me, if we charge people to dance in them, they will pay. The one rule is that they have to keep their clothes on.”
“We’ll see.” She stared at the screen again with her eyes unblinking “Um…” She rubbed the back of her neck and a light sheen of sweat broke out on her forehead. “How much will this cost?”
Now for the heavy convincing. He got up and stood beside her to point at the CCTV screen showing the dance area, which had filled up a little more in the hour they’d been going over his ideas. “I can see this place packed, people waiting all the way up the street trying to get in. VIP area filled with actors, musicians and pro athletes flying in to experience it.”
Unable to resist, he leaned close so they were almost cheek to cheek. Her heat and honeysuckle perfume floated into him, and he turned his head so his starving lips could caress her one more time. He kissed along her jaw until he met the sensitive area of her neck, where he teased her with gentle nips until she moaned. She sprang as far away from him as the room would allow.
What had he been thinking? Why did she affect him this way? She took away his willpower like no other woman had ever done. Thinking became almost impossible when she was around. The desire to smooth his hands over her incredibly silky soft skin drove him to get closer, but he stayed rooted to the spot, watching her rub the goose pimples from her arms.
“Answer the question, Miguel.” He was pleased to hear her voice quiver. “How much will it cost?”
He’d rather discuss the turbulent heat swirling between them, but if she wanted to ignore it then he should, too. “You’ve heard the saying that you have to spend money to make money, right?”
Her slow nod brought her hair forward. He watched as she brushed back the strand she wanted to filter his fingers through, bringing her close so they could fall into the attraction drawing them together.
CONNECT WITH NANA
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NanaPrah.Author/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NanaPrah
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nanaprahauthor/
Website: https://www.nanaprah.com/
Whispers of Dawn Now Available in Kindle
11 Wednesday Jul 2018
Tags
Amazon, Celestine Nudanu, Cherita, Ghana, Kindle, Whispers of Dawn
Good News to all my friends out there! Whispers of Dawn, (A book of Cherita) is now live and available for purchase in Kindle Format on Amazon. Yay. 🙂 Please download your copies and kindly leave a review on Amazon for me after reading. Thank you all so very much for your lovely support over the years. 🙂 God richly bless you. 🙂
Whispers of Dawn Gets Another Top Review
09 Monday Jul 2018
Posted in African Women Writers, Cherita, Dawn, Ghana Association of Writers, Micropoetry, Poetry, Publication, Reviews
Tags
Cherita, Ghana, Gillena Cox, Publication, review, Whispers of Dawn
Here is a wonderful review of my book Whispers of Dawn from my blogging friend in Trinidad & Tobago, Gillena Cox.
Yes she has done it again! Celestine Nudanu has dipped into her conscious yin and yang pulling out some trinkets for us; some sparkly as fine-cut diamonds, some dark as somber onyx. She has spilled across pages more than 50 poems called cherita. Telling her personal stories and sharing her cultural essence.
Choosing this concise genre to detail issues such as love, longing, despair, gratitude, death and self-realization, is no easy task, yet this is the holy grail that this poet embarks on, and succeeds in her attainment, as ‘Whispers of Dawn’
The cherita is a 6 line poem which tells a story, in fact it is a Malay word meaning story and is a form created by Ai Li.
Ai Li, in her foreword of this collection remarks, “The cherita genre could almost have been created just for Celestine, for her to gift to us her stories”
Best wishes with your outreach pursuits for a fine collection of poems, dear Celestine. Certainly, this is not a book you can read only once.
THANKS FOR AGREEING TO BOOK SWAP Celestine [ i have sent her a copy of my ‘Pink Crush’.
much love
gillena
Purchasing Links for Whispers of Dawn (A Book of Cherita)
Purchasing Links for Haiku Rhapsodies:
Review: Forest Girl by Empi Baryeh
28 Thursday Jun 2018
Tags
Africa, customs, Empi Baryeh, Forest Girl, Ghana, romance, tradition
Title: Forest Girl
Author: Empi Baryeh
Binding: Paperback
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Pages: 242
Publication Date: May 6,2018
Publishers: Independent Publishing with Createspace
Reasons for Reading: Advanced Review Copy for a candid review
Blurb
Esi Afriyie has been in love with Michael Yaw Badu since childhood. When he receives a scholarship to study in America, all hope seems lost … until he returns to Ghana ten years later. An arranged marriage contracted by their families makes her dreams come true, but does the reality of being Mrs. Michael Badu live up to the fantasy? Michael may have married Esi, but he is in love with someone else—Forest Girl, a mystery woman he encountered just once in the forest. His heart belongs to her, and he doesn’t need his beautiful wife awakening his carnal desires. He is even willing to sacrifice his marriage for another encounter with Forest Girl. Reality is not what either Esi or Michael imagined. Esi is disillusioned; Michael feels trapped. Will Michael give in and allow his heart to discover a love that was always meant to be, before it’s too late?
My Thoughts
Forest Girl is Empi Baryeh’s third romance book to be set in Ghana, and it can only get better and better. Empi knows her characters well, perhaps because she is from Ghana herself and she knows our lore and tradition, which are generously woven into the beautiful story that is Michael and Esi’s arranged marriage. I mean which man would agree to an arranged marriage even in a traditional setting? And a modern, US educated man at that. And yet Michael yields to pressure from the ghost of his father whose dying wish was for his son to marry a suitable girl chosen by him. Never mind that he has a ‘modern liberated’ girl friend, never mind that he hates the whole arrangement. Never mind that he had fallen for a mysterious Forest Girl, despite the very loud existence of his girlfriend. And never mind that Esi has been in love with him for a long time.
The beauty of this book is that the author managed to maneuver the ups and downs, surprises, twists and turns of this unusual relationship, keeping the reader in suspense till the end.
To be honest, both characters got on my nerves; Michael, for not willing or being able to make up his mind as to whom he wanted; Esi for being too sweet and trusting. But as the story developed, Esi, an educated girl from the village, proved that she could stand her own ground, especially when it became clear that she might be sharing her husband with Lena, Michael’s girlfriend. She refused to be treated like a doormat.
One significant feature about Forest Girl, among many, is that the reader is made aware that marriage is never a bed perfect, more so an arranged one. The author does a very good job here; dealing with infidelity in marriage and the presence of an imaginary woman, ingredients that no new wife should contend with in her marriage. Both characters grow to confront their limitations and Michael especially grows into the man he is supposed to be.
Forest Girl is well researched, the diction and editing, flawless. The flavour of Ghana and for that matter, Africa, permeates it. Rich customs and traditions, local foods, snippets of local dialect, well imbibed local drinks, lush and harsh scenery of village life are a fine blend that set the tone in this novel, Forest Girl.
The only problem I have with Forest Girl is that I would have loved to know the outcome of the job interview Esi attended. This however did not detract from the story or the development of the plot in any way.
Forest Girl is a truly lovely romance journey into Ghana that I urge all lovers of romance to take. 🙂
About the Author
Empi Baryeh is the award-winning author of Most Eligible Bachelor (winner: Book of the year in the 2017 Ufere Awards). She writes sweet and sensual African, multicultural and interracial romance, which happens to be her favourite genres of romance to read. Her interest in writing started around the age of thirteen after she stumbled upon a YA story her sister had started and abandoned. The story fascinated her so much that, when she discovered it was unfinished, she knew she had to complete it. Somehow the rest of the story began to take shape in her mind and she’s been writing ever since. She lives in Accra, Ghana, with her husband and their two lovely kids.
Buy Links
Amazon US | Barnes and Noble | Kobo | Amazon UK | Amazon CA | Smashwords
Haiku My Heart: Storm Window
01 Friday Jun 2018
Posted in African Women Writers, Challenges, Cherita, Dawn, Events, Ghana Association of Writers, Haiku, Haiku My Heart, Micropoetry, Nature, Poetry, Publication, Romance
Tags
Hurray! My second poetry collection and first book of Cherita is now available in Paperback on Amazon. 🙂
(linked to Recuerda Mi Corazon.)
Storm Window
storm window
between the shadows
a little bird seeks comfort
(Haiku Windows – The Haiku Foundation, May 2018)
© Celestine Nudanu
01/05/18
Purchasing Links for Whispers of Dawn (A Book of Cherita)
Purchasing Links for Haiku Rhapsodies:
