C.M. Okonkwo's Blog: Everything Literature, page 7

New Book: Coming 01/10/21

Dear all,
#Friday #TGIF #NewBook 
Yay. I just completed a new story after a short break. I can’t wait to share it on Nigeria’s Independence Day.
Here’s the description:
Kiki, code-named ‘The Cuttist’, has been pardoned by the Nigerian authorities and is no longer on the run. Kiki is free, but there is an assassin after her who is willing to use the one she loves to get to her. She must decide to kill again or not. Any choice she makes comes with a consequence.
#KeepSafe #PleaseShare #ThankYou
Literarily Yours,CMO.

New Book: Coming 2022

Dear all,

#Friday #TGIF #NewBook 
Because we still need to fight the pandemic, be a part of my Book of Quotes by suggesting pandemic-inspired themes.
Drop a theme (or several) and your name, and I’ll create a quote and add it to the book.
The goal is to have #100Quotes by December 2021, so fire away!
Be inspired by some suggested themes and a few quotes.
#KeepSafe #PleaseShare #ThankYou  
Literarily Yours,CMO.

New Anthology: Coming soon!

Dear all,

#Friday #TGIF #NewAnthology 
A yummy Afro-Eros Anthology edited by Jide Badmus and Oyindamola Shoola is coming 25/July/2021... free! It features my poems and many others.
You can start with the fantastic foreword by Aremu Adams Adebisi here: https://www.sprinng.org/aeanthology.html
#KeepSafe #PleaseShare #ThankYou
Literarily Yours,CMO.

New Event: Nigerian International Book Fair

Dear all,

#Friday #TGIF #BookFair
The Nigerian International Book Fair is coming up this July with loads of books to buy, many at discounted prices, and a lot of authors to meet.
Will you be there? I will. See you!
#KeepSafe #Enjoy #Share #ThankYou
Literarily Yours,
CMO.

Happy Father's Day: New Challenge

Dear all,

#Sunday #FathersDay #SuperHeroes
Today is an important day because fathers also need to be celebrated!
This post made me realise that I have no story about the sentiments, struggles, and sacrifices of fathers, so I’m challenging myself to produce one next year to celebrate Father’s Day.
Happy Father’s Day to my father, my FIL, Jamie’s father, and to all those who play the role of a father in the lives of others.
You rock. Keep being you.The celebration continues. This is to every mother out there and those who play a motherly role to anyone at all. May your labour never be in vain.
This time, Ann Taylor's poem 'My Mother' plays in my head.
Also, by the end of the day, one subscriber will win an autographed e-copy of my Novella titled 'All That Glitters' that features a mother with a dark secret.
Now, the second celebration. My crime novel titled 'When It's Murder' is out today, exclusively on Amazon. Get your copy here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08WLBGKSH

Finally, congratulations to Nduko o'Matigere, Erumena Amata, and Ahmed Adelalu who each won an e-copy of the book.
I hope you enjoy it!
#KeepSafe #Enjoy #Share #ThankYou
Literarily Yours,
CMO.

New Book: Hotel Room Murder

Dear all,

#TGIF #CrimeFiction #ComingSeptember
My new book has now been published for pre-order. Yay!
Description: Two people are found dead in a compromising position in a hotel room. With little evidence, no witnesses, no suspects, and no leads, the case seems impossible to solve.
But there’s a breakthrough for Inspector Tunde Osbourne when a private investigator shows up with information that changes the course of the investigation.
The inspector must now team up with the P.I. to unravel the mystery.
***To get a free sample and preorder your copy, please visit: www.cmokonkwo.com/hrm
#KeepSafe #Enjoy #Share #ThankYou
Literarily Yours,
CMO.

New Book: Under My Skin... a novel in verse

Dear all,

#NewBook #NovelInVerse #MondayMotivation
I just completed my first ‘poetry novel’. Yay!
A special ‘thanks’ to Toki Mabogunje, President of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and Published Poet, who indirectly pushed me to write this novel in verse by encouraging me to share my poems with the world. Thanks for accepting to write the foreword, which on its own, is a beautiful story. It means a lot to me.
Many thanks as well to three fantastic writers: Linda Edem-Davies for also pushing me to share my poems, Chioma Ebele Mbanisi for adding some juice to my imagination, and Brenda Eziafakaego Nwafor, my writing partner, for vetting the juice.
To my sisters, the real storytellers, Nne, Eby, and Nkay, you rock!
Subscribe to my website and stand a chance of winning a copy before the release date: https://www.cmokonkwo.com/subscribe
#KeepSafe #Enjoy #Share #ThankYou
Literarily Yours,
CMO.

Happy Mother's Day: All That Glitters

Dear all.

#March14 #MothersDay #BookRelease
The celebration continues. This is to every mother out there and those who play a motherly role to anyone at all. May your labour never be in vain.
This time, Ann Taylor's poem 'My Mother' plays in my head.
Also, by the end of the day, one subscriber will win an autographed e-copy of my Novella titled 'All That Glitters' that features a mother with a dark secret.
Now, the second celebration. My crime novel titled 'When It's Murder' is out today, exclusively on Amazon. Get your copy here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08WLBGKSH

Finally, congratulations to Nduko o'Matigere, Erumena Amata, and Ahmed Adelalu who each won an e-copy of the book.
I hope you enjoy it!
#KeepSafe #Enjoy #Share #ThankYou
Literarily Yours,
CMO.

International Women's Day: Eight Days To Live

Dear all.

#March8 #ChooseToChallenge #SuperWoman
I celebrate women yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Keep playing your part, keep leading, keep shining, and keep winning.
As I write this, Helen Reddy's wonderful song 'I Am Woman' plays in my head.
My website subscribers all got a gift today: my novella, titled 'Eight Days To Live' and features a strong woman as the protagonist. It's fiction, but a story of hope inspired by the Coronavirus Covid19 and written in a record 2 days in March 2020 while battling malaria.
You can also get a free autographed copy from my website until tomorrow. Please visit: https://www.cmokonkwo.com/iwd

#KeepSafe #Enjoy #Share #ThankYou
Literarily Yours,
CMO.

Book Review: A Broken People's Playlist

Book description:

A Broken People’s Playlist is a collection of short stories with underlying themes so beautifully woven that each story flows into the other seamlessly. From its poignant beginning in “Lost Stars” a story about love and its fleeting, transient nature to the gritty, raw musical prose encapsulated in “In The City”, a tale of survival set in the alleyways of the waterside. A Broken People’s Playlist is a mosaic of stories about living, loving, and hurting through very familiar sounds, in very familiar ways, and finding healing in the most unlikely places.
The stories are also part-homage and part-love letter to Port Harcourt (the city which most of them are set in). The prose is distinctive as it is concise and unapologetically Nigerian. And because the collection is infused with the magic of evocative storytelling, everyone is promised a story, a character, to move or haunt them.
***

I don’t think I’ve ever said this about a book, but this one is Gold on Paper. This is the best collection of short stories I’ve read so far. You’ll laugh, cry, laugh again, and cry again. I love creative writing and unique ideas, and in this case, the author writes stories inspired by music and most of them have music as an integral part of the plot.


There are 12 stories in the book, and I cannot tell which is my favourite as they are all fantastic, though my least favourite was “Beautiful War” because it ended too abruptly for me, bordering on incomplete.
Each story transports you to a different time and place, and you imagine yourself in every setting with other characters, listening in on the main characters. I think I’m in love. I’ve had this book for over a year and I’m glad I got to read it now. Once you start, you can’t stop until the last page.
Congrats Chimeka, congrats Othuke... to literature and to fine writing.
In every book, I always have a favourite line. It was difficult to pick from this collection, but I got one from a tragic story titled “In the City” and written under the influence of a song with the same title by Brymo, who I also love. 
A policeman was running after a drug peddler who disappeared into thin air, so instead of returning with empty hands to his boss, he arrests another boy who was going to celebrate getting a new job with his lover. His boss says, “This is not the boy na.” The policeman responds, “I know, sir. Sometime you set trap for elephant but it catch antelope.”
After searching the boy, they discover only 450 Naira on him. The boss concludes, “This is not antelope. This na lizard.” I almost dropped laughing.
An amazing read. 
5 GOLDEN STARS

Literary Yours,
CMO.