The Sound Souls Make When They Die

Zara has been dying slowly for three years, and nobody knows it. Not her worried mother, or her sister who calls daily with careful cheer, and not Tayo, her best friend who abandoned his dreams of moving to Germany just to stay close. They see her smile at family dinners, she’s excelling at her startup job, and the carefully maintained facade of a woman who’s moved on. What they don’t see is the pills she hoards, the nightmares that wake her gasping, the truth she tries desperately to run from.

Because three years ago, Chizaram killed Amina, her best friend.

At least, that’s what she believes. 

While everyone else calls what happened a tragic accident, Chizaram calls it murder, hers. So she’s spent three years erasing Amina from her life, refusing to speak her name, visit her grave, or acknowledge that the brightest person she ever knew is gone. It’s the only way to survive the guilt.

Then Zion Madueke walks back into her life.

He’s the ex-boyfriend she broke up with almost a decade ago, now a celebrated cardiothoracic surgeon with awards, accolades, and an intensity that makes her heart race in ways she thought were dead. He could be the thing that finally brings peace to her troubled heart, or the thing that pushes her over the edge. 

The Sound Souls Make When They Die is a searingly honest exploration of grief, guilt, and the long road to healing. It’s a love story—between a woman and the friend she lost, between a woman and the man who refuses to give up on her, and most importantly, between a woman and herself. Set against the vibrant backdrop of Lagos, Nigeria, this is a story about the weight of survivor’s guilt, the power of chosen family, the beauty of friendship, and the radical act of choosing to stay alive.