Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband?
Nigeria

Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband?

by Lizzie Damilola Blackburn

Women & Society Literary Fiction Romance 2022

Summary

Yinka Oladeji is a thirty-one-year-old, Oxford-educated British Nigerian woman with a good job, close friends, and a loving—but rather intrusive—family. There is just one thing everyone seems to think is missing from her life: a husband. Her Nigerian mother and aunties constantly question her relationship status, while her friends believe she needs to move on from her ex and reconsider her traditional views on love.

Although Yinka has always believed that love will arrive when the time is right, her cousin Rachel’s engagement prompts her to take matters into her own hands. Determined to find a date for Rachel’s wedding, she launches Operation Find a Date, complete with spreadsheets, carefully calculated strategies, and the help of her best friend. But as she navigates the dating scene, Yinka begins to question whether changing herself to meet other people’s expectations will really bring her happiness.

Through Yinka’s romantic misadventures, Blackburn explores the pressures placed on unmarried women, the complexities of navigating British and Nigerian cultural expectations, and the influence of colourism on self-esteem and relationships. With humour and warmth, the novel examines the tension between family loyalty and personal independence, ultimately asking whether finding love begins with finding someone else—or learning to accept yourself.

Reviews

Login to leave a review.

No reviews yet. Be the first!

You might also like

The Fishermen
The Fishermen
Chigozie Obioma
The Road to the Country
The Road to the Country
Chigozie Obioma
Hafsatu Bebi
Hafsatu Bebi
Fatima Bala
The Lies We Tell
The Lies We Tell
Fatima Bala
Country
Nigeria
Africa
About the author
Lizzie Damilola Blackburn
Lizzie Damilola Blackburn

Lizzie Damilola Blackburn is a British-Nigerian novelist who grew up in Peckham, South London, and now lives in Milton Keynes with her husband and son. Before becoming a full-time author, she worked for the charity Carers UK, balancing her professional responsibilities with her ambition to write fiction. Blackburn began writing Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband? after experiencing the familiar pressure from family members to settle down. What started as a blog post gradually developed into her debut novel, inspired by her own experiences and those of women around her. She wanted to create the kind of romantic comedy she had longed to read, featuring a Black heroine whose story centres on love, friendship, faith, and self-discovery. Her debut was selected by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai for her Literati book club and was a runner-up for the UK Diverse Book Awards in 2023. Her second novel, The Re-Write, was published in 2025. Blackburn’s writing explores identity, cultural expectations, relationships, and the importance of seeing diverse experiences represented in contemporary fiction.

View author page
Details
Published
2022
Author
Lizzie Damilola Blackburn