“It is very important who you have in a corner,” says Betty Irabor, author of Dust to Dew, a memoir that tells her story battling with depression.

A point reinforced throughout the book chat is the importance of choosing the right partner who knows you and will love and support you despite whatever struggles that come. Commenting on how her husband saved her both times she tried to commit suicide, Irabor says her husband believes it was their soul to soul connection that informed him something was wrong.

“One of the things that you (Betty) keeps coming back to is the fact that you chose the right spouse, that you have the right husband. That is what I want for all of us African people who are LGBTQ,” says Chike Edozien. It is this concept that everyone should be allowed to choose the right partner that connects Dust to Dew to Lives of Great Men.

When asked about how he was able to reconcile his religion with his sexuality, Edozien says, “My faith and how I believe in God does not necessarily have to be filtered by the middle me. The thing to do is not think so much about religion but about your spirituality.”

Dust to Dew and Lives of Great Men tell incredibly powerful stories about faith, partnership and most importantly self-love.