Lucky Girl; A Novel

A Young Kenyan Woman’s Journey to Independence and Self-Discovery

“Readers will find a poignant, memorable voice they’ll feel lucky to have met.” — Harper’s Bazaar (Best Summer Beach Reads of 2023)

Yearning for freedom, a sheltered Kenyan woman escapes her mother’s rigid expectations for a new life in 1990s New York City—one that challenges everything she thought she knew about race, love, and family.

Soila has always been considered fortunate. Raised in Nairobi under the watchful eye of her strict, conservative mother and aunts, she has led a protected life. But her outspoken, independent spirit clashes with the rules imposed upon her. After a traumatic assault by a trusted family friend, she makes a bold decision: she will leave home for college in New York and never look back.

Yet New York is far from the dream she imagined. Instead of endless opportunity, she encounters stark contrasts—the privilege of her wealthy classmates and the harsh realities of poverty in the city streets. Through her friendship with a Black American classmate, she is forced to confront the legacy of slavery and the blind spots of her Kenyan upbringing. And when she falls for a rebellious artist—someone her mother would never approve of—she must grapple with what it means to honor her roots while forging her own path.

A powerful and tender debut, Lucky Girl is a story of identity, immigration, and the choices that shape us. It explores what it meant to be an African immigrant in America at the turn of the millennium and how one young woman searches for belonging in a world that demands she choose between duty and desire.