Lolá Ákínmádé Åkerström, BITTER HONEY
Totally Booked with Zibby
Zibby Owens
4.5 • 644 Ratings
🗓️ 6 November 2025
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Nigerian-American travel writer, speaker, photographer, and bestselling author Lọlá Ákínmádé Åkerström joins Zibby to discuss BITTER HONEY, a radiant, deliciously addictive family drama about a mother and daughter divided by long-buried secrets, struggling to understand each other as they forge their own paths. Lola reveals how navigating her own divorce informed the emotional depth of the book, and then delves into the story’s themes of generational trauma, fame, secrets, and addiction.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, this is Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Totally Booked with Zibby. Formerly, moms don't have time to read books. In my daily show, I interview today's latest, best-selling, buzziest, or underrated authors and story creators, whose work I think is worth your time. As a bookstore owner, publisher, author, and obviously podcaster, I get a comprehensive |
| 0:24.0 | look at everything that's coming out and spend my time curating the best books so you don't |
| 0:29.3 | have to. |
| 0:30.3 | Stay in the know, get insider insights, and connect with guests like I do every single day. |
| 0:36.2 | For more information, go to zibbimedia.com and follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens. |
| 0:44.6 | Lola Akkenmade Akristrom is the author of Bitter Honey, a novel. |
| 0:49.4 | Nigerian-American Lola is an award-winning travel writer, speaker, photographer, |
| 0:53.5 | and author of the international |
| 0:55.4 | bestseller in Every Mirror She's Black, and Everything is Not Enough. |
| 0:59.9 | She was actually on this podcast for Every Mirror She's Black and is now back. |
| 1:03.8 | She's based in Stockholm. |
| 1:05.4 | Welcome, Lola. |
| 1:06.3 | Welcome back. |
| 1:07.1 | I'm totally booked. |
| 1:08.0 | I'm so excited to be talking to you about Bitter Honey. Congratulations. |
| 1:12.7 | Thank you. Thank you. Amazing. Tell listeners what Bitter Honey is about. |
| 1:18.4 | So Bitter Honey is the story about mothers and daughters and the secrets are the lie between them. |
| 1:24.9 | So it follows a mom who moved from Gambia to Sweden in the 70s and also |
| 1:29.8 | follows her daughters in the early 2000. So it's kind of a dual timeline. And it's if you've been |
| 1:35.8 | broken apart by secrets, how can you get back together, rebuild that relationship? So really it's |
| 1:41.7 | a story about mothers and daughters. And kind of fathers, |
| 1:44.6 | just throwing that out there. Exactly. And dead bit fathers. I mean, I feel like it's not |
... |
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