New York  (WomenPr.com)----“Everything happens for God’s good reason is the cliché my mother has drilled in my head since I was old enough to ask ‘Why?’— but too young to question why she didn’t really seem to believe this true regarding her and my father. She would go off on these paranoid rants about him and how he left us. These tirades were always followed with a lecture on how I should let that be a lesson tome about boys, how they only wanted to spoil me (‘spoil’ being her euphemism for sex) and how much she had sacrificed for my benefit.

So begins Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond’s compelling first novel, 

POWDER NECKLACE.  Through language interspersed with both humor and bitterness, Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond deftly explores themes of community, loneliness, preservation of culture, and assimilation.

When the sexually curious and petulant Lila Adjei makes the fatal error of inviting a male schoolmate to her London home to play video games—without adult supervision—her mother flies into a rage and decides to send Lila packing “for her own good” on an indefinite sojourn to rural Ghana, her homeland. Lila is furious at her mother for her seemingly rash decision and terrified at the thought of being so far away from home in an unfamiliar place. Although her mother’s explanation for the move is that she is attempting to protect her daughter from the bad influences of London, Lila is convinced that the uncongenial relationship between her mother and her estranged father, who lives in America,is at the core of the decision.

Once in Ghana, Lila arrives at the home of her Auntie Irene and soon discovers that life there is devoid of the luxuries she was accustomed to in London. Her aunt, while loving, is strong-willed and determined to have Lila enroll at Ghana’s most prestigious school for girls. After an interview with the school’s headmistress, an influential reference, and monetary bribes, Lila is accepted at the school.

 However, the harsh reality of being the odd-girl-out amongst “her own” proves to challenging as she is taunted and robbed by her schoolmates and constantly reminded she is an outsider. But after a few months, Lila eventually becomes part of a circle of friends who bond over the reality of frequent water shortages, the “powder necklaces” formed from their liberal use of talcum when they are unable to bathe, petty injustices and ferme, the homemade moonshine they concoct with sugar water placed in empty soda bottles and then buried in the ground.

After finally adjusting to the Ghanaian way of life during two school terms, Lila’s life is once again turned topsy-turvy as her mother suddenly summons her to come back to London. In a bittersweet departure from Ghana, her extended family, and from the four friends she has made at school, she is met at Heathrow airport  by her mother and the new man in her life who has a daughter Lila’s age. During their conversations and correspondence over the years, Lila’s mother has never mentioned this relationship and Lila is stunned by the development as well as the fact that her mother has purchased a new home in a new neighborhood.

Feeling alienated and alone, Lila attempts to reestablish previous friendships but learns that her old mates “have moved on. ” However, Lila’s reunion in London is short-lived as her mother—along with her father, whom she has not seen since she was three years old—decides she should spend the summer with her father to become acquainted with him.