Why love stories make us cry, laugh and keep turning pages

Egara Kabaji. [File Courtesy]

I am always amazed by my passionate readers who often confess that out of all the books I have written, they prefer Shadows of Love more than any other. The confession usually comes unexpectedly, in classrooms, after workshops, or even in casual social media messages. A millennial will lean in closer, lower their voice slightly, and say, almost apologetically, “Mwalimu, that love story, that one touched me.”

I rarely argue with them, partly because readers are always right about what moves them. My publisher quietly settled the debate by giving me the sales records. He informed me that Shadows of Love sold 3,000 copies in its first month of production in 2024. For a Kenyan book, that is not a small matter. Sales figures, unlike literary debates, are brutally honest. They reveal what people actually read, not merely what critics believe they should read.