Romance is in the Air Giveaway Hop

To enter this contest, leave a comment below with your email address. What's up for grabs?

One eBook copy of my first novel A Heart to Mend (International!)

Gladys moves to live with an estranged aunt in Lagos and to continue her search for a job. Before long she lands the job of her dreams with the foremost oil company in the city and makes several new friends. She also gradually resolves the mystery of why her aunt previously cut all ties with their family. But the best part about her new life is meeting Edward Bestman.

Edward is good-looking, super rich but emotionally scarred. Gladys gets him to see that she loves him and that together they can surmount all their differences. However, when they return from a romantic trip abroad, they find that some unnamed people are about to take over his business empire. Edward's past has come back to haunt both of them.

Menu Ideas - How to Make Amala, eat with Ogbono

I've blogged about how I prepare my ogbono soup with Okro and this is a continuation. Most Nigerian soups are eaten with a variety of foo-foo, from poundo yam, cassava, amala, and eba. Some have added blended oatmeal to the list as well as mash potatoes. Today's menu idea is using amala, which is dried yam flour, also called Elubo by Atala. The preparation is simple;

Ingredients

Elubo
Water

Directions

1. In a medium sized pot, bring the water to a slow boil. Also heat some water in an electric kettle, or set aside some of the boiling water in a cup.
2. Add the Elubo flour to the water in the pot, and stir.
3. If it is thick, add some boiled water from the kettle. If too soft, add some more elubo.
4. Continue to stir until you get your desired consistency, it should ideally be smooth in texture without lumps.

A Promise Ring Versus an Engagement Ring?

When a man proposes with a ring to the woman he's dating or in love with, the intention is not in doubt, he wants to marry the women in the nearest possible time. This will usually be within a few months to a couple of years or as long as it takes to plan and execute a wedding of their choice. When the lady accepts the ring and wears it, she is saying yes to this request of a future marriage and will probably start asking to set a wedding date soon after.

But what of a promise ring or getnamenecklace rings? Does it signify the same thing? Not necessarily. I've heard of promise rings in several instances and some are not even romantic. Girlfriends can decide to buy each other or themselves promise rings to be friends forever, abstain together till marriage, etc. Some also use promise rings to pledge fidelity before marriage or after an extra-marital affair, etc. On a few occasions, promise rings are used to signify that an engagement is in the future, maybe in five years or more. In those scenarios, they are used as a placeholder, as they're mostly cheaper than engagement rings.

The question is, would you accept a promise ring when you're able, willing and ready to hear the real "Will You Marry Me?"

Dear Myne - My Boyfriend Doesn't Pick my Calls

Before I accepted to go out with him, he called and texted me all the time, he would wake me with inspirational messages, and wish you goodnight before I slept. We've barely been dating three months and he hardly ever calls me anymore. His excuse is that we see each other more often now and know where we stand with each other but it's not convincing to me. When he was after me, we saw once a week, now maybe we see two or three times, is that not almost the same?

Now, he traveled to Nigeria two weeks ago and it has become worse. He called when he arrived and since then nothing. He doesn't even pick my calls when I do reach out to him. Sometimes it rings with no answer and other times, he sends a text to say he's busy and will call later, but he won't call. This makes me feel like I'm stalking him, and it's turning me off.

I'm not usually impatient like this but his movement is so suspicious. We had been talking about our marriage in a few months since we started dating but the last time I brought it up, he brushed it away. I'm really unhappy about this and thinking of breaking it off.

Where Do Broken Hearts Go by Eky Shirley

Heart Break Hotel

Since he left Adele’s someone like you has become your favourite song, probably on permanent repeat on your playlist. Since she left you have been singing that Boyz II Men’s song ‘doing just fine’.

The heart break hotel is surely not a nice place to be. The food here is tasteless, it doesn’t matter if you have got a good bed because you still have sleepless nights, sentences become empty, words are just letters, movies are just pictures and voices are unwanted noise. The toilet paper is finished not because it isn’t enough or you have a bad case of dysentery but because of the many tears you have shed. Nothing really makes sense in this hotel.

You trust no man that says the three words to you ‘I love you’ and you trust no woman who cares too much. It could have been 1 heart break or a series of bad relationships. Love has dealt you heavy blows and left a sour taste in your mouth. Now you are hemorrhaging from your heart. Your heart is shattered beyond repairs or so you think. You have been asking yourself; how, do I start all over again? We were perfect or so you thought.

Tuface Idibia - February Man Candy #7

Kerry Washington Covers Ebony's Scandal Issue

Last year was Kerry Washington's year, she broke out as Olivia Pope on the new ABC show, Scandal, now in its second season. She also starred in Django Unchained, even though I felt her character, Broomhilda was very underdeveloped, and Kerry as an actress underutilized. This month, she graces the cover of Ebony magazine, talking about her life, her work, and especially Scandal.

Scandal is one of my favorite show, but the Olivia Pope and President Fitz affair is beginning to weary me. I believe in going for what you want, and the way these two spout sonnets and love to each other of love unbreakable and then go back to the status quo tire me. What is the status quo? The president is married and his wife is heavily pregnant! Add in a handsome hunk of a boyfriend, who happens to be the Senate Majoity Leader, and you have a scandalous stew all right.

I am still watching though, and some of these excerpts from Kerry's interview in Ebony give me a deeper insight into her Olivia Pope character...

How to Make Beef in Celery and Mushroom Sauce

Theis sauce is very similar to this celery recipe, but there's no tomatoes, it is replaced by mushrooms.

Ingredients

A pound of Beef
2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
A small bunch of celery stalks with some hearts if possible. Washed and sliced
Four medium sized tomatoes, chopped
Half a medium sized onion, sliced
Ground pepper,
Salt and spices to taste.

Agbani gets Old School Love Letter from Miabaga.com

My Dearest Agbani Darego,

Will you be my valentine?

Do give this the utmost consideration. If you will be my valentine, let me say that I am, first, of all men most privileged, and second, about to engage in heavy research about what being someone’s valentine actually entails.
If you will not be my valentine, I must assume this is only because you would prefer me to ask you to marry me. If so, poste haste and with rapidity in extremis, I would, My Sweetling, desire your hand- and as much of the rest of you as possible -in blissful matrimony.

But wait. I traverse ahead of myself. I have not introduced myself. Sure I have spent many hours ogling over your Instagram photos and following you closely on Twitter, but I have never, as it were, had the opportunity of introducing myself.

My Interview With The African Street Writer on Style

Like I told Chizitere Ojiaka who conducted the interview, I'm probably the last person to ask about style, but she insisted and I obliged. Enjoy...

When it comes to fashion and lifestyle, many writers are branded with the stereotype of being very eccentric and untrendy. Most people say it’s just how writers are built, while others think it’s one of the rules to making it as a writer, you must have a weird or signature style.

In other beliefs, some say that having to juggle many characters at once makes them stay simple so it’s easier to build theirs without too much influence from they, the creators. The theories and explanations are numerous but that’s not what we’re here to discuss anyway.

Today, we’ll be taking a sneak peak at the life of one of the hottest best selling names in the world of romance writing. She goes by the pen name Myne Whitman.