Sweet Heat by Bolu Babalola was actually a highly anticipated read for me, having read Honey and Spice ages ago. I kind of went in blind and didn’t realize that this story brought back the original gang of characters from Honey and Spice. Typically, I don’t like reading about the same main characters after I’ve read about them in one book, but Sweet Heat isn’t necessarily a continuation of Honey and Spice.
In Sweet Heat, Kiki and friends are well past college graduation and are doing their career thing and living their lives. In fact, Kiki’s bestie Aminah gets engaged to college boyfriend Kofi, where Kiki has earned the title of maid of honour. At the beginning of the story, Kiki’s career basically implodes where she’s internally panicking to figure out her next move, which is very unlike her. She’s also in a relationship that’s about to also go off the rails. The icing on the cake on all of this? In assuming her role as maid of honour, she’s going to have to team up with Kofi’s bestie – who is none other than Malakai himself aka the ex.
This story is a combination of lovers to exes/enemies to friends to lovers, second chance, close proximity, if we’re talking tropes. While Kiki and Malakai had a bad breakup where they can barely stand to be in the same room together for long, there is unfinished business between them and an attraction that can’t be denied. Throughout the story, you’re hearing Kiki’s internal dialogue, which at times I found unnecessarily long winded, and can experience in real time (as real time as you can get reading a book) her fighting her thoughts and feelings towards Malakai and their breakup. It’s a slow path to figuring out what even happened between them, considering how we left them in Honey and Spice. I will say, I was invested the whole time and was dying to know what happened that broke them up, to the point where I shed a tear or two as I read what happened.
Overall, I enjoyed the story. Despite my initial hesitance to read about the same people twice, enough years have passed in their fictional world where this doesn’t feel like a continuation of the last book, but an evolution of their characters. Kiki and the Blackwell crew are all grown up, and it shows; the book is proper spicy (natch), and the group of friends are going through the next phases of their lives. I would guess this closes the book on Kiki and Malakai and hopefully their happy ending sticks for good.
