The Bloodline Verdict: A Novel by Maurice Udom

Blood binds, but secrets destroy.

In Theresa Majors’s world, a man can forgive a debt, but he will not joke about a male heir of his own blood. His blood is his crude oil.

A woman soon discovers that her womb belongs to the whole family. She must produce an heir or pack her boxes. Caught in this web, Theresa must bear a child, a boy, no less. Under pressure to secure her marriage, she fakes a pregnancy and buys a baby from Quickbirth Maternity Home.

Her marriage survives, for a while. In a society that demands a son at any cost, no one asks who made lying cheaper than honesty.

Bold, bitterly funny, and unsettling, The Bloodline Verdict holds a mirror up to a society that worships bloodlines and is surprised when the lie comes home at gunpoint. It leaves one question awaiting a verdict: does blood make a family, or does love?

— Dr Edenowo Enang, Akwa Ibom State University, Obio Akpa Campus