Cursed Daughters: A Read with Jenna Pick: A Novel

by Oyinkan Braithwaite

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

A family curse, an unexpected reincarnation and impending tragedy. This bold and hilarious novel follows a young woman who seeks to break free from following in the footsteps of her unfortunate family.

A young woman must shake off a family curse and the widely held belief that she is the reincarnation of her dead cousin in this wickedly funny, brilliantly perceptive novel about love, female rivalry, and superstition from the author of the smash hit My Sister, the Serial Killer (“A bombshell of a book... Sharp, explosive, hilarious'—New York Times)

A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK: New York Times, Washington Post, People, Goodreads, E! News, Kirkus, LitHub, Book Riot

"A triumph: bold, searing, and utterly original. From the first page, it grips with an electric pulse....Impossible to put down."
—Abi Daré, New York Times bestselling author of Girl with the Louding Voice

When Ebun gives birth to her daughter, Eniiyi, on the day they bury her cousin Monife, there is no denying the startling resemblance between the child and the dead woman. So begins the belief, fostered and fanned by the entire family, that Eniiyi is the actual reincarnation of Monife, fated to follow in her footsteps in all ways, including that tragic end.

There is also the matter of the family curse: “No man will call your house his home. And if they try, they will not have peace...” which has been handed down from generation to generation, breaking hearts and causing three generations of abandoned Falodun women to live under the same roof. 

When Eniiyi falls in love with the handsome boy she saves from drowning, she can no longer run from her family’s history. As several women in her family have done before, she ill-advisedly seeks answers in older, darker spiritual corners of Lagos, demanding solutions. Is she destined to live out the habitual story of love and heartbreak? Or can she break the pattern once and for all, not only avoiding the spiral that led Monife to her lonely death, but liberating herself from all the family secrets and unspoken traumas that have dogged her steps since before she could remember?

Cursed Daughters is a brilliant cocktail of modernity and superstition, vibrant humor and hard-won wisdom, romantic love and familial obligation. With its unforgettable cast of characters, it asks us what it means to be given a second chance and how to live both wisely and well with what we’ve been given.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780385551489
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	11/04/2025
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	384
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

OYINKAN BRAITHWAITE is the author of My Sister, the Serial Killer. She was born in Lagos, Nigeria and raised there and in the UK. She currently lives in London with her family.

Editorial Reviews

“Funny and fierce, this is a fast read that you won’t forget quickly.”
—The Boston Globe

“A sweeping and sobering take on romantic fatalism . . . Braithwaite’s prose is lush and spooky. . . . Our three female protagonists are rich, full characters. We go deep into their worlds as they struggle to reconcile their love for their family and culture with their desire to be free of the curse. It’s fascinating to watch them bob and weave.”
—The New York Times

“Charming and wonderfully unpredictable . . . A portrait of human flailing for closure, for the answers to all of our mysteries . . . [Braithwaite is] a rising literary star.”
—Matthew Jackson, BookPage

“A delicious page-turner with characters who burst off the page . . . A lesson in fighting for the life you want.”
—Kristyn Kusek Lewis, Real Simple

“Braithwaite both confirms her gift for depicting complicated familial bonds among women and proves that her talents are not confined to any one style.”
—Judy Berman, TIME

“A virtuosic tour de force . . . Enchanting, sparkling with wit and tactfully straddling reality and the supernatural . . . A haunting meditation on moral ambiguity, the bonds of cousinhood, and the constraints of gender . . . Once I became immersed in ‘Cursed Daughters,’ I hardly wanted to leave Lagos.”
—Hudson Warm, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“Cursed Daughters is both haunting and funny—a tale of superstition, faith, generational trauma, societal expectations, and the necessity of breaking painful patterns.”
—Lauren Puckett-Pope, ELLE

“Braithwaite delivers both a compulsively readable and deep story about love, grief, and the impossibilities of fate.”
—Chicago Review of Books

“Braithwaite blends satire and high drama to deliver a spectacular saga glowing with romance and otherworldly intrigue. . . . Stellar storytelling is boosted by [Braithwaite’s] skillfully crafted characters.”
—Shelf Awareness

“Equal parts bitingly funny, searingly perceptive and unabashedly magical, Cursed Daughters is a riveting, epic-in-scope novel from an ambitious but assured writer who can more than hold her own. . . . Surprisingly bighearted and tender, Cursed Daughters solidifies Braithwaite’s place in the literary scene.”
—Bookreporter

“I devoured Cursed Daughters and immediately wanted to start all over again. It’s a triumph: bold, searing, and utterly original. From the first page, it grips with an electric pulse. Funny and fearless, soaked in secrets, spirit, heartbreak, and love, it’s told in a voice as scalding as it is tender. I won’t soon forget Eniiyi, Grandma East, Grandma West, Ebun, and Monife—daring and luminous, as lost as she is unforgettable—the one who carved herself deepest into memory. This is a taut, feverish novel that burns itself into you. Impossible to put down.”
—Abi Daré, New York Times bestselling author of Girl with the Louding Voice

From the Publisher