Mamie Appiah is not dying. She is just very, very bored.
After fifteen years of silence in her empty mansion, the matriarch of the Appiah dynasty decides that loneliness is a disease she isn't willing to tolerate anymore. So, she tells a little white lie?well, a rather large lie?about a failing heart to summon her four estranged children back home to the Democratic Republic of Congo.
They arrive in Kinshasa bringing a lifetime of baggage with them. There is Reggie, the high-powered New York lawyer who has forgotten his roots; Bodi, the hustler with a dangerous debt and a fake business in Gabon; Laurène, the influencer who cares more about Wi-Fi than family; and Stephanie, the artist running away from a lukewarm life in Cape Town.
Waiting for them at the gates is Patrice Liston, the serious, suit-wearing CEO who has been holding the family empire together while they were gone. He is the man who knows where all the bodies are buried?mostly because he helped Mamie hide them. He is also the boy Stephanie left behind, and the only one who remembers the girl she used to be.
As the humidity rises and the rumba plays, the Appiah siblings must navigate a chaotic web of secrets, embezzlement schemes, and jealous ex-fiancées. But when the truth about Mamie's health inevitably comes out, they have to decide what is more important: the lives they built apart, or the messy, loud, and beautiful home they are trying to save.
Welcome to Kinshasa. The traffic is terrible, the food is spicy, and the family drama is just getting started.
