This is not a book that wants you to behave better.
It is not a book about serving the community above self.
It is a book that is curious about what happens when you embrace your truth,
not your weirdly tidy Instagram-caption truth,
not your social justice warrior group circle truth,
not “I’ve processed this perfectly with EMDR and somatic experiencing” truth.
Just your beautiful, weird, occasionally wild, oftentimes delightful, deeply human truth.
The premise of Honey Is the Knife is simple.
Pleasure and pain are not opposites.
They are neighbors, co-authors who share the same border.
This book is for you if:
• You really like Black women, goddess informed cosmologies, social commentary, & carnal spirituality
• You no longer believe you have to fix yourself or save the world to be worthy of living in it
• You crave truth and alternative healing that goes deeper than “just believe in yourself”
Why this book exists:
Because many of us were taught three emotional settings:
Strong.
Strong but silent.
Strong but inspirational.
Honey Is the Knife proposes a fourth setting:
Complex & alive.
What happens inside the book:
Whether describing an existential body image crisis in a Bikram yoga studio, embracing anxiety during a Black Madonna pilgrimage, or reclaiming Yoruba mythology and the Divine Feminine, debut author Hannah Eko connects her singular life to the universal truths of peace, power, and pleasure. Honey Is the Knife is equally a work of provocative cultural criticism, a disruptor of the self-help genre, and a journey of self-discovery.
In 15 chapters, we wander through wounds and their sweetness:
— Anxiety as ancestral inheritance and portal to radical honesty
— Why feeling good feels unsafe and self-abandonment is normalized
— The possibility that pleasure is highly sophisticated intelligence
-And so much more…
A brief aside (stay with me, this is fun)
By now, most of us know that modern Western wellness culture treats healing like a linear project:
Problem → Solution → Enlightenment → Done
Honey Is the Knife operates closer to labyrinthian, ancestral models of healing:
Experience → Reflection → Rupture → Pleasure → Confusion → Growth → Repeat → Dance → Repeat again
Less “fixing yourself”, less “productivity”,
and more
“meeting yourself repeatedly until blissful self-acceptance becomes unavoidable.”
And let’s also be culturally honest.
We are currently living through a tenuous time when:
• Black women health and wealth disparities are still hurting
• Collective burnout, financial instability, and systemic collapse is high
• Trump and his allies are actively killing off what little social net we had left
• Rage is being farmed and exploited through addictive social media apps
So yes, the timing of choosing your peace, power, and pleasure may feel inconvenient.
But, history suggests Black women have never waited for perfect conditions to invent freedom.
There is no time but the present.
Do what you can with what you have from where you are.
This is always the way.
Why the title?
Because Osun, the Yoruba feminine deity of creativity, sensuality, beauty, and fresh waters reminds me that anything that has wounded me is a portal to existential sweetness.
Because Osun does not defend herself with machete or AK-47 but with her wit, her bravery, and her love.
Because Osun is a paradoxical healer who transforms energy in real time.
In life, there is always honey and knife.
Honey Is the Knife is about holding joy without numbing your intelligence and holding pain without abandoning your desire to live beautifully.
What readers tend to experience (reported side effects include):
• Laughing unexpectedly at very serious emotional revelations
• Recognizing themselves in ways that feel mildly disturbing but ultimately comforting
• Feeling permission to want more from their relationships, spirituality, bodies, and daily lives
• Realizing they are not, in fact, “too much” or “not enough,” but surrounded by environments that are deeply deficient
This book will not:
Fix you.
Make everyone like you.
Turn you into a serene vegan goddess floating above humanity.
This book might:
Make you more self-honest.
Make you more likely to follow your bliss.
Make you slightly less tolerant of emotional mediocrity.
Make you feel less alone inside your contradictions.
About the author:
Hannah Olabosibe Eko
Aries Sun. Gemini Moon. Aquarius Rising.
I have probably read more than 100 self-help books in my lifetime. I’ve been in therapy for almost two decades. I have gone on shamanic journeys in sweaty yoga studios, spent ten vipassana meditation days in the Washington wilderness, forced myself to love the taste of uncooked kale. Numerology, Bible study, Human Design, Myers-Briggs, Strengths Finder—if there’s a promise of self-actualization in there, I have probably done it.
While the aim of these paths (fixing myself/saving the world) was way off base, my desire for self-actualization and love was not. I am still very much on my journey as a human. But, now, instead of chasing some arbitrary sense of “healed”, instead of treating my life as a never-ending renovation project, I am moving with more grace, more presence, more curiosity.
Toni Morrison said, “if there’s a book you want to read, then you must write it.” And so, I wrote this self-help book for the girl I was, the woman I am, and the woman I am still becoming. For women and people like me who have done their fair share of soul searching and wanted to read something that was real, politically aware, and kind of funny about releasing the urge to fix yourself and perfecting the art of staying in your bliss.
Where to get the book
Support independent bookstores when you can:
👉 The Pop Hop
👉 The Salt Eaters Bookshop
My book is also available on Amazon.
If you like it, please leave a review.
It’s super helpful for independent writers!
If you want to go deeper (instead of politely finishing it and donating it to Goodwill):
I am currently working on a companion reader guide with:
• Reflection prompts to bring into your 1:1 sessions with your therapist, coach, spiritual healer, tarot card person, etc.
• Delicious questions for groups, book clubs, and “Lit Clubs”
• Transformative, action-oriented journaling prompts
• Inspired affirmations that sound like a real person
I will let you know when it’s ready!
Final-ish thought:
If you are the kind of person attracted to what I am putting down, I know you’ve done a lot for your family, your friends, your work, the world. I know that you have leaped unimaginable borders in short generations when it comes to the development of your soul.
I really applaud you.
It’s so easy to focus on what is wrong, our very human fallacies, the ways we fail each other and this Earth, the wounds and the knife.
And yet or also: there is always honey.
So much honey.
Everything that has tried to break you is also your heart leading you back home.
Honey Is the Knife is an initiation into a life of happy contradiction, where you thank your failures, dance with your pain, and where honey is the only knife you need.
May it change your life for good.
Praise for Honey Is the Knife…
“Spiritual, carnal, erudite, and exquisitely original, Honey Is the Knife is a balm and a treasure, a luminous book to be savored. Hannah Eko’s deep love for Black women imbues every line. She wants the best for us, wants us to be pleasure-centered. And for those of us who need a map to get there, Eko is that gentle, vulnerable guide walking alongside us in these pages. I am smarter, more compassionate with myself, and more in awe of myself, for having read this beautiful book.”
—Deesha Philyaw, National Book Award Finalist & PEN Faulkner Award winning author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies
“Honey Is the Knife is an anthem for Black women. Eko incisively and generously shares her journey and wisdom on loving one's self and sharing just how she has arrived to centering pleasure, self-care, and truth telling. A well-researched feast, full of insights about colorism, feminism, alternative modes of healing, and spirituality. This book is the perfect gift for sisters, friends, lovers, and aunties who need a salve in these trying moments. Honest and illuminating!”
-Angie Cruz, author of Soledad, Let It Rain Coffee, and the YA/ALSA winning novel Dominicana
“Hannah Eko’s sparkling debut, Honey Is the Knife, is part homage, part resistance, part love letter, and part road map from bounded to unbounded Black woman thinking. At its core is Osun, the Yoruba goddess and how the goddess can inspire daughters of the diaspora. Eko has assembled a multifaceted anti-self-help manifesto that reconsiders and reconfigures a popular and problematic genre. It’s an earnest and vulnerable work written in service of what Angela Davis has called “freedom practice.” Influential luminaries like bell hooks, Ntozake Shange, and Sojourner Truth (to name a few) inform Eko’s book, which honors her ancestors and holds its own, leading the way for a new generation. Do not let this sweetness pass you by!”
—Yona Harvey, poet, Kate Tufts Discovery award winner, and author of Hemming the Water and You Don’t Have To Go To Mars for Love
“Honey Is the Knife is an intricately fashioned, profoundly moving book. In this work, Hannah Eko presents a collection of nonfiction that you'll want to sit with for days, savoring the nuance and wonder of every word. The language is toothy and raw and it is a special thing to find a writer so gifted and committed to expressing the self. Eko does this skillfully, carefully; with exacting precision. Honey Is the Knife is astounding and Hannah Eko is a phenomenal writer.”
—Kristen Arnett, New York Times best selling writer and author of Mostly Dead Things & With Teeth: A Novel