Publication Date: January 15, 2026
A woman’s evocative chronicle of modern womanhood, navigating love, family, and the radical desire to remain child-free in a patriarchal world.
Karen has spent years building an independent life in the city, far from her fractured family, leaving no room for love—until she receives news of her mother’s sudden death. The devastating news unravels her carefully curated life as Karen grapples with painful memories and the sister she left behind a decade ago.
As grief, memories, and long-buried resentment reemerge, Karen’s troubles have only she’s pregnant, her secret affair with a younger colleague is exposed, and Omo is gravely ill.
In the face of cultural expectations surrounding love, duty, and motherhood, Karen finds solace in The Women’s Group—a circle of fierce, resilient women who challenge her to confront the truth: forgiveness isn’t always mutual, and love can take unexpected forms.
Set against the vibrant landscapes of contemporary Lagos City and Eastern Nigeria, Your Tomorrow Was Today is a poignant journey of feminist reckoning, exploring autonomy, identity, and the choices that shape us.
Oyindamola Dosunmu’s debut novel, Your Tomorrow Was Today, demonstrates a modern dilemma faced by many progressive women. Can a woman set her goals to suit herself, leaving behind cultural expectations of family, motherhood, and marriage? Dosunmu adds depth, bringing her experiences as a Nigerian woman, and sets the unraveling of the main character, Karen, as her story begins in Awka, Nigeria.
Karen is a professional woman, waiting for the promotion she has worked so diligently toward. The patriarchal world in which she works has required her to do more than her male colleagues, accepting the knowledge that the men surrounding her will have privileges while she looks for opportunities to show her grit. She is hyper-focused on her work and doesn’t have time for friendships. This gives her a reputation for coldness amongst the other women. They see her as different, maybe not even normal.
There is one person whom Karen has allowed to see a bit of her soft side, Tunde. He is a younger, subordinate coworker. His love for Karen appears to have no boundaries. Karen loves him too, but she must not allow herself to be distracted by love.
There is something deeper that must not distract her–the scars of the sexual abuse she endured at the hands of her brother-in-law. But Karen’s mother dies, and now a tsunami of cultural expectations befalls her to return to her home and the family that did nothing to protect her.
This novel creates tension leading into the chapter (with a fair trigger warning) that describes the sexual assault and draws out its implications through to the very end. The author does not hand over a happy ending. What she so brilliantly does is allow the abused character to work through the rage and choose herself in the end.
Your Tomorrow Was Today delivers a sobering story of a sexually abused woman whose Nigerian community, on one hand, failed to protect her, yet on the other hand, unfurls its patriarchal expectations upon her even after she finds her independence.
Oyindamola Dosunmu is a writer and HR professional. Her debut novel, Your Tomorrow Was Today, was named a finalist for the Black Lawrence Press Immigrant Writing Series. She lives in North Carolina with her husband and their delightfully lazy cat, Bob Chunky Tamales.
