- Narrators: Délé Ogundiran,
- Palmira Koukkari Mbenga
Spanning four decades and three continents, Bitter Honey is a story about a mother and daughter divided by long buried secrets, struggling to understand each other as they forge their own paths, from the internationally bestselling author of In Every Mirror She’s Black.
2006: Tina has had her taste of fame as Sweden’s sweetheart pop princess, representing her country at Eurovision. But beneath her glittery façade, she’s uncertain who she really is. Her mother, Nancy, seems desperate to keep the past under wraps, but will the unexpected appearance of Tina’s father—a man she has long thought dead—help open the door to self-discovery?
Nancy just wants to protect her daughter from making the same mistakes she did, but Tina longs for the freedom to mess up, knowing her mother will always be there to support her. The two women love each other unconditionally, but can they learn to trust each other as well?
This poignant novel delves deep into the complicated relationships between mothers and daughters and delivers a warm, heartfelt story of love, forgiveness, and women finding their voices.
Bitter Honey by Lola Ákínmádé Åkerström is a beautifully layered and deeply moving story of identity, loss, family secrets, and the complicated bond between a mothers and daughter.
Tina, known across Sweden as The Swedish Siren, has a voice that mesmerizes and a presence that promises long-term success. Born to an African mother and a father she never knew, she grew up alongside her brother Tobias, both of them carrying features—fair skin, striking eyes, and curly hair—that set them apart and sparked questions that were never fully answered. Behind Tina’s public confidence lies a lifetime of private pain, scars she has learned to bury but never truly healed. This emotional aspect of her life has had her involved in a relationship that was ultimately toxic.
But Tina’s journey is only half of this riveting novel. Interwoven with her 2006 storyline is the story of Nancy, her mother, beginning in 1978 when Nancy leaves Gambia on a scholarship to Sweden. Hopeful and ambitious, Nancy envisions a bright future—but her path becomes clouded by her complicated feelings for Lars, a professor decades older and completely inappropriate, yet impossible for her to ignore.
Back in Tina’s timeline, just as her music career is taking off and an irresistible offer pulls her toward the United States, she is contacted by a man named Lars claims to be her father. Tina is stunned—not only because she grew up believing her father was dead, but because this new truth contradicts everything her mother ever told her. The emotional fallout is intense, further straining her already fragile relationship with Nancy.
As mother and daughter navigate their own romantic entanglements—separated by decades yet unexpectedly parallel—their stories begin to mirror each other in ways neither of them anticipated. Their struggles with desire, identity, and belonging reveal how similar they are, even as they fight to understand one another.
Bitter Honey is a powerful, emotionally rich novel that explores race, belonging, betrayal, generational trauma, and the fierce love that can both bind and break a family. It lingers long after the final page, offering truths that resonate deeply.
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