I did not finish this one, it was not for me, I couldn't relate to the characters, and just did not care for the story.

I enjoyed this one! The concept was both intriguing and thought provoking, while also giving DRAMA! A weird divide at times with providing too much detail, while there were also a couple of stories that I wish had been developed further! This book would seriously make a great movie or mini series!

If you are looking for something that is different than what you typically read, I would recommend giving this one a shot!

This is the story of Nicole Oruwari who moved from London to Lagos to live with her husband and his family in a luxurious compound. When she goes missing her estranged aunt flies to Lagos to assist with the investigation and is frustrated by the roadblocks she faces. Told in alternating points of view we learn about Nicole’s secrets and her childhood in London.

Sometimes I don’t have that many points to make about a book and that’s the case with The Nigerwife. It was a quick read and I was left with the feeling that I’d love to see this story on the big screen. The Nigerwife shines through its atmospheric portrayal of Lagos. There were a few twists that surprised me, but the ending fell flat. The dialogue was a tad stiff and the characters ranged from intriguing to stock characters. I was also disappointed that Nicole’s history with her aunt was rushed and this important aspect of Nicole’s life wasn’t as impactful as it could have been.

The Nigerwife tells the complex story of Nicole Oruwari. A Londoner of Jamaican descent who moves to Nigeria with her Nigerian born husband and their baby boy. Nicole leaves everything behind, including her troubled past and scars from her childhood with hopes of having a much happier and easier life in Lagos. She is after all going to be living a life of luxury as her husband, Tonye, comes from a wealthy and influential family as his father is a chief and is dripping with money. Once in Lagos Nicole joins The NigerWives which consists of a “community of foreign woman married to wealthy Nigerian Men”. From the outside Nicole appears to have it all, living the perfect life. But looks can be deceiving. One day Nicole disappears without a trace. Instead of concern her Nigerian family seems to be sweeping her disappearance under the rug as they have more important things to tend to like the upcoming nuptial’s of their youngest daughter. However on the other side of the world in London, alarm bells ring for Nicole’s aunt Claudine and she knows in her heart that something terrible is wrong. So Claudine hops on a plane to Lagos in the hopes of finding out what happened to her niece that she raised. But nothing is as it appears as Claudine uncovers secrets that clearly show how far from perfect Nicole’s life was.

The Nigerwife was a very interesting read. I really enjoyed learning about the story behind the “Nigerwives” and the high society of Lagos. But on the other hand, it is always sad to read about the huge discrepancies that exist between the rich and the poor.

The Nigerwife was told in dual time lines and points of view. First we have Nicole’s storyline which happens “before” her disappearance and then we have Claudine’s storyline which takes place “after” Nicole’s disappearance. I found that while I felt bad for Nicole’s circumstances and abuse, she was not a likeable character. As a result I did not enjoy her chapters as much. However, her Aunt Claudine was my favourite. She was feisty, determined and unstoppable. She refused to let pomp and circumstance stand in her way while trying to figure out what happened to Nicole.

I really appreciated The Nigerwife but I did find at times the story went off on tangents and too much unnecessary detail was given that added no value to the story. The ending was not what I was expecting and left me a little disappointed and wanting more. It is for this reason that I am giving The Nigerwife 4 ⭐️ and not 5.

Thank you so much Simon & Schuster Canada and Atria books for my electronic arc of The Nigerwife by Vanessa Walters.

This was so good, it was like watching a soap opera! The high-level emotional drama, gossip, toxic relationships, and desire to save face over everything was absolutely thrilling.

The audiobook narrators also made the book, the two reflecting dual perspectives of Nicole and Claudine so well, and accent work and almost musical emphasis on the delivery of certain parts of the dialogue was phenomenal.

I hear this is going to be made into a tv series, which I definitely will be watching—this story will transition over so well to the screen in my opinion.

This book is for you if you:
- Enjoyed Wahala by Nikki May and are looking for more books set in Nigeria
- Want a thriller that tackles cultural merging, isolation, and dissonance
- Are looking for a book with a warm weather setting to match the summer reading season

Atmospheric, mysterious, and intricately woven. The Nigerwife, full of family drama, class disparity and friendship, is well worth the hype.

The Nigerwife is Vanessa Walters' debut adult book.

The title is a name that foreign wives of wealthy Nigerian men have given themselves. The author herself has been part of the Nigerwife community.

Walters' inside point of view immerses the reader in terms of setting, mores, culture, community, everyday life and the upper echelon of Nigerian society.

Nicole Oruwari is one of those wives who seems to have it all....until she goes missing. With no answers and no one seemingly looking for Nicole, her auntie Claudia makes the trip from England to Lagos get answers. She is stonewalled at every turn.

The book is told in a then and now timeline, with Nicole's disappearance being ground zero. As readers we're privy to it all. We get to know Nicole in those before chapters. And I'm not quite sure how I feel about her. I questioned some of her thinking. I adored Claudio though. She often acts before she thinks, speaks her mind and is fiercely loyal to her family. But there are dark chapters to her life as well.

Did I see the who, why and what coming before the final pages? A wee bit, but I was surprised. And that last page? Perfect.

The Nigerwife was fresh, different and enjoyable.

Thank you NetGalley, Atria Books, and Simon & Schuster Canada for my advanced readers' copy.
I enjoyed reading this book, but it's not a favorite of mine. I especially appreciated the cultural references, but most of all, the delicious food mentioned. Now I need to learn how to make jollof rice, as the author mentioned it on several occasions throughout the book!
But the story was a bit too pretentious with all the Nigerian and British cultural differences. Although it provided a solid background to the story, it seemed a bit too unnecessary for this type of book. Don't get me wrong, I love learning about different customs and cultural nuances, but this was not an in-depth anthropological study. It is a work of fiction. And it was classified as a thriller, therefore it was a bit too much, in my opinion.
I can see the character development was pretty well-done, but the ending fell flat for me. With all the anticipation about what happened to Nicole, I thought the author could've ended it differently. But it was still a decent read overall, which merits at least three stars, in my opinion.

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for this read. I think it was done well. I would not call it a thriller as I did not find it thrilling but more of having a mystery element to it. The book showed a lot about Nigerians and Jamaicans and the environment they live in while in search of a missing wife. It was very interesting to read if you are interested in those areas or are from there. It was done quite well.

Let me start off by acknowledging that the title of the book is not the best and is a bit off-putting, but please don't let that stop you from reading this one. If you do, you seriously going to miss out because The Nigerwife: A Novel by Vanessa Walters is just so very good right from the start. With its lush and foreign setting, and a whole cast of characters who are just that, characters; this story of a search for a missing woman is unlike anything you have read before. You have glamour and wealth which isn't the normal setting you find when dealing with a search for a missing woman, and it made a fabulous change from all the down-on-your-luck settings that are the norm for these types of tales. In The Nigerwife: A Novel, we see that perfect life and marriage are not quite what they seem to be.

I enjoyed this book and I am very grateful that I got to read it. I loved the details about Nigeria, foreigner wives and the wealthy society. I enjoyed the two timelines with the two different POV, trying to figure out what happened, and going through the layers of the story. I also appreciated some other topics, wealth, poverty, generational trauma, and family dynamics. I read it very quickly, and I recommend if you life family mysteries.

Firstly I would like to say thank you to Simon and Schuster Canada for the digital ARC in exchange for an honest review. The Nigerwife didn't exactly meet my expectations. Not only was it not much of a thriller, at times the characters felt like caricatures of Nigerians and Jamaicans. I think when writing about other people's culture theres a level of cultural sensitivity that is needed, and from the first few chapters I believe Walters definitely keeps this in mind. But by the end everything was a little predictable, obvious and lacked true thrill.