Everything Is Not Enough

From Lolá Ákínmádé Åkerström, international bestselling author of In Every Mirror She’s Black, comes the highly anticipated second novel, focusing on the lives of three Black women as they fight their own personal struggles in one of the most egalitarian societies, Sweden.

Can a career woman truly have it all?

Powerful marketing executive Kemi Adeyemi has finally found the man she needs, but Tobias Wikström thinks she’s the most selfish woman he has ever met for asking him to give up his life in Sweden and move to the US for her own comfort. Will Kemi be forced to stay if she wants to keep him while chipping away at her hard-earned career? As things begin to sour and challenge her relationship with Tobias, someone else moves back into the picture.

Can having it all be a gilded cage?

Looking into divorce in Sweden isn’t what former model-turned-flight attendant Brittany-Rae von Lundin anticipated. Only jointly owned assets are split evenly between couples. Brittany gave up her career and came with nothing into Jonny’s kingdom. Having had a child with him, her greatest fear for Maya includes being cut off from the resources she’s become accustomed to. With a man obsessed with a ghost, trying to get away isn’t going to be easy. And the deeper she digs into his past, the darker the secrets she unravels.

Can you run from your past to have it all?

After fleeing her home through a client to seek a new life in Sweden, Yasmiin finds love in the arms of Yagiz Çelik while carving out her own small corner. But as someone from her past forces Yasmiin to become a caretaker before she’s ready, she now must confront and move beyond her teenage history, while following her dreams of becoming a makeup artist.

Everything Is Not Enough follows the loosely intertwined and messy lives of Kemi, Brittany, and Yasmiin as they interrogate themes of place, prejudice, and patriarchy in Europe, proving—yet again—that Lola Akinmade Åkerström is the next great voice of nuanced contemporary women’s fiction.

Nigerian-American Lolá Ákínmádé Åkerström is an award-winning speaker, photographer, and author of the international bestseller In Every Mirror She’s Black and Everything Is Not Enough. She is based in Stockholm.

"Brilliant...Lola Akinmade Akerstrom has a sharp voice in the world of nuanced contemporary women's fiction." — Jennette McCurdy

"Lola Akinmade Akerstrom weaves a complex tapestry of three women through her deft storytelling and absorbing prose. These rich characters' lives are complicated, messy and heartbreakingly real as they struggle with love, family, and identity in a world that consistently thwarts women's ambitions. Their passions, desires, and vulnerability will stay with readers long after they finish this fascinating page-turner." — Christine Pride and Jo Piazza, bestselling authors of You Were Always Mine

"Everything is Not Enough is a heart-racer of a sequel. The passions, regrets, and vulnerabilities of Black women ignite each smartly crafted page. A very satisfying read!" — Deesha Philyaw, award-winning author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies

“Compulsively readable, Everything is Not Enough is a worthy successor to Akerstrom's debut. It was profoundly comforting to see Akerstrom's women wade into their power, claiming their space in a world that gives them very little room to be. Akerstrom is a master at shading the gaps between power and love. This book filled me up like food. Everything about it is absolutely enough.” — Chika Unigwe, award-winning author

"Everything is Not Enough presents a fascinating and complex kaleidoscope of women's lives in Sweden, asking crucial questions around career, love, family, and the definition of success. There are no easy answers in this book—the characters are real, subtle and surprising and you root for them the whole way through." — Kathy Wang, author of Impostor Syndrome

"Incendiary, emotionally devastating, absolutely wonderful." — Onyi Nwabineli, author of Someday, Maybe

"Everything is Not Enough is a searing account of three women struggling through heartbreak, deception, and the scars of their pasts to find their rightful place in a society that isn't eager to make space for them. Lola Akinmade Akerstrom writes with clarity and fearlessness, baring ugly truths amidst the strength and resilience of women who come into their own, while also coming into the beauty of hope." — Charlene Carr, author of Hold My Girl

"International best-selling author Lola Akinmade Åkerström’s second novel, Everything Is Not Enough, turns expectations and stereotypes of Black women on their heads. Åkerström creates space for characters to become fully realized, allowing them to make mistakes and embrace anger or selfishness in ways they’re not always allowed." — Shondaland

"Akerstrom doesn't pull any punches when calling out the racism that keeps knocking them back, and draws strong characters to carry her plot." — Sunday Times (London)

Told compellingly from the three perspectives of Yasmiin, Kemi, and Brittany-Rae, Akerstrom hijacks your attention with her beautiful writing and well-drawn characters, and forces you to confront issues and realities other than your own. Brilliant." — Heat Magazine (UK)

"Åkerström carefully examines the loneliness of frequently feeling like an outsider and how this can draw the most disparate of people together. Balancing the trauma and turmoil of being judged and appraised based on the prejudices of individual people and societies, this fitting follow-up dwells on the comforts of finding a community on which to depend." — Booklist

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