Her husband, who lost a leg in a war, was only able to save their baby son Yaw, who is badly scarred. One night, she sets her family's hut on fire while she is asleep, killing her two daughters and burning her own body badly. Akua repeatedly dreams about a firewoman, which leaves her dangerously tired during the day and often panicked at night. Akua marries a man named Asamoah and goes back to his village, where they live with his mother and their three children. She gives birth to a daughter named Akua there Akua is raised for nearly all of her childhood by the missionary who lives there because, as Akua only finds out later in her life, the missionary accidentally killed her mother. Abena, pregnant with Ohene Nyarko's child, flees to Kumasi, where there is a missionary church. Her friend from childhood, Ohene Nyarko, promises to take her on as a second wife when a very prosperous year comes, but he breaks this promise after cocoa is successfully introduced to their village as a new staple crop. Everyone in their new village thinks that they are unlucky because their crops grow poorly, and because of this Abena is never married. They move away from her village and eventually have a daughter named Abena. When there is an attack on the place he is living, he sees his chance and runs away to Akosua, who has been waiting for him. James must return to his village and marry another woman named Amma Atta, but he fantasizes about running away and living a simple life with Akosua. There, James meets a girl named Akosua and falls in love with her. When the Asante king, Nana Yaa's father and James's grandfather, dies, the family travels back to Asanteland to pay their respects. Quey and Nana Yaa have a son named James. After Fiifi and other men from the village capture Nana Yaa, the daughter of the Asante king, Quey is married to the girl to form a political alliance. He is educated in England and then returns to his mother's village to handle business negotiations with his uncle Fiifi. Quey grows up in the Cape Coast Castle, where the white men live and where slaves are kept before being shipped away to the United States. Effia and James Collins, the white, British man she is married to, have a son named Quey. The chapters titled ' Quey,' ' James,' ' Abena,' Akua,' ' Yaw,' and 'Marjorie' follow the descendants of Effia.

Effia, Maame's first daughter, is married to a white man who has come to Africa as part of the British slave trade, while her sister Esi, Maame's second daughter, is sold into slavery in the United States.

Maame has one daughter while enslaved in a Fante village and another daughter after escaping back to Asanteland as a consequence, her daughters never meet.

Homegoing follows the descendants of an Asante woman in the 1700s named Maame.

Homegoing novel