The overarching message of Thunder and Roses is clear: love is layered, unpredictable, and often messy. Yet, in one form or another, love prevails.
By Evidence Egwuono Adjarho
What is often said about the unpredictability of love holds true when one deliberately studies patterns in society. A clear way to observe this is through popular social media platforms. Every day, stories circulate of couples finding love in the most unlikely places or of devastating heartbreaks that capture public attention.
These stories act as reminders of love’s dual nature: its tenderness and its turbulence. Like all human emotions, love is both nuanced and deceptively simple. Because it seems so easy to fall in love, one might be tempted to mistake it for a straightforward feeling. Yet, the moment humans interact, issues arise, rooted in their different backgrounds and experiences. It is precisely this tension—between its surface simplicity and underlying depth—that makes love so fascinating.
Eniola Omorinkoba’s Thunder and Roses engages these thoughts directly by exploring love in its messy, unpredictable, and transformative forms. The novella is a brisk but absorbing journey through an imperfect love story, one that captivates precisely because of its imperfection and the honesty it brings to the conversation about relationships.
Thunder and Roses opens with Nora, a florist and CEO of Roses of Eden. Through her stream of consciousness, readers learn about her life and inclinations. Beyond the obvious (her identity as a twin, her role as a church chorister), Nora emerges as a “love enthusiast.” Her eagerness to reply to a stranger’s Instagram message, which soon blossoms into a relationship, underscores this.
That stranger is Ugo. Nora quickly falls for him, describing him to her twin sister, Nelly, as “everything. A complete spec.” What begins as an innocuous text exchange soon spirals into a full-blown romance. Nora believes she has found her match, and Omorinkoba skillfully draws the reader into this illusion as well. Yet for the discerning eye, the author leaves subtle clues throughout the novella, hints that their relationship is far from ideal.
As the plot unfolds in Thunder and Roses, Ugo’s true nature surfaces. His nonchalance, narcissism, and emotional manipulation gradually weigh on Nora, even if she struggles to articulate them at first. Into this fraught dynamic, another important character is introduced: Yinka, the son of a governor and a wealthy tech entrepreneur.
Returning from London years later after a failed engagement in Nigeria, Yinka visits Roses of Eden to purchase a bouquet for his arranged date. His encounter with Nora sparks an instant attraction, thus completing the love triangle between Nora, Ugo, and Yinka. It is this triangular tension that propels the novella forward.
Perhaps, the most compelling contribution of Thunder and Roses lies in its treatment of the very nature of love. Love here is not pristine or idealised. Rather, it finds Nora in her messiest state, where she is physically drained, emotionally neglected, and spiritually adrift. Ugo’s neglect plunges her into an existential crisis. Yinka, too, has endured his own share of heartbreak, his fiancée, Saint Tracy, having seemingly pursued him only for the clout attached to his family’s social standing. Yet, amid this shared brokenness, Nora and Yinka stumble upon love.
Thunder and Roses also highlights love’s paradoxical role in both exposing flaws and mending them. Nora’s character is especially telling in this regard. Her twin, Nelly, reveals that Nora has long struggled with low self-esteem, constantly tethering her sense of beauty to male validation.
This flaw makes Nora susceptible to Ugo’s empty affirmations, blinding her to his manipulative tendencies. Even as she begins to suspect that what she shares with him is not genuine love, fear of abandonment compels her to stay. But her encounter with Yinka becomes transformative. Their relationship does not merely rescue her from Ugo but also challenges her perceptions of love and self-worth.
However, despite its engaging premise and thematic depth, Thunder and Roses falters in its execution at the level of language. The prose often lacks creative rhythm. Still, Eniola Omorinkoba’s intent is unmistakable. She set out to tell a story about love in its raw, complicated form, and she succeeds.
The overarching message of Thunder and Roses is clear: love is layered, unpredictable, and often messy. Yet, in one form or another, love prevails. Omorinkoba reminds us that while love may expose our deepest flaws, it also possesses the power to mend them. And that is, perhaps, its greatest thunder.
*Thunder and Roses is slated for release later in December 2025
Evidence Egwuono Adjarho is a dynamic and evolving creative with a flair for literature and the arts. She finds joy in reading and writing, and often spends her free time observing the world around her. Her interests span a wide range of artistic expressions, with a particular focus on storytelling in its many forms including photography.