Ayosa is a wandering spirit – joyous and filled to the brim with longing. Her only companions in her grandmother's crumbling house are as lonely as Ayosa herself: the ghostly Fatumas, the sullen milkman and Sindano, the owner of a café that no one ever visits.

But a curse hangs over the women in Ayosa’s family, a curse which has blighted the life of her mother, Nabumbo Promise. When her new friend Mbui offers her an alternative life, one that would involve leaving Nabumbo Promise behind, Ayosa must decide how much she owes her fearsome, mercurial mama.  

Set at the intersection of the spirit world and the human one, suffused with Kenyan folklore and myth, Things They Lost is an unforgettable novel about love at its most intoxicating, from a standout new literary voice.