Excerpt from Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

A shrill beep from her phone told her that an email awaited. Even before reading it, Taiye knew she wouldn't reply.

Subject: I'm SorryBanke
Martins b.martins@sau.edu
April 23, 2017, 7:43 AM
To t.adejide@qmail.com

Taiye, I know it's been a while, but your phone is still disconnected, and you haven't answered any of my previous emails. I'm really sorry about the letters, can we please talk? I heard that you had to go home. Something about your mother. How is she? Please write back.

Banke

Taiye rolled her eyes and put her phone down. Banke was a former lover, a flash in the pan. A mistake. The heat of Taiye's anger had fizzled out, and in its place was utter disinterest.

As a detour from the undesirable path down which her mind wanted to wander, Taiye abruptly decided that she would make a cake to celebrate Kehinde's homecoming. And jollof rice with smoked fish, curried chicken, and soft-boiled eggs.

"A feast," Taiye said, and lifted Coca-Cola's soft body from her lap to the cold tiled floor.

She made a cup of Lipton tea with condensed milk and honey—the first offerings from her beloved hive. She fished a foil-wrapped block of butter out of the overstuffed freezer to let it thaw on the counter by the open window. Then, she listened for the low humming of her bees.

This is how you make a salted caramel chocolate cake for your twin sister whom you haven't seen in ... God, a long time. In hopes that you avoid talking about the things you haven't been talking about and just eat in silence. For the batter, you will need as much butter as you can manage without leaving your cake too dense and greasy. Taiye would die in pure bliss if she were to drown in a tub of good butter, so she used plenty. You should use a little over two cups of all-purpose flour, three quarters of a cup of unsweetened cocoa powder—preferably fair trade; no need to have the exploited labour of children on your hands just for chocolate—a teaspoon and a half of baking powder, a quarter teaspoon of baking soda, a half teaspoon of salt, and three large eggs. You may add a cup of sugar, but Taiye used a cup of honey instead. And finally, some vanilla extract.

In place of buttercream frosting, Taiye made honey caramel to pour over the cake.

She lit the gas oven and turned the dial to 325 degrees. Some minutes crept by before the pungent odour of burning fish drew Taiye out of a reverie. Like her mother, she was prone to daydreaming and had forgot-ten a newspaper-lined tray of smoked mackerel in the oven the previous night. In a rush to take it out, she burned her hands on the metal tray and dropped it with a loud clank on the floor tiles, startling Coca-Cola, who jumped and darted out of the kitchen in a blur of black fur. At the sink, she ran cold water over her burned fingers. It wasn't too bad. Smirking at the memory, she recalled a previous lover who had cooed and treated her like a fragile thing. An anxious woman who was always so concerned for Taiye's well-being, she'd treated every scrape or bruise like it were life-threatening.

"You know, I think I'll survive," Taiye would tease her. "I might just pull through this time."

She picked up the hot tray, hands now protected by a tattered dishrag, and put it on the counter. Then she wrapped the pieces of dried fish in sheets of old newspaper from the towering stack on the floor beside the fridge, tied it all together in a black plastic bag, and tossed the whole thing in the deep-freeze. She washed the fish smell off her hands and began whisking butter, eggs, honey, and vanilla extract in a large red ceramic bowl. She let Coca-Cola lick some of the sweet mixture off her fingers when the cat slunk back into the kitchen. Taiye poured in the dry ingredients and divided the batter among three springform pans. The smell of burnt fish wafted into her face when she opened the oven door. She supposed the cake would have a bit of a fishy flavour. Fishcake.

Excerpted from Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi. Copyright © 2020 by Francesca Ekwuyasi. Excerpted by permission of Arsenal Pulp Press, Limited. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.