In Every Mirror She's Black: A Novel

Written by Lola Akinmade Akerstrom

Narrated by Sara Powell and Rosemarie Akwafo

Three Black women are linked in unexpected ways to the same influential white man in Stockholm as they build their new lives in the most open society run by the most private people.

Successful marketing executive Kemi Adeyemi is lured from the US to Sweden by Jonny von Lundin, CEO of the nation's largest marketing firm, to help fix a PR fiasco involving a racially tone-deaf campaign. A killer at work but a failure in love, Kemi's move is a last-ditch effort to reclaim her social life.

A chance meeting with Jonny in business class en route to the US propels former model-turned-flight-attendant Brittany-Rae Johnson into a life of wealth, luxury, and privilege as the object of his unhealthy obsession.

And refugee Muna Saheed finds a job cleaning the toilets at Jonny's office as she works to establish her residency in Sweden and, more importantly, seeks connection and a place she can call home.

Told through the perspectives of each of the three women, In Every Mirror She's Black is a fast-paced, richly nuanced novel that touches on important social issues of racism, classism, fetishization, and tokenism, and what it means to be a Black woman navigating a white-dominated society.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Jan 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9781666163506

Lola Akinmade Akerstrom

Nigerian-American and based in Sweden, Lola Akinmade Åkerström is an award-winning author, speaker, and photographer. Her work has appeared in National Geographic, BBC, CNN, The Guardian, Sunday Times Travel, The Telegraph, New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Slate, Travel Channel, Adventure Magazine, Lonely Planet, amongst others. In addition to contributing to several books, she is the author of the following books: 2018 Lowell Thomas Award winner for best travel book, Due North, bestselling Lagom: Swedish Secret of Living Well, available in 18 foreign language editions, and internationally-acclaimed In Every Mirror She's Black. She has been recognized with multiple awards for her work, including being named a 2022 Hasselblad Heroine and receiving the 2018 Travel Photographer of the Year Bill Muster Award. She was honored with a MIPAD 100 (Most Influential People of African Descent) Award within media and culture in 2018. She contributed to National Geographic's Image Collection. She is based in Stockholm and tweets at @LolaAkinmade.

Reviews for In Every Mirror She's Black

[Tracie Jones · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I appreciate how the author uses concise language, but as a reader, you also feel like you knew those characters because there is depth to each of them. I also like how you could believe these are two separate storylines with dual main characters… and then halfway thru you do find out they are seamless and simplistically intertwined.

[Linda Ivey · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The ending of this book was a SHOCKER for me. 3 different women of color, a refuge in Sweden from Somalia, a highly sought marketing exec from Nigerian who is recruited from America and a Caribbean American former model/flight attendant face romantic difficulties and life’s hardships while trying to live productive lives in Sweden. I am intrigued by the social and cultural issues presented in this book. Racism isn’t only in the US.

[Jovon Buchanan · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Wasnt Bad But not for me. This was a well written book, took me forever to read bc I simply couldn't connect with the characters, I wasn't interested in their stories. Maybe at a different point in my life I can re read and relate but as a black woman it didn't move me. But the narrator and author both did amazing jobs.