Really excited to be heading back to Reading Minds, Helensburgh’s book festival, again in March.

This year, rather than just nattering on about myself, I’m going to be interviewing the brilliant Foday Mannah about his incredible debut novel THE SEARCH FOR OTHELLA SAVAGE.

This was one of my favourite reads of last year. It’s about the Sierra Leonean community in Edinburgh. Young women are going missing and student Hawa Barrie is sure it has something to do with the Lion Mountain Church, who many of them depend on.

It won the Mo Siewcharran Prize for unpublished writers from Black, Asian, mixed heritage and minority ethnic backgrounds in 2022 and was shortlisted for Bloody Scotland’s debut award upon publication in 2025.

Foday is a vivid, insightful writer and I have loads I want to ask him!

You can book tickets here, and peruse the rest of the festival line up here.

About The Search for Othella Savage

When one of their own is found unconscious in the boot of her car, Scotland’s Sierra Leonean community is cast into a state of shock. And the young woman’s death a few days later sparks a murder investigation.

Though Hawa Barrie lives on the fringes of that community, which revolves around the Lion Mountain Church, the disappearance of a second woman – her childhood friend Othella Savage – draws her in.

But as the police investigation drags on, Hawa grows increasingly suspicious of the charismatic Pastor Ronald Ranka – and increasingly fearful for her friend, Othella. Desperate, she launches her own search, which will take her from Scotland to Sierra Leone and back again, revealing the true nature of Ranka’s church whilst exposing dark secrets within the fabric of both countries she calls home.

A darkly compelling read inspired by a real incident, The Search for Othella Savage is an engaging and compulsive debut which examines the insidious nature of corruption – both religious and political – whilst also exploring the enduring power of friendship.