Hannah receives an unexpected phone call. She is invited to Nigeria for the funeral of her father, a wealthy man Hannah has never known.

Hannah travels to Nigeria and meets her father’s family - a brother, sisters, and an aunt that she didn’t know existed. Hannah has a rough couple of days with her unaccepting siblings. With time, the family finally starts to come around and Hannah starts to fall in love, both with her new family and with Lawrence, a family friend.

This is story of family drama and romance. It’s also a story of self-love and finding your true self. Hannah’s mother is white and she was always curious about her Nigerian roots. She gets to experience and learn about the Nigeria cultural all the while dealing with her new family and falling in love. At times I felt bad for Hannah because the family was rude and mean, but Hannah dealt with everything gracefully (almost too/unrealistically gracefully). Thankfully, she had Lawrence to lean on because he was the sweetest.
Overall, I enjoyed the book. If you enjoy family drama hen this one is for you.

Thank you to Berkley for the #gifted Netgalley advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

This warm story is filled with love, including platonic, romantic, and familial. It provides lush descriptions of the clothes and atmosphere in Nigeria. We're given brief glances from the point of view of each sibling, a taste that isn't consistently done throughout the book. While the cover gives the impression that the book is a romance, don't expect that to be the main focus. Instead, all types of love are explored in the journey to a happy ending.

I loved this book! I loved The Sweetest Remedy even more than Jane Igharo's debut novel, Ties That Tether and I didn't even think that was possible.

A huge thank you to Berkley Pub, NetGalley and Jane Igharo for my advanced copy of The Sweetest Remedy. I am so grateful.

What I Loved-

The Setting- The Sweetest Remedy takes place mainly in Nigeria. (We do also follow our main characters in other parts of the world but that is for a brief space of time) I loved learning more about Nigeria. Igharo depicts a Nigeria that not many people know about. It was important to the author to show Nigeria's rich culture and wealth. I loved every second.

The Characters- This book follows multiple POV's. I was invested in every single one.

The Writing- Jane Igharo's books are so easy to read and hard to put down. The book starts out with very short chapters launching the reader into the story and introducing us to the characters quickly.

The Romance- There are two romances that stood out to me in this book. Hannah and Lawrence and Tiwa and Dayo. I loved these couples and wanted them together.

The Deeper Subject Matter- The Sweetest Remedy isn't your typical romance novel. Jane Igharo also deep dives into familial relationships and identity. TW for loss of a loved one and abandonment.

The End- I loved the end. I do not want to spoil this book for anyone so that is all I can say.

Overall- Highly recommend. Jane Igharo is officially an auto-buy author for me.

This was a lovely book about discovering family, culture, and yourself.

I enjoyed seeing Hannah’s journey and her connection with both her siblings and Lawrence. I also liked seeing her learning about her father’s culture.

The romance was a little cheesy for me. But I felt like that was a very secondary piece to this story.

I also felt like there were a lot of apologies and acceptances; which is great; but also felt a little much. I understood the reasoning behind some, but also feel like other situations warranted more discussion.

There were other little things that bothered me. But those things aren’t relevant to the overall story and weren’t major things worth mentioning.

Overall, I enjoyed this one. It’s a quick read and I think it centers around a very interesting topic of self-love and self-understanding.

Living life, growing up with her mom, accepting her father wanted nothing to do with her, Hannah’s life gains new meaning when she’s invited to her father’s funeral in Nigeria. Reluctant to go, she makes the trip, the effort to get to know family she never knew she had. A remedy to self-love she never knew she needed.

SO MUCH LOVE. Igharo blew me away with the narration, the added POVs, the distinct personalities of every character—Hannah’s being the most—that contributed to a beautiful execution of the story. I empathized so damn much like you wouldn’t believe, and I ugly cried like you wouldn’t believe. The romance was a side element to the main event, that of which was family, but I wasn’t mad about it. Everything just flowed, and I fell in love with it the more I read.

I definitely recommend adding this to your fall reading list!

The book opens at a party where clueless, insensitive white people are questioning Hannah about her ethnicity - white and Nigerian, if it's any of your business (which is what she should say. She meets Nigerian Lawrence, and they hit it off. Unfortunately the meeting is short lived as Lawrence is called away. That evening Hannah learns that she has been invited to Nigeria to meet her father's family and attend his funeral.
I really enjoyed learning about Nigeria, and wish the book had been longer and included more detail. But it's a story of finding yourself in your family and finding love and acceptance.
This is Igharo's second novel, and I look forward to reading more from her.

This book gave me all the feels! Hannah meets Lawrence at a work event and they both get calls that take them away from one another before they really had a chance to connect.
Hannah's father was Nigerian and she never really knew him. He had a family back home and she was a result of an affair he had with her mother on a work trip. She gets a call that he has passed away and he has specified in his will that he wants her to come meet his family. Not knowing what she is walking into, Hannah agrees to come, only to find out that only his father's closest friend knows of her existence and she is springing her presense on everyone there.
She has four siblings and an "adoptive" brother that turns out to be none other than Lawrence. Her reception is as warm as you can possibly expect. Some of her siblings realize it isn't her fault that they didn't know about her, but others aren't so sure. Hannah has never really known this side of her heritage and she is coming into herself more and more with each day she spends there. With the help of Lawrence, she begins to understand her family as well as herself.
I loved the alternating POV from each of the siblings and Lawrence. It helped us to understand how they all were feeling during this crazy time in their lives.
Thanks to Jane Igharo, Netgalley and Berkley for an early copy.

What a beautiful book!
Hannah has just discovered her estranged father has passed. She is swiftly flown away to Nigeria to stay for a week, in this time she meets her 3 sister and 1 brother. They have been instructed to stay together all week leading up to the funeral and reading of the will.
In the book we get alternating POV's between the siblings, Hannah being the main POV shown but it was so interesting to see what the other siblings were feeling as they found out that Hannah existed.
Meanwhile she is also falling for a family friend that is the perfect middle man to learning about the family and keeping the peace amongst the drama of the situation.
While Hannah and Lawrence get to know each other and form a deep connection, she is also dealing and processing all this information about her father and the family in Nigeria.
I connected with this story on such a deep level, I am not sure I can articulate how much it touched me. I have felt many of the same emotions Hannah went through, I too have a distance relationship with my father and a separate family that I got to know later in life. There were some moments that I felt so accurately and so deeply I had to set the book down and process. It was an incredibly insightful experience for me, and yes there is a romance story in all of this. But this book is yet another example that goes to show how romance can teach so much.
Despite swooning, which I did a lot of, Hannah and Lawrence gave me all the swoons. I LEARNED from this, I felt VALIDATED, I felt SEEN, I hold this book so near and dear to my heart and am so happy I have read it.
We get swoons, lots of healing and learning, and lots of delicious descriptions of Nigerian food. What else can readers ask for?

Thank you Netgalley for the advanced reading copy! I loved this book, which is a thoughtful romance, dipping into women’s fiction, about identity, loss, family, and love. Hannah is a 28 year old writer from San Francisco who has led a quiet, somewhat lonely life with her best friend Flo and mom. Hannah is bi-racial, raised by her white mother, with her Nigerian father abandoning her at a young age, while financially assisting the family from afar. When her father dies, Hannah goes to Nigeria to meet and connect with her wealthy family and attend the funeral, while developing a relationship with Lawrence, an orphan raised by her father’s family. This book was sweet and well-written, with Igharo giving her characters grace and a level of realness to make mistakes and grow as people. Igharo writes with a simplicity and beauty that makes this a quick and lovely read. All of Hannah’s siblings were different and complex, and my only complaint about this book was that I wanted to hear more from them, with the style of having their point of view represented in some of the chapters. Overall, this is a great book about finding your place within family and the different cultures that encompass us. I recommend this book to anyone who likes romance, drama, family love, and a desire for an inclusive view of Africa and Nigeria.

I don't think this author and I mesh well. I didn't care for Ties that Tether and this book hadnsome of the same problems I found in that book with the lack of chemistry between the characters and over explanation of African things.

Hannah Bailey is completely fine to just have her mom - her dad abandoned them both when her mom great pregnant, admitting that he already had a wife and family in his home country of Nigeria. Hannah, a writer for a women's magazine, is shocked when her mother asks her over and lets her know that her father died of prostate cancer and that it was his wish for her to go to Nigeria to be with the rest of the family for the funeral. She resists, but ultimately decides to go, her curiosity for her half siblings winning out. When she arrives in Lagos, she gets two big surprises: 1) a hot guy she connected with at a party in San Francisco right before getting the news about her father is there as a close family friend and 2) the entire family knows nothing of Hannah's existence. So the whole thing is pretty awkward, especially after Hannah and Lawrence (hot guy) excuse themselves and the family lawyer tells the rest of them that if they don't get to know Hannah and include her in the funeral planning, they get nothing in the will. Two of her half siblings are cool with her right away - chatty DJ Dami and 19 year old Segun who goes to university in the US and wants to be a rapper. Dami's twin, Shola, warms up to her quickly too, but the oldest daughter, Tiwa is not having it.. Hannah is able to build a relationship with most of the family and to begin a romance with Lawrence, but of course things get complicated. Another great one from Jane Igharo - romance, family drama, international travel, and more!

Wow this book is a stunner.

This is my first book by Jane Igharo and right from the first chapter I was hooked. It’s not often you read a romance with so many different POVs, but I really loved the depth that it added to the story.

This was more than a romance story and dealt with a lot of family conflict and growth for our MC. Teetering on the edge of WF.

Really engaging story, loved the scene descriptions, the clothing, the food. All of it painted a vivid picture that I loved reading.

4.5 stars because the ending dragged just a little for me. I’ll definitely be reading more from this author!

Thank you Berkley for the ARC, review is my own.

Just like Jane Igharo's previous novel, I loved this one. The story, the characters, and the setting sucked me in and I just adored the love story. I don't have one complaint other than I need more books from this author!

Patrons should enjoy this book. The characters are well drawn and you come to care about them and their situation. The female protagonist goes on an emotional journey and comes out the other side better and without having made the reader go through unnecessary melodrama. I liked learning about a new culture and new places. I appreciate the representation and know library patrons will too.

The Sweetest Remedy by Jane Igharo follows Hannah, a biracial woman who finds out the Nigerian father she barely knew has passed away, and had requested her to attend his funeral. He left behind a wife and four kids that don’t know about her existence, but Hannah’s mother convinces her to go. Her half-siblings are less than welcoming, but Hannah is determined to learn about the Nigerian side of her family, and figure out why her father was so adamant she attend the funeral when he wasn’t even a part of her life.

Jane Igharo’s debut Ties That Tether was one of my favorite books of 2020, so I could not wait to get my hands on a copy of her second one. While I didn’t love it quite as much, I still really enjoyed reading it. I love the way the author weaves romance into family dramas, in addition to her experiences as a Nigerian woman. You can tell there is a lot of herself in her stories. I got a little whiplash towards the end of this book because there were a lot of lies being revealed, and I found it a little exhausting to keep up with everyone’s intentions. Still, I had a great time reading The Sweetest Remedy, and I will be anxiously awaiting Jane’s next book!

Thank you to @berkleypub and @netgalley for the ARC! (

Thank you Netgalley and Berkley Pub for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

Twenty-nine year old Hannah receives the unexpected news that her father, with whom she has no relationship, has suddenly passed away. One of his final wishes was for Hannah to fly to Nigeria, where he and his family lived, to attend his funeral. Hannah is bi-racial, the result of an extra marital affair, and she lived a completely separate life with her white mother in San Francisco. The trip could give Hannah what she's always wanted, the chance to get to know her father's children and to learn more about Nigeria, both the country and the culture.

Hannah's presence in Nigeria is not well received by her father's family, who knew nothing of her existence.
Her initial days there are filled with family drama, while decades-old secrets are revealed. Given time, Hannah begins to build relationships with her siblings, some easier than others. I love the multiple POVs the author provides as we are able to see how each sibling is internally dealing with the news of their half-sibling.

I love Igharo's effortless writing and the perspective she gives us on the Nigerian culture. I enjoyed seeing Hannah's journey as she embraced the Nigerian culture, finding answers to questions she's had her entire life. Although this book is a romance, there are also strong themes of family, self-discovery, and forgiveness.

I enjoyed Ties That Tether, so I knew I would love The Sweetest Remedy as well. I was not wrong! Reading about Hannah discover a new family she didn't realize she had, and discover a kind of love she didn't realize existed was a delight. I also appreciated how the setting of Nigeria was described and celebrated, almost as if it was another character in the book. While there were numerous ups and downs as Hannah, Lawrence and the Jolade siblings learned about each other, the ending was well worth it. I almost think the siblings could have their own follow up titles!

"The Sweetest Remedy" by Jane Igharo
Release Date: 9.28.2021

Hannah Bailey, 29, is a writer. Raised by her white mother, Hannah never met her father, but she is on a plane to Laos, Nigeria to attend her father's funeral. There she meets her entire family, curious about the man that abandoned her. Some welcome her, like Dami and grandma Iya Agba, while others feel Hannah does not belong. Hannah learns about her family, a culture she appreciates, and Lawrence, the man who will steal her heart.

I love that Hannah reconnects with her roots; this story is heartwarming, enjoyable, and sweet! I thought the character development was excellent. I did not realize there was a book previous to this, so I am definitely requesting from my local library!


Thank you to @netgalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

#bookstagram #bookstagrammer #netgalley #netgalleyreads #thesweetestremedy #janeigharo #contemporaryromance #2021bookreleases

this has very similar vibes to igharo’s previous title, ties that tether. and I really enjoyed both of them. in this one, Hannah travels to Nigeria after the father she never knew dies and wants her at the will reading. through this she meets her half siblings- all who have varying reactions to her existence. and she meets Lawrence, family friend who quickly turns into something more. while this is probably going to be marketed as a romance, it’s so much more than that. it’s about the complicated title of family, coming into wealth, and cultural identity.

Thanks NetGalley for sending me this electronic ARC in exchange for an honestly review.

It took me about two days to devour this book because I loved it so much. Jane Igharo did it again with another incredible novel filled with family, love, loss and hope. I'm impressed with her ability to carry over similar themes from previous book to come up with a story that stands firmly on its own. I feel like she has a unique way of being able to tell complete, full stories with we developed characters and stories without wasting time with filler words or fluff, making it easy to read it so quickly.

I realize this is less of a review of the book and more of me just kinds praising Igharo's writing. But she's incredible, and this book (and her first one) is proof.