Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite review – a family doomed in love

<p>This intense follow-up to My Sister, the Serial Killer is a haunting story of heartbreak, grief and intergenerational trauma</p><p>Repeat a family story often enough, and it becomes a kind of legend – or a curse. The Faloduns at the centre of Cursed Daughters share tales of heartbroken women across the generations who just can’t seem to hold on to a man. There’s Fikayo, whose husband left after he tired of tending to her chronic illness; Afoke, who seduced her younger sister’s boyfriend; Feranmi, the matriarch of the family, who got pregnant by a married man and received the curse from the man’s first wife. Again and again, the narrative is interrupted by these tales about grandmothers and great-great-grandmothers; eventually, it feels almost as if the novel is haunted by the stories themselves.</p><p>Nigerian-British novelist Oyinkan Braithwaite splashed on to the literary scene in 2018 with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jan/04/my-sister-the-serial-killer-by-okyinkan-braithwaite">My Sister, the Serial Killer</a>, a taut debut about sisterhood, jealousy and murder. Cursed Daughters, her second novel, swaps true crime for a more atmospheric spookiness, but it shares a lingering fascination with the dark secrets that might bind the women of a family together. The Falodun curse forms an ominous, ever-hovering presence for the three main characters – Monife, Ebun and Eniiyi – as they grow up, fall in love, and attempt to defy the supernatural forces that seem to hold their family in thrall.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/sep/22/cursed-daughters-by-oyinkan-braithwaite-review-a-family-doomed-in-love">Continue reading...</a>