Fragile Hearts

She stitched a dress for her best friend's wedding. She never thought she'd be the one wearing it.

When Zulaikha vanishes on her wedding morning, Farida Usman is faced with an impossible choice: let her best friend's family face ruin, or step into the bride's place. She says yes. She wears the dress. She becomes the wife of Abdallah Tafida, a man she's never spoken to, a widower who buried his heart with his late wife.

Now Farida is alone in a cold house in Abuja, married to a stranger who won't look at her, surrounded by twins who don't want her. But hearts don't stay frozen forever. And sometimes, the most fragile hearts become the strongest.

Rayyan, the shy little boy, reaches for her hand. Rania, the stubborn girl, watches her from doorways. And Abdallah, Abdallah begins to notice the woman who sits at his table, eats his food, and asks for nothing.

Fragile Hearts is a story about betrayal dressed as friendship. About grief that doesn't announce itself. About a dress that held a ghost. And about the slow, terrifying, holy work of learning to choose yourself, in a city where everyone is watching. It's s a Hausa romance about betrayal, healing, and the quiet love that grows in the spaces between silence.