I may just happen to be an idiot. I saw this title at my local public library and had no idea that this was a collection of romance stories; I thought that they’d be a set of remixed mythological tales, which they are, but every story here is romance. Now, this should have been obvious from the title, cover, and blurb, but I think I fixated a bit too closely on the subtitle.

That said, Bolu Babalola is an excellent writer. Romance fiction is not what I normally grab when I go to the library, and this was a great way to branch out into a genre that I read very little none of. Moreover, I expected there to be a dose of many of the world’s traditions in here, and there are, but the bulk of the text is made up of sub-Saharan African stories. This makes the book all the stronger. While I know the story of Psyche and Eros, as well of Sheherazad and Nefertiti, well, I simply did not have the background on the sub-Saharan folktales discussed in here, and that makes the collection all the stronger: it ignited my curiosity.

The best stories are those that lean into romantic comedy–for example, Thisbe and Pyramus (initially Mesopotamian) or Naleli and Khoisi (Lesothan). Even so, other stories here are really strong: Attem and Ituen (Calabar) and Siya and Maadi (Soninke) are serious stories–one fairytale-like, the other more an epic–and both are exceptional. Near the end of the book, there are also three original, contemporary stories, and the best is Orin’s, which takes place during a failed date at a club.

Bolu Babalola is an author to keep watching, and the way she centers female characters gives the stories the power she needs. Really, shifting Naleli from someone hidden behind a crocodile skin to a teenager hiding her vitiligo is creative and compelling. The author has a sharp imagination, and her ability as a wordsmith is as good as her competencies in plot development and world-building.

For those looking for reimaginings of African myths, this is the place to go, and it is also a great place to start for those who haven’t read romance before but are curious about it.