VIIMEINEN YHTEINEN LEIKKI
Otava, August 2024, 411 pp. 

Reading material:
English sample and synopsis
Finnish edition

Our Last Game

Riikka Pulkkinen

An ingeniously fascinating novel about the power of medicine, friendship and a person’s desire to find a cure for life

✓ The eighth novel by Riikka Pulkkinen, who is a shining star in Finnish literature, an award-winning and bestselling author with international publishers in 19 territories!

✓ World English rights Riikka Pulkkinen’s earlier novel ENCHANTMENT sold to Scribe for publication in 2025!

Eelis says he’s going to the emergency room for dizziness, then disappears without a trace. His wife Mai is at wit’s end until a woman who knows Eelis appears at the door bearing memories of Eelis’s and her childhood–and the things that happened to them.

The two women’s road trip begins, leading to gas stations, the wedding suite of an airport hotel, and a hospital where children once played Love and Death at summer camps. Our Last Game is a wonderful novel about a person’s desire to find a cure not only for diseases but also for life.

Reading material:
English sample and synopsis
Finnish edition

Hyena Days

Saara Turunen

It would be a crying injustice if Turunen’s work is not nominated for this year’s Finlandia Prize. Why not even as the winner?
– Olli Sorjonen in Karjalainen newspaper

✓  The fourth novel by the award-winning author, playwright and director!

✓  For readers of Rachel Cusk and Sheila Heti

✓  Bestseller! Sold 10,000 copies in Finland!

✓  Saara Turunen’s works have been translated into 16 languages!

Hyena Days is a precise and straightforward story about childlessness and the contradictory nature of having a child. It depicts the hopes for a child and the unpredictability of procreation, the shame related to one’s body, and the demands placed on the female body. The novel delves into a discussion of compatibility between artistry and motherhood but, above all, it depicts the physical dimension of human life.

Turunen handles the subject matter of the novel in a wistful and a light manner. The short and bright sentences paint a precise portrait of life’s many contradictions, of dreams and their becoming fulfilled in a different way than imagined. The narration flows effortlessly and transports the reader to a fascinating world full of both personal and universal questions.

Reading material:
English sample and synopsis
German sample
Finnish edition

Pine Bark

Tommi Kinnunen

A densely atmospheric and arrestingly written novel about women’s fates in times of war, the difficulty of giving up, and how the proximity of death can change a person

✓ Finland’s #1 Bestseller in Spring, 30,000 copies sold!

✓  The sixth novel by one of Finland’s most award-winning, bestselling and internationally acclaimed authors with rights sold to 22 territories!

✓  Tommi Kinnunen has won the Best Book of 2014 Prize by the Grand Finnish Journalism Prize, the Readers’ Favorite of the Finlandia Prize of 2016 and 2020, the Minna Canth Prize of 2020, and the Giuseppe Acerbi Prize of 2023!

✓  Tommi Kinnunen has been praised for giving a voice to people whose stories have been kept untold

A person cannot return to being who they once were without knowing who they have been.

In 2001, three siblings – Martti and twin sisters Eeva and Marja – meet in a small village in Northern Finland. Their mother Laina, an old woman who has been through the Second World War, is dying and the children have gathered to arrange the funeral. Even though the siblings have always been on good terms, Martti has always felt aloof, the odd man out. All of them reminisce about their childhood, but Martti remembers things slightly differently than the sisters.

As the novel progresses, the readers are transported through the decades and through Laina’s story, culminating in the Soviet partisan attack during the summer of 1944 that irrevocably changed Laina’s life. She has refused to recall the events and, at the same time, has denied her children the opportunity of remembering and recovering. “One can only talk about men’s war, as the women’s war is soundless and forbidden.”

Reading material:
English sample and synopsis
Finnish edition

36 Urns
A History of Being Wrong

Sirpa Kähkönen

“A masterpiece, which is worth living for” – a celebrated author’s masterful and poetic confession of love to her mother

✓  #1 Bestseller in Finland in printed books with more than  80,000 copies sold!

✓  Winner of the Finlandia Prize of 2023! Nominated for the Runeberg Prize of 2024 and the Savonia Prize of 2023!

✓  For readers of Elizabeth Strout, Tove Ditlevsen, Moa Martinson, and Natalia Ginzburg! Rights sold to 6 territories and counting!

✓  Sirpa Kähkönen has been nominated for the Nordic Council Literary Prize and five times for Finlandia Prize, is the two-time winner of the Savonia Prize and has received the Finnish Cultural Foundation’s grand prize!

Author Sirpa Kähkönen’s mother Riitta (b. 1941) died in March 2022 after a long illness. In life, she struggled to accept love. “I do not grieve your death, I grieve your life,” Sirpa Kähkönen writes, knowing fully well that her mother wouldn’t like the phrase. Her mother rejected love, despite longing for it the most. Riitta was athletic, beautiful, and gifted. A traffic accident at the age of 16 changed the course of her life for ever.

Drawing on her mother’s diaries, Kähkönen depicts the life of a 1950s girl and the dramatic change that followed the accident. The novel talks about community dance halls, a broken mind, flowing hems, a 1960s mother, anxiety, anger and hate, addiction, and moments of psychosis. It talks about how wars and other crises become corporeal, how violence is inherited, and how the culture of discouragement and submission is passed down through the generations in sayings and attitudes, with the author clearly seeing herself as part of the tradition of anger and violence.

The novel is permeated by a fiery love, as if an ancient Finnish spell that, with the power of words, is capable of bringing loved ones back from the dead.

Reading material:
English sample and synopsis
Finnish edition
Norwegian edition
Italian edition

The Investigations of a Certain Cat

Katja Kettu

Katja Kettu’s stunning novel spins through ages whilst surrendering to the wilderness of nature and the deep yearning for offspring.

✓  A fascinating combination of autofiction and elements of magical realism!

✓  A critical success, a novel in which the power of words brings justice to the world, by one of Finland’s most internationally acclaimed authors!

✓  Rights sold to 11 territories and counting! A bestseller in Finland with more than 11,000 copies sold!

✓  Katja Kettu’s works have been sold to 24 territories!

Can one find solace and meaning in life from the past once the future no longer exists?

An Author has a miscarriage and loses their ability to speak and write. From the Investigative Bureau of Heavens, a Detective is sent to the scene, but something goes awry. Soon, in the corner of the room, there appears Cat who starts examining a mysterious diary that once belonged to the Author’s Great Grandmother.

When a new life has been lost, the Author turns their gaze to the past and to the age-old words of creation in the old Finnish outskirts. The one who knows them, Great Grandmother, has the power of healers. The Great Grandmother’s diary sheds light on birth and death, love towards children, and the strength of heritage in one’s blood.

Combining autofiction and elements of magical realism, Katja Kettu’s latest novel also sheds light on the history of the Finnish frontiers.

MERKITTY
Tammi, September 2024, 350 pp.

Reading material:
English sample and synopsis
Finnish manuscript

Milo

Max Seeck

From New York Times and Spiegel bestseller Max Seeck, MILO begins a new crime series, with a complex and relatable main character, criminal profiler and art gallerist Milo Perho. Bodies with chess pieces in their mouth – Milo needs to understand the game of chess in order to catch a killer.

✓ Solar Films adapts Milo to an international feature film for global distribution, development in 2024 and a planned release in 2025!

✓  Rights to Milo have been sold pre-publication to Bastei Lübbe in Germany, Aschehoug in Norway, and Mera Éditions in France!

✓ Bestseller! Over 30,000 copies sold in three weeks!

✓ Max Seeck won the prestigious Glass Key Award 2023 for The Last Grudge!

✓ Max Seeck’s books have sold over 400,000 copies in Finland!

Milo, a 38-year-old art enthusiast, gallery owner and criminal profiler struggles with sexual frustration that are both the cause and consequence for his marital problems with his wife Ronja. A body of a young woman is found painted in all-white representing a piece of chess. The chief inspector receives an anonymous letter with a short message: Bxc6. This indicates a chess move and along the location where the body was found the investigators feel that more chess moves might be on the way.

Milo struggles to form a clear picture of the killer. He soon understands that in order to help the police force to catch the killer he needs to understand the game of chess better. As much as he hates it, he decides to face the ghost of the past: her mother’s former partner Stanislav who happens to be a European champion in chess…

MILO is a psychological suspense novel with surprising twists and interesting facts about the game of chess. It’s also a story of complex human relationships, sex and issues people are facing when they approach the middle-age. The novel also covers a lot of art and other cultural references, maintaining the erotic vibe that stems from Milo’s and Ronja’s sexual adventures.

Book 2: The sequel to MILO will deepen the story between Milo and Stanislav and enlighten the past events that led to current situation. The main storyline will happen in the present and will be about espionage and assassination of a person of high status.

VARGENS UNGE
Albert Bonniers/Förlaget, August 2024, 428 pp. 

Reading material:
English sample, 27-page synopsis
Swedish edition
Finnish edition

Wolf Cub

Johanna Holmström

An atmospheric literary crime novel about desire and fanaticism taking place in the Finnish forests near the Russian border, by an award-winning fiction author

✓ Johanna Holmström is the winner of the Karin Boye Literature Prize 2023, Svenska Dagbladets Literature Prize 2009, The Svenska Yles Literature Prize 2009 and was nominated for the Runeberg Prize in 2018 and in 2023

✓ Her works have been published in over 10 countries

One day, a dirty and unfamiliar little boy stands in Seija’s tulip bed. Upon seeing his wide eyes, her motherly heart overflows, but the boy refuses to say a word – only a memory card is found in his mouth. Police Inspector Minna and her sidekick Timo are called, but no one has reported a missing child. Who is the boy and where does he come from?

When the photographer Gloria moves into a collective in the forest, she feels that she has found her home. She enjoys the freedom and companionship, blind to what is going on around her. And when the truth is finally revealed, it is too late for her to escape.

This relentless thriller is set in Kuhmo, northern Finland, in a wilderness as wonderfully beautiful as it is terrifying. WOLF CUB is part of a trilogy of stand-alone novels.

SISTA ORDET
Swedish original manuscript, 82,000 words

Reading material:
Swedish original manuscript
English sample & synopsis
Synopses of Book 2 & Book 3

The Last Word

Anne Hietanen, Michaela von Kügelgen

The Last Word is a novel about family, honour and keeping up appearances – at any cost.

✓ A trilogy from new crime-writing duo: an award-winning author is found dead in the harbour during the Helsinki Book Fair

✓ First installment in a new Helsinki Noir crime trilogy by renowned journalist-writer team

✓ For fans of Lars Kepler – with a softer twist

✓ Existential crime

LAVASTAJA
WSOY, August 2024, 320 pp.

Reading material:
English synopsis
English samples & synopses of Books 1-5
Series presentation
Finnish edition

River Delta #6: The Stager

Arttu Tuominen

Henning Mankell meets Stephen King! Arttu Tuominen’s unique human touch and excellence in depicting characters combined with shocking horror elements brings originality to Nordic Noir.

✓ Sixth novel in the internationally successful River Delta series – sold to 7 territories!

✓ Each novel can be read as a standalone.

✓ Arttu Tuominen is a Palle Rosenkrantz Prize-winning and a Spiegel Bestselling author! He was shortlisted for the Glass Key Awards 2021, a nominee Book Beat Finland’s Best Finnish Crime Author 2021-2023 and won the ‘Clue of the Year’ Crime Novel of the Year Award 2020.

A serial killer wants to be a director. You too can end up on stage. In Arttu Tuominen’s chilling detective story, the curtain is a guillotine.

A family – father, mother and primary school-age daughter – is watching TV together on a remote forest farm. The dog is lounging peacefully on the carpet at the family’s feet. What could be more idyllic? Except that they have all been killed and embalmed. 

Soon another family is found, equally immortalized. Henrik Oksman, Jari Paloviita and Linda Toivonen of the Pori criminal police unit, under the leadership of Susanna Manner, quickly realize there’s a serial killer on the move who finds the presentation of the victims more important than the murders themselves.

The police will find out they too have roles written for them in this cruel play. Will everyone make it to the end of the show?

THE STAGER is the sixth and final book in the acclaimed ‘River Delta’ series, which has seen commercial success and garnered praise from readers and critics alike, both at home and abroad. Set in the city of Pori by the Gulf of Bothnia, a Finnish police unit has to solve crimes that force them to consider their own acts and values. In turn, each of the officers of the unit is centered in the narration, having to face their own ghosts from the past. Each novel can be read as a standalone

Also available:

River Delta #1: The Oath
A touching and engaging crime novel about secrets and guilt. Commissioner Jari Paloviita works on a murder case where the prime suspect is an old friend he feels indebted to.

River Delta #2: Jeopardy
The grenade attack on the restaurant claims casualties – and at the same time threatens to expose Chief Commissioner Herik Oksman’s life-long secret.

River Delta #3: Silenced
Pori police detectives Jari Paloviita, Linda Toivonen and Henrik Oksman are faced with an exceptionally cruel series of crimes against elderly citizens. Soon they are dealing with international crime, and one of the taboos of the Finnish war story is connected to the investigation.

River Delta #4: Shamed
An investigation into a girl’s murder takes the police into the world of predators hiding on the Internet and becomes personal for Senior constable Linda Toivonen, whose daughter knew the young victim.

River Delta #5: The Liberator

The charred body of a man is discovered on a sports field in Pori. Suspicions are directed at a group of young adults known to have harassed rough sleepers in the past. When a second arson attack is caught on CCTV, the Pori police are forced to take the attacks seriously as rumours on the street talk of a ‘liberator’ offering the wretched eternal life and freedom from pain.

SUO, JOKA UPPOSI
Takamailla #2
Bazar, November 2024, 400 pp.

Reading material:
English synopsis
Series presentation
Finnish edition

SAARI, JOKA REPESI
Takamailla #1
Bazar, February 2024, 400 pp.

Reading material:
English sample and synopsis
Series presentation
Finnish edition

The Outback Series #2: The Swamp That Sank

Joona Keskitalo

The second part of Joona Keskitalo’s THE OUTBACK SERIES travels again to a place where the Finnish mentality flourishes at its wildest. THE SWAMP THAT SANK is a story about two gas stations and six bodies along the expressway cutting through North Ostrobothnia.

✓ Second novel in a new crime series by an author hailed as Finnish Jens Lapidus!

✓Just Republic Oy has optioned the TV rights to the Outback Series by Joona Keskitalo!

✓  An alternative to police procedurals – crimes as seen from the perspective of local people caught up in them

✓ The Outback crime series is set in remote Finnish villages. Each part is a unique story with its own set of characters, creating a series of thriller-like visits to the ends of long dirt roads, unleashing the Finnish mental landscape at its most naked and exotic!

Revonlahti, the final break from life.

The Lehtonens, who own the only gas station in their home village,have gathered to wait for information on whether the Kaske family will get a permit for a competing new gas station from the municipality. 17-year-old Maria would rather be dead than spend the evening at home. When she finally manages to sneak onto the village road, it brings her the Volvo Amazon and its forbidden fruit, Teemu Kaske. The next morning, Maria remembers the back seat of the car, Teemu, and her father’s rage. The taste of alcohol. But not why she is covered in blood.

The events from years ago haunt Maria after she returns from prison to her home region of Revonlahti. The villagers do not celebrate the parricide’s homecoming, and when new bodies are found in a nearby swamp, Maria is forced to try once again to find out what really happened. 

In THE OUTBACK SERIES, local communities in different parts of Finland solve crimes with their own strength and questionable means. Each book is an independent story with its own unique characters.

Also available:

The Outback Series #1: The Island Torn Apart

Korppoo: a place where many have died. It’s a beautiful place – serene, a little piece of paradise. A place where people offer apple pie to passers-by and lend their tractor to their neighbors. Where everyone greets each other, joys are shared and grudges are borne forever. Then, Jennifer from Helsinki buys a guest marina on the island and brings death with her.

Empty boats drift on the sea and a feeling of unease spreads among the islanders. Are these strange events just chance, or is everything somehow linked to Jennifer’s high-flying plans? Or is it the three Russians snapping up properties in the area at an ever-faster pace?

The Island Torn Apart promises the reader at least one thing – when the earth’s crust tears, things will be revealed that no one would have dared to dig out.

KUINKA KUOLEMA KOHDATAAN
Otava, April 2024, 400 pp.

Reading material:
English synopsis Book #4
English samples & synopses Books #1-3
German editions Books #1-3
Finnish editions

Saana Havas #4: How to Face Death

Elina Backman

The lovely summer scenery is twisted by a desire for revenge.

✓  Elina Backman is one of Finland’s bestselling fiction authors!

✓  International TV series in development – rights sold in 17 territories!

✓  Elina Backman’s books have sold over 100,000 copies in Finland!

Saana Havas is spending midsummer with her Aunt Inkeri in Kaunissaari, Kotka, renovating her aunt’s friend’s villa and getting to know the mysterious neighborhood. When the midsummer celebrations end fatally, the dark history of the island begins to unravel.

The summer plans of Saana’s boyfriend, police officer Jan Leino, are changed by the murder of a Finnish art collector in Nice. The message left by the murderer puts Jan on his toes. Will there be more victims? And how is everything related to a long-forgotten death?

Elina Backman’s Saana Havas series has charmed readers in Finland and abroad, selling to 17 territories. Her debut, ALL THE KING’S MEN, immediately prompted the press to call her a new star in the crime scene, and the atmospheric and elegant sequels have continued to captivate readers. The previous three books in the series have all been bestsellers. Saana Havas is a strong female character who is a journalist in Finland solving crime cases, setting up true crime podcasts and more. Backman’s book series, pitched as Tana French meets Jo Nesbo.

Also available:

Book #1: All the King’s Men
Saana Havas has been fired from her job as a click-bait journalist, so she decides to spend a summer with her aunt in a small-town Hartola. It sounds like a perfect opportunity to take it easy and recover – until she comes across a case of a teenage girl who died 30 years earlier and starts investigating. Meanwhile in Helsinki, crime investigator Jan Leino and his team look into a murder case where a fire-marked body is found at Suomenlinna Sea Fortress. Eventually, Saana and Jan’s paths cross – for more than one reason.

Book #2: Still Waters Run Deep
Three young men are making a documentary film about a mystical hermit, living in the Isle of Sheep in Helsinki. First one of them disappears, then another one. When one of them is found dead in the nearby nature reserve, police commissioner Jan Leino and his team become involved. Saana Havas, recovering from burnout, hears that her colleague’s younger brother has gone missing and decides to set up a true crime podcast to help with the search.

Book #3: Before the Polar Night Falls
A Reindeer Noir crime novel. Saana Havas investigates an unsolved death of a young woman in Northern Lapland in 1998, where the murderer has never been caught. The police have given up on the case, and no witnesses were ever found in an area of Lapland that covers hundreds of kilometers.

Reading material:
English synopsis
English & German sample book 1
Series presentation
Finnish ms

The Kristinestad Murders #2: Alone

Kaisu Tuokko

The praised and bestselling crime series continues! 

✓ Sales over 32,000 copies for the series!

✓  REVENGE was nominated for the BookBeat Newcomer of the Year award of 2023 and is nominated for the Storytel Award of 2023!

✓  Kaisu Tuokko was recently named an honorary citizen of Kristinestad!

An elderly woman is found dead in Kristinestad, malnourished, dirty, and abused. She’s wearing the socks of the local nursing home, but the people there don’t recognise her. No one knows who she is. 

Mats, the local police officer, starts investigating the case with his team, but establishing the identity of the murder victim proves tricky. Mats also has issues in his personal life, and same goes for the journalist Eevi, who struggles to get pregnant. While Eevi uncovers harsh truths about the treatment of the elderly in Kristinestad, Mats and his team find another abused woman fighting for her life. Just as everything is heating up, Mats discovers a personal connection to the case he never saw coming.

The Kristinestad Murders is a new, atmospheric crime series set in a coastal town in Finland, with intriguing main characters and interpersonal relationships. The author Kaisu Tuokko combines the thrilling crime plots with societal issues, and the result hooks the reader. The first two books in the series have sold over 27,000 copies – and six installments are planned.

Also available:

The Kristinestad Murders #1: REVENGE
The body of a young man is discovered in the sea, and the criminal investigator Mats Bergholm is responsible for the case. At the same time, journalist Eevi Manner is sent to dig out a scoop of the event for the local newspaper. Both are surprised to find each other on the grim beach: the two have a past together – a past which they now need to set aside to solve the case.

Reading material:
English edition
German edition
Finnish edition

Follow the Butterfly (Book 1)

Martta Kaukonen

Can she cure a killer? An addictive psychological thriller in the spirit of Gillian Flynn!

✓ Film & TV Rights acquired by Legendary-Tobis! English & German editions available!

✓  Pushkin Press published in the UK & US in March 2024 to excellent reviews!

✓ A Spiegel bestseller in Germany with more than 23,500 copies sold!

✓ An international bestseller by author and film critic Martta Kaukonen, sold in 15 territories!

✓ Nominated for the Glass Key Award 2024, over 12,000 copies sold in Finland!

Ira, 20, a serial killer who was abducted as a child, starts therapy with celebrity therapist Clarissa. Only one of them knows that they share a mutual secret from the past. Will the other one realize it before she gets murdered?

Clarissa is a middle-aged psychotherapist, the best in her field. Everyone’s seen her on TV and in glossy magazines. For her, every patient is a princess – and someone only she can save. Or can she? Clarissa already has one suicide to answer for; a teenage boy’s death never ceases to haunt her. Ira’s sessions with Clarissa begin a cat-and-mouse game where no one’s following the rules.

The kind of game that never ends well.

German series production company Legendary Tobis TV has acquired the rights to develop it into a German language series.

“We are very excited to start working on “THERAPIERT” (Follow the Butterfly) by Martta Kaukonen, which is one of the most thrilling debuts of this year. With its strong female characters and surprising twists, it is perfect for a series adaptation”, says Isabel Hund, CEO of Legendary Tobis.

Coming in Spring 2025 from WSOY in Finland: Book #3 in Follow the Butterfly: Free

The book begins with Ira and Arto’s storyline, set in 2025, a year after Follow the Butterfly 2 (Meet Me in the Darkness). Kerttu’s storyline, on the other hand, begins three months before Follow the Butterfly 2, in the summer of 1995.

HENGISSÄ
WSOY, December 2023, 271 pp.

Reading material:
English synopsis
Full English ms in October 2024
German ms
Finnish edition

Meet Me in the Darkness (Book 2)

Martta Kaukonen

Nothing is as it seems.

✓ Sequel to the internationally bestselling and critically acclaimed Follow the Butterfly! 

✓ Rights to Follow the Butterfly have been sold to 15 territories, including UK & US, and Film & TV rights acquired by Legendary-Tobis!

Four years have passed since the events of Follow the Butterfly. Ira and Arto have teamed up, and both work as crime journalists for the Helsinki Today. Everything’s going nicely, until Ira starts suspecting there’s a serial killer on the loose in Helsinki.

The murders are investigated by Senior Crime Inspector Kerttu Leppänen, who leads the murder unit and eagerly waits for retirement. Unsolved cases haunt Kerttu, who is unable to forgive herself.

The past catches up with all of them – if they were ever free from its clutches in the first place…

Book #3: Free – Coming in Spring 2025

The book begins with Ira and Arto’s storyline, set in 2025, a year after Book #2. Kerttu’s storyline, on the other hand, begins in the summer of 1995. The 1995 and 2025 storylines are told concurrently.

KOTKA
Otava, April 2024, 363pp.

Reading material:
English sample and synopsis
Finnish edition

Leo Koski #3: The Eagle

Tuomas Oskari aka Tuomas Niskakangas

A desperate father, an unhinged president, and a conspiracy to change the world.

✓ For fans of Dan Brown and David Baldacci

✓  A fast-paced international thriller, blended with a murder mystery in the White House.

✓  Inspired by the author’s years in Washington, D.C. as the US correspondent for the largest newspaper in Finland.

✓  Book #1 was chosen as BookBeat Newcomer of the Year 2021!

Former prime minister of Finland Leo Koski is a 39-year-old single dad, done with politics and traumatized by the murder of his true love. As the populist US president Chester Tyler is withdrawing the United States from NATO, Koski is forced to return to the White House for one more meeting.

Things unravel when the president is poisoned. Koski is faced with a horrible choice between his daughter’s life and the security of Europe. With the New York Times reporter Ashley Pegula by his side, Koski has only a few hours to find out who poisoned the president. And why?

Perfect for anyone looking for a smart and fast-paced thriller, The Eagle is the third, fully independent book in the Leo Koski series. The previous titles Their Turn to Burn and The Act of Gladius have been acquired by Bastei Lübbe in Germany and Their Turn to Burn was chosen as the BookBeat Newcomer of the Year for 2021!

Also available:

Leo Koski #1: Their Turn to Burn
A fast-paced political thriller taking place over the course of 25 hours. An economic crisis is dividing Finland and young Prime Minister Leo Koski is caught in a dangerous power play where the stakes couldn’t be higher.

Leo Koski #2: The Act of Gladius
The refugee crisis following the economic collapse is pushing tensions in Europe to the extreme. Former Finnish Prime Minister Leo Koski thinks he is an insignificant pensioner at the age of 36, but soon finds himself in the center of a dangerous undercover mission to stop a far-rights extremist group – but who is pulling the strings?

KAHDEN VEREN TYTÄR
Otava, August 2024, 509 pp.

Reading material:
English sample + synopsis
Finnish edition

Daughter of Two Bloods

S. K. Rostedt

A debut enemies-to-lovers romantasy novel oozing with fae, demons, and hot romance.

✓ For fans of Sarah J. Maas, Victoria Aveyard, Jennifer L. Armentrout

Remena is a land where humans and fae coexist, seemingly on equal terms. The elves who control magic live in their own territory in Keto under the authority of an elven ruler, even though the royalty of Remena is human. Since the fierce demons were banished to Tuoni at the end of the demon wars fought a thousand years ago, Remena has lived in peace… but the stirrings of danger loom on the horizon.

Moorna is a 21-year-old half-breed whose life as an escort to the capital’s aristocracy is harrowing. She wants to pay off her escort debt as quickly as possible and return home with her friend Malkra to live a life free from discrimination. When Moorna accidentally stumbles upon the annoyingly handsome fae, Caidas, she is torn from all that is familiar and safe, and quickly learns that nothing is as it seems.

Reading material:
Full English PDF of Book #1
English synopses of Books #1-3
Swedish edition
Series presentation

Earthborn #1: Daughter of Earth

Ann-Catrin Mattsson

What if Outlander, A Discovery of Witches, and the Brothers Grimm had a wild night out and birthed a rebellious and utterly irresistible love child?

✓ #1 on the Swedish Fantasy Council’s rank of top fantasy series in 2024

✓ Awarded Series of the Year 2023 and Debut of the Year 2022 by Sweden’s Fantasy Chamber!

✓ For fans of Rachel Griffin, Rebecca Ross, and Alix E. Harrow

The year is 1649, and war ravages Europe. In occupied Ireland, we meet Ailea, a young woman whose clairvoyance evokes both envy and fear. Compelled to seek refuge in Scotland with her family, Ailea’s path crosses with Magy Cullane, a sage woman with connections to the enigmatic Order. Thus does Ailea plunge into a realm of intrigue and millennia-old secrets.

Meanwhile, on the continent, in the Italian city of Bologna, the young hot-tempered soldier Roderic begins his military training at the war school. Guided by the charismatic master Muccio, Roderic is honed for battle, but is he truly prepared for the grim reality of war? After stumbling upon a mysterious necklace in the mountains, a fair-haired girl begins to haunt his dreams – Ailea. A timeless bond, stretching across centuries, unbreakable even by death.

In the distance, dark forces begin to stir, as a secret brotherhood known as the Black Knights seek a prophetess, a vessel of ancient blood, to fulfill their plans. Driven by an obsession to overthrow the throne and mold the world to their whims, they spare no means to achieve their goals. But what secrets lurk in the shadows, and what is their true plan for Ailea? Both Ailea and Roderic must confront their pasts and the menacing forces threatening to destroy all they hold dear.

Also available: 

Earthborn #2: Night of Omen

The year is 1655. Ailea is to be taught the mystical teachings at the Order’s secret school. It is here she becomes aware of her predestined fate, to marry the Sicilian prince, Aaron.

Earthborn #3: Legacy from the East

The Order Tightens its grip around Ailea, but she continues stubbornly to resist. However, the price for freedom from her own fate is devastatingly high.

SYÖKSYLASKUA ALTTARILLE
Otava, October 2024, 330 pp.

Reading material:
English sample and synopsis
Finnish edition

Book #2: A Downhill Wedding

Jenni Multisilta

An uncontrollably funny and wonderfully mischievous romantic comedy about wedding preparations in the middle of Lapland – and about chaos.

✓  For readers of Alexandria Bellefleur, Sophie Kinsella and Casey McQuiston!

Jesse can’t wait to have Arttu as his husband. It’s not long until the perfect Christmas wedding of their dreams. His plan: Find the perfect gift and keep away from the wedding preparations. How it turns out: Lose the perfect gift in the fells and try to stop the groom from finding out about a small mistake that may have happened during the bachelor party…

In the second part of this entertaining romcom series, the lives of the soon-to-be wedded couple and Jesse’s siblings are also mixed up by a surprising life change made by their parents.

Also available: 

Book #1: Arctic Wedding Nightmare

Mila is a star vlogger, whose husband-to-be dumps her two weeks before the dream Christmas-time wedding of the century. For Mila, the idea of canceling the wedding is a disaster. And what’s even more important is to finish the wedding video series that her followers are eagerly waiting for!

To solve this, Mila persuades her former teenage crush to be her pretend fiancé. Soon Mila’s siblings, Jesse and Laura, also find themselves caught within the web of lies weaved by their sister.

The wedding preparations in beautiful Lapland start to resemble a nightmarish undercover operation. Will the lies hold until Christmas Eve? Will Santa Claus get kissed on the altar? For whom do the sleigh bells eventually ring?

Coming in Autumn 2025: 

Book #3: A Wedding Under the Palm Trees (Autumn 2025)

Mum and Mamma have invited their family and friends to spend Christmas at their new home in Gran Canaria. Arttu and Jesse’s departure is delayed because of a shift-cover crisis at Jesse’s new workplace – a company which provides arctic activities and experiences.

Reading material:
English edition
French edition
German edition
Swedish edition

Inherited Land

Maria Turtschaninoff

Inherited Land is an episodic work of literary fiction depicting human relationships with nature across generations, following in the tradition of family sagas like One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez.

The roots of people and forest are intertwined in the depths of the earth.

✓  Winner of the Svenska YLE Literature Prize 2022, the Thank You for the Book Award 2023 and the Young Aleksis Award 2023 and the Eeva Joenpelto Literary Prize 2024!

✓  A future classic – rights have been sold to 23 territories and counting!

✓  Fastest selling literary fiction title for Ahlback Agency!

✓  First adult novel by internationally bestselling and award-winning YA author Maria Turtschaninoff, whose The Red Abbey Chronicles have been sold to more than 30 territories!

Inherited Land tells multiple enchanting stories about short human lives on a small farmstead in the north of Finland with its golden cloudberries and the mythical forest creatures. The hub of the narrative is a marsh close to the farmstead, and nature is the constant while humans are like dragonflies: here one day, gone the next. Across four centuries, the people face wars, epidemics, and heartbreaks, but in the woods they find shelter and a place to be themselves.

Inherited Land is a novel about the climate crisis without ever mentioning it by name. Instead, the novel explores what people have thought about their environment, how they have used it and why. The novel is a reminder of where we have come from, and what a relationship between humans and nature could look like in the future.

Reading material:
English sample and synopsis
Finnish edition

Where Four Roads Meet

Tommi Kinnunen

A delicately perceptive novel about people who build their dreams to forbidden heights

✓  Winner of the Best Book of 2014 Prize by the Grand Finnish Journalism Prize, the Young Aleksis Award 2015, the Thank You for the Book Medal of 2015, and the Giuseppe Acerbi Prize of 2023!

✓  Nominated for the Finlandia Prize and the Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize! Shortlisted for the Europese Literatuurprijs of 2016!

✓  Rights sold to 22 territories!

A young midwife named Maria arouses suspicion among the villagers. Diligently taking care of difficult childbirths, she finally gains the respect she craves for, but fails to notice that she has become a prisoner of her own longing.

Maria’s daughter Lahja, born out of wedlock, wants to incorporate into her own life all that her mother has rejected as ballast. A refugee returning to the north scorched by war, she yearns for contact in her marriage, while her husband, war hero Onni, wanders the cities, seeking fleeting, forbidden moments of happiness.

Decades later, Kaarina is decorating her mother-in-law Lahja’s house, now devoid of dreams, and wants to tear down what others have built to remain silent.

Reading material:
English sample and synopsis
Swedish edition

How We Met Your Mother

Kaj Korkea-aho

An autobiographical story about a gay couple’s journey to co-parenting

✓ The latest work from the award-winning author, playwright and columnist

✓ Kaj Korkea-aho’s works have been translated into 7 languages and nominated for the Runeberg Prize and the Nordic Council Literature Prize!

After eight years together, Kaj and Niko, living in Helsinki, decide to try to become parents. They start “dating” women, but the search for a co-parent seems impossible at first. How do you get to the place where you can trust a complete stranger? Whose sperm cells should be used? How do you plan the future of such an unconventional family in a society that is still coded heterosexually?

Kaj Korkea-aho’s autobiographical text about how three parents had a child is irresistibly touching, painful, and humorous. It bears traces of all forms of expression mastered by Korkea-aho – novel, podcast, blog, and drama – and can also be used as a kind of handbook for others in the same life situation. The book grabs the reader like a baby with its little hand and doesn’t let go until the book has been finished and we witness the wonder of life through their eyes.

Read more:

Kaj Korkea-aho’s novel THE RED ROOM is being adapted into an international feature film: an award-winning novel about power dynamics and desires, about selling one’s art, one’s property and oneself.

Reading material:
English sample and synopsis
Finnish edition

A Disobedient Girl

Sara Al Husaini

An honest and authentic debut novel by the winner of the Refugee Woman of the Year Award, a novel that shakes the reader to their core

✓  Winner of the BookBeat Newcomer of the Year Award!

✓  Nominated for the Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize of 2023 and the Savonia Prize of 2023!

✓  More than 26,000 copies sold in Finland!

✓  A story of a fearless woman who wants to survive, change the world, and advance human rights of girls

A mother is escorting her daughter, trembling with fear, to the wedding suite door. This is what she’s been raised for ever since she was little, kept in wrapping paper like a precious sweet. This is the reason why she was brought back from Finland to Iraq.

“You shouldn’t have abandoned the headscarf”, her siblings say. “He is your husband now”, her mother says.

A Disobedient Girl is an astonishingly honest and authentic story about the history of subjugating and silencing women, about abandoning one’s faith, honor violence, forced marriage, Islamic morality, the price of freedom, and the desperate desire for the right to self-determination. Above all, it is about a fearless woman who wants to survive and change the world.

Reading material:
Finnish edition
Full English translation

The Logbook of Love

Elina Hirvonen

What’s love all about? In Elina Hirvonen´s new novel, The Logbook of Love, conversations about love form a sea of connections among people from wildly different backgrounds and places.

✓  A novel for fans of Rachel Cusk, Jenny Offill and Deborah Levy

✓  Elina Hirvonen’s debut novel When I Forgot was nominated for the Finlandia Prize and the Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize of 2005 – and made the front page of The New York Times Book Review

✓  In 2023, Elina Hirvonen received the WSOY Literary Foundation Award, recognizing the artistic independence and high standards of her writing

✓  Full English manuscript of The Logbook of Love now available!

What’s love all about?

When Elina Hirvonen’s literary debut When I Forgot (Tin House/Portobello Books) was published in English, it made the cover of the New York Times Book Review in 2009 – extremely rare for a first novel in translation. Fast forward to 2023, and the award-winning author and filmmaker’s newest novel Rakkauksien lokikirja (“The Logbook of Love”) has been published in Finnish to rave reviews.

The first in a trilogy, The Logbook of Love takes readers on a compelling journey into the restorative powers of love from Finland to Zambia, Iraq, Afghanistan and points further afield.

In Helsinki, a city silenced by the global pandemic, the narrator tries to ward off the darkness as she walks through the empty streets by gathering people’s stories of love. Searching for meaning, hope and joy, she meets with friends and strangers, moves between the past and present, shifts from country to country. Everywhere she goes, she talks with others about love: romantic love, the love for justice and human rights, marital love, parental love, the love that can bind friends from different cultures and backgrounds – and the love that, no matter how powerful it is, sometimes fails to bridge the gaps between people.

“That fall I began to fear my growing sense of depression would take away my ability to find meaning and I would no longer be able to write. For if I lose written words, what will I be left with? As I search for something that feels important, the word ‘love’ comes to mind. Could I ward off my dark thoughts by writing about love in all of its forms? What are all the things that love could be in this world? As darkness falls, I search for light by opening the file I’ve saved as ‘The Logbook of Love.’”

Reading material:
English sample and synopsis
German sample
Finnish edition
Full English translation in December 2024

The Enchantment

Riikka Pulkkinen

This shiningly beautiful novel is an autopsy of girlhood and power.

✓ Riikka Pulkkinen is a shining star in Finnish literature, an award-winning and bestselling author with international publishers in 19 territories!

✓ A literary masterpiece with topical themes: What’s the difference between identity and projection and what image of ourselves do we allow others to see, in real life and online?

✓ Selected as one of the best books of 2022 by Suomen Kuvalehti magazine!

✓ World English rights sold to Scribe for publication in 2025!

Philippa Laakso, aged seventeen, is found dead in her yard at home. Nothing suggests a crime, and everyone who knew her is certain she wasn’t suicidal. On the other hand, all who knew her seem to hold a differing view of her. The investigation sees them being interviewed, but behind every view and story is Philippa’s influence. She still has the people around her in a sharp grip: her friend, ex-boyfriend, teacher, neighbors. 

Riikka Pulkkinen’s anticipated novel examines the power and comfort of make-believe and the thin line between love and play. Every character in the novel sees Philippa in his or her own way, as a mirror for fantasizing, anger, aspirations, comfort, and freedom, and uses their perceived image of Philippa to their own ends.

Reading material:
English edition
Finnish edition

My Friend Natalia

Laura Lindstedt

A bold and brave novel about a young woman’s sexuality, the power of narration, and identity.

✓  International bestseller – Laura Lindstedt’s books have been translated into 18 languages!

✓ Together with author Sinikka Huola, she has authored 101 Ways to Kill Your Husband, which has been nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize of 2024

✓ Laura Lindstedt’s previous novel Oneiron won the Finlandia Prize of 2015 and was nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize of 2017

Natalia cannot stop thinking about sex.

Narrated by an unnamed, ungendered therapist who leaps at the chance to employ their most experimental methods, My Friend Natalia offers a gripping examination of the power dynamics always present but rarely ever spoken about in therapy. 

At first, Natalia seems to play along with the rules of therapy. She partakes in the therapist’s pain-displacement exercises, word games, and even produces a few anatomical illustrations. She muses on the art of pornography, and boldly examines seminal figures like Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, about whom she poses the question, “Did Jean-Paul consider Simone a woman at all? Or was she nothing but a pencil sharpener?” 

By combining philosophy and literature, repressed childhood memories and explicitly unrepressed erotic experiences, the sessions quickly shed all inhibitions. Still, the therapist can’t help but wonder: What does Natalia really want?

PAHAN VERKKO
Tammi, 2020, 448 pp.

KAUNA
Tammi, 2021, 430 pp.

LOUKKO
Tammi, 2022, 358 pp.

Reading material:
English editions

Jessica Niemi series

Max Seeck

New York Times Bestselling and Spiegel Bestselling series

✓  A New York Times Bestseller!

✓  International sensation! Sold to 40 countries and Hollywood!

✓ Book #3 The Last Grudge won the Glass Key Award of 2023!

✓ TV series in development by Greg Silverman/Stampede Ventures!

✓ Ghost Island US publication in February 2024!

✓  Max Seeck’s books have sold over 400,000 copies in Finland!

Book #1: The Witch Hunter
Detective Jessica Niemi is called to investigate an unordinary murder case. The wife of a famous writer, Roger Koponen, seems to have been killed in a bizarre ritual. As more ritual murders occur, it becomes obvious that Jessica is after a serial killer. But the murders are not random – they follow a pattern taken from Roger’s bestselling trilogy. Has a fan gone mad, or is this case more personal?

Book #2: The Ice Coven
Detective Jessica Niemi and her team have a new mystery on the table: a young woman’s corpse has been found on an icy beach, and two famous Instagram influencers have gone missing at the same time. While following the clues that are hidden deeply in Instagram Jessica struggles to keep her head clear. She keeps having repeating nightmares about her mother. And she has a feeling that something really awful is approaching her from the darkness…

Book #3: The Last Grudge
Prominent business executive Eliel Zetterborg is found brutally murdered in his home in Helsinki. The company he led has just announced drastic cutbacks and Zetterborg gained hundreds of enemies and death threats in the process. But the murder motive becomes less clear, when the police finds out that the murderer had other targets as well. As Jessica Niemi suffers from a mental breakdown after her encounter with the witch coven, Jusuf gets a chance to lead the investigations and prove his skills as a police officer, while helping Jessica battle her demons that seem to be getting nearer and nearer…

Book #4: Ghost Island
Jessica Niemi travels to a remote island in the Åland archipelago, hoping to be left alone. At the same time, three elderly visitors, the remaining ‘birds of spring’ – former refugees who fled Finland as children during World War II and lived together for a few months in an orphanage on the island – arrive on the island. When one of the ‘birds of spring’ is found dead and Jessica learns about two other deaths also connected to the orphanage, Jessica can’t be sure if she’s facing a killer or— like a legend says—the ghost of Maija, a girl in a blue coat who would stand on the pier, looking out at the dark water until disappearing one night, never to be seen again. Uncertain what is real and what is not, Jessica desperately searches for answers that she hopes will stop the murders and finally silence her own demons once and for all…

ONNELLISTEN SAARI
Otava, January 2022, 396 pp.

KÄÄRMEIDEN MAA
Otava, December 2022, 364 pp.

PAKENE ENNEN AAMUA
Otava, December 2023, 282 pp.

Reading material:
English synopsis (books 1-3)
English sample (books 1 and 2)
Finnish edition

Ronja Vaara Series

Eeva Louko

Bestselling crime series, locked-room mysteries, and harrowing thrills. To be read in one sitting.

✓ A crime series for millennials: surprising twists and relationship drama!

✓ Eeva Louko’s books have sold over 40,000 copies and received glowing reviews!

✓ Rights sold in 5 territories and counting!

Ronja Vaara #1: Murder on the Isle of Bliss
After living abroad for many years, thirty-something Ronja returns to her childhood home in Lauttasaari, Helsinki after her father is found murdered by the seaside. Welcoming her back are a group of old friends and the young police officer assigned to the case who does not seem to be doing his work properly. Using the skills she’s learned from working as a journalist, Ronja starts investigating herself.

Ronja Vaara #2: Land of Serpents
When the body of a young woman is found on Käärmesaari (Serpent Island) near Helsinki, Ronja’s new boss at the local newspaper senses an opportunity to make the newspaper the prime source for any information on the case. Reluctantly, Ronja contacts the chief investigator Anton Koivu, who is surprisingly willing to leak confidential information to Ronja – if she does him a favor in return. Soon, another death shocks the people of Lauttasaari and a surprising guest from the past throws the investigation off balance.

Ronja Vaara #3: 
Ronja, Milla and Ansku together with their partners decide on a weekend getaway on the island of the historical Bengtskär lighthouse to enjoy time in the sauna and relax. Milla also wants to introduce her new partner, a celebrity businessman. The group barely has time to raise a toast before the mini getaway turns into a big nightmare. An autumn storm wreaks havoc, and Milla is missing as the women are meant to go to the sauna. The storm makes searching for Milla hard and cuts off the connection to the mainland. As the night advances, it becomes painfully clear that Milla’s disappearance is only the beginning.

Reading material:
English sample and synopsis
Finnish edition

In Your Shadow

Martta Kaukonen

The great post-#MeToo thriller

✓ A gripping page-turner about past trauma and the hunger for justice!

✓ Yomi Adegoke’s The List meets Jean Hanff Korelitz’s The Plot

✓ A new thriller by the internationally bestselling author Martta Kaukonen, whose debut Follow the Butterfly has been sold to 15 territories, including UK & US!

✓ You can trust no one in this psychological thriller full of unexpected twist by “Finland’s Gillian Flynn” !

The harassment of women should be kept silent no longer, a small group of activists declares and demands justice. But at what price?

When #metoo spread through the media like wildfire, many victims of harassment felt hopeful – now we can talk about it, now the change begins. But the fire died, and things did not change. Traumas did not disappear, and justice is yet to come.

Sixty-year-old Anne hosts meetings for a group of people who will not be silenced. They start rehearsing a performance as an apology to the victims of harassment. Among them are acclaimed actress Minna who has spoken about her experiences publicly, former straight-A student Suvi who doesn’t want to leave her home anymore out of fear, and performance artist Roni who’s looking to upgrade his feminism from words to actions. Can they trust each other? Are they driven by a desire for justice or a wish for revenge?

Reading material:
English editions books 1-11
German editions 1-16
English samples & synopses books 12-16

Maria Kallio series

Leena Lehtolainen

Leena Lehtolainen has sold over 2,5 million copies worldwide and been translated into 30 languages.

 New book in the series coming in 2025!

✓  Maria Kallio turned into an international TV series, sold to 10 territories and counting, third season in production in 2024!

✓  The New York Times Nordic Noir Guide recommends Maria Kallio series!

✓  Finland’s bestselling female crime writer!

✓  English editions available for Maria Kallio books #1-11, published in the US by Amazon

Finland’s most popular crime series, the Maria Kallio mysteries, follows the career of a tough, down-to-earth and emotionally intelligent police officer who starts working in the Helsinki violent crimes unit. Every book centers around murder, but there are also elements of social issues, and Maria’s personal development is present throughout the series, as we follow her struggle to balance police work and motherhood.

The Maria Kallio series has been turned into an international TV series, the rights to which have been sold to 10 territories and counting! The series is produced by Jarowskij Finland and each episode is based on a Maria Kallio crime novel of the same name. The third season is in production in 2024 and the TV show is aimed at an international audience!

Book #16: A Crossing in the Darkness
The City of Espoo is being menaced by the Biris gang that steals designer clothing, phones, and jewelry from other youth. One night, one of the members is stabbed to death, in a case which seems clear. Maria’s unit is investigating while being threatened by a cut in funding.

Maria’s home feels empty as her children have left the nest. An acquaintance contacts Maria regarding sexual harassment, and Maria tries to help – but her intervention seems to make things worse. And as a boy goes missing from a children’s home and Biris threatens with revenge, Maria has her hands full.

Also available:
# 1: My First Murder
# 2: Her Enemy
# 3: Copper Heart
# 4: Snow Woman
# 5: Death Spiral
# 6: Fatal Headwind
# 7: Before I Go
# 8: Below the Surface
# 9: The Nightingale Murder
# 10: Derailed
# 11: Where Have All the Young Girls Gone
# 12: The Iron Triangle
# 13: A Stroke of Sadness
# 14: The End of Innocence
# 15: The Ripple Effect

International Sales of TV Series:
Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, United Kingdom & Ireland, Italy & Italian Speaking Territories, Portugal & Portuguese speaking Territories, North America, Germany & German speaking Europe, Latin America, and Middle East.

KIIKKU
Otava, October 2022, 304 pp.

Reading material:
English sample and synopsis
German edition
Finnish edition

Paula Pihlaja series

A.M. Ollikainen

A fast-paced and addictive Nordic Noir series by the duo hailed as Finland’s Lars Kepler!

✓  A. M. Ollikainen is a pseudonym for the author duo Aki and Milla Ollikainen

✓  Cargo is the writers’ first novel together and the winner of a National Crime Novel Competition

✓  Rights sold in 15 languages!

Book #1: Cargo
A cargo container is found, washed up on the shore in Helsinki with a dead body inside.The property where the container is discovered, belongs to one of the most notorious businessmen in Finland. As Police Commissioner Paula Pihlaja begins to investigate the case, traces lead back to the businessman’s family, revealing decades of suspicious business ventures in Africa.

Meanwhile, Paula’s own personal life is shaken by old memories that are now surfacing following recent events.When she was younger, she had to give her baby up for adoption. The boy, her son, is now in his twenties and facing a murder charge. Not only is Paula tormented by her own guilt about the adoption, she is also worried about what will become of her son.

Book #2: Swing
An old woman is found hanged in a forest. Paula finds out that she had terminal cancer and had almost emptied her apartment, knowing to die soon. Her death is considered a suicide, but Paula is not satisfied with it. There is something wrong in the picture.

A famous mountain climber is found hanging above a seesaw in a playground. On the other end of the seesaw Paula finds sand that is far too fine to be natural – the same kind of sand that was found at the forest. Paula realizes that the victims have been forced to balance on a seesaw before death, fighting for their lives. Paula Pihlaja has barely started the investigation when a third body turns up – a teenage boy, at another playground, hanged. A serial killer is on the loose.

LILI LOIMOLA RATKAISEE #1: KUOLEMA KULOSAARESSA
Otava, April 2022, 415 pp. 

LILI LOIMOLA RATKAISEE #2: SIRKUSNAISEN ARVOITUS
Otava, April 2023, 368 pp.

LILI LOIMOLA RATKAISEE #3: TYTTÖKODIN TAPAUS
Otava, March 2024, 350 pp.

Reading material:
English synopses book 1-3
English sample (book 1)
Series presentation
Finnish edition

Lili Flame Series

Laura Andersson

The feel-good crime series with vivid scenery, strong characters and gripping cases!

✓  An atmospheric mystery series reminiscent of old-time detective novels but with a queer angle!

✓  For fans of Agatha Christie, Alan Bradley, and Richard Osman

Lili Flame Investigates #1: Murder at the Mansion
Post-war Helsinki is full of people looking to build a new life, and Lili Flame, who spent the war years in the US as a housemaid, is among them. However, the housekeeping gets swept aside when Lili breaks away from the traditional womanly roles of her time and begins a career as a private eye solving crimes which are too sensitive for the police. Lili gets help from her husband, a gay man who’s becoming a companion like no other – even if the true nature of their marriage has to be kept a secret. The first case leads her to the party of a rich corporate family.

Lili Flame Investigates #2: The Mystery of the Circus Woman
Lili and her husband are excited to see an unusual performance visiting Helsinki: a troupe of female wrestlers from America! But after the show, chaos erupts: One of the star performers has been shot – and struck with a knife. Why two methods of killing? Could there be two murderers, too?The Helsinki police are not particularly interested in investigating the foreign woman’s murder, but Lili and Riku won’t give up.

Lili Flame Investigates #3: The Case of the Girl’s Orphanage
The hot summer of 1947 gets a chilling twist as the body of a young boy is found near a girl’s orphanage, and Lili is asked to investigate. Soon she finds out that one of the residents of the home has also gone missing. The home and its residents are subjected to strict rules – has the girl run away, or is she also a victim of a crime? In the fear-filtered atmosphere it is tricky to distinguish between truth and the lies. To balance things out, Lili spends time among artists in Helsinki, who are ready to leave the war behind and embrace the future.

The Lili Flame Investigates series has been compared to Agatha Christie as well as to the Inspector Palmu series by Mika Waltari. Set in post-war Helsinki, the expressive narration and the charismatic characters have charmed readers – the two previous titles have been received with adoration!

EHTOOLEHDON PAKOLAISET
Teos, 2014, 256 pp.

EHTOOLEHDON TUHO
Teos, 2015, 280 pp.

Reading material: 
English editions
Finnish editions

Sunset Grove Trilogy

Minna Lindgren

“A very funny detective story starring two elderly ladies with the combined age of about 180 and Miss Marple-esque tendency to solve crimes.”

✓  International TV Series in development and shooting by Aurora Studios!

✓  An international hit! Rights sold in 18 territories!

✓  Miss Marple meets Golden Girls! For the fans of Richard Osman and “A Man Called Otto” by Fredrik Backman!

#1 Death in Sunset Grove

Who could imagine that anything illegal – whether it be suspicious deaths, thefts or the covert trading of medications – could happen in Sunset Grove retirement home? Its 90-year-old residents Siiri and Irma certainly can’t.

The lives of Siiri, Irma, and other Sunset Grove inhabitants are filled mostly with empty time punctuated by glasses of red wine, tram rides and funerals. Investigating the sudden strange occurrences at Sunset Grove, however, proves to be a more interesting pastime than playing cards with the ambassador and the woman in the wide-brimmed hat – not to mention the never-ending arts and crafts sessions, gym classes or accordion evenings (which the residents of the house attend mostly out of pity towards the employees).

#2 Escape from Sunset Grove

Sunset Grove retirement home turns into a kind of hell when it is taken over by foreign construction workers cursing fluently in Finnish. The noise is deafening, a hole appears in the wall, things disappear and residents have to use a portable toilet.

Residents Siiri, Irma and Anna-Liisa, all older than 90, decide to move into a shared apartment in the exotic neighbourhood of Hakaniemi. All three have their own habits and quirks, and life together isn’t entirely free of friction. The women also learn about the sad differences in quality with at-home assistance, and are forced to become familiar with terminal care and questions surrounding euthanasia.

Our heroes also can’t help looking into the suspicious plumbing project at Sunset Grove. As the mystery unfolds, they begin to find out that few people in this world have a fully clean record.

#3 The End of Sunset Grove

The final part of the trilogy marks a return to the retirement community. But the place no longer feels like home, and has turned into a state-funded, technology-driven pilot project in elderly care. The conclusion brings together characters lost along the way, and murky details are brought to light. Legal justice is also served – in unexpected ways. A natural, long-awaited death finally collects some, but still not all, of our main characters.

HURMURIHERTTUA / ARABELLA
Otava, 2021, 384 pp.

MARIAM
Otava, 2023, 450 pp.

Reading material: 
English samples and synopses
Finnish editions
Series presentation

Silk Sisters Series

Sara Medberg

The Finnish Bridgerton!

Glamor, the courtly life, beautiful dresses, and passion! Bridgerton meets Jane Austen’s Emma with Nordic heroines!

✓  Series rights sold in 6 territories and counting!

✓ Sara Medberg’s books have sold over 90,000 copies across all territories!

Book #1: Charlotta

Seamstress Charlotta Silke is looking for her own Mr. Darcy in 19th century Åbo. When Baron Ridderlöw of Starfire Manor hires Charlotta as a lady’s maid for her sister, both their lives change for good. Charlotta gets her hands on Jane Austen’s newly published Pride and Prejudice, which alters the way she sees her role as a woman. But the book’s ideas of modern love, marriage and early feminism are put to the test as the bitter war-torn Baron Ridderlöw becomes romantically interested in Charlotta. Can an ordinary lady’s maid have it all – a meaningful life and the man of her dreams?

Book #2: Arabella

A story about the mistress of Blackthorn Castle, Arabella Öhrnmarck. She becomes widowed after an unhappy marriage and travels home to Stockholm to be near the Royal Court. But something strange is going on. Mystical incidents and threatening situations keep occurring. It seems that someone is out to silence her. What secret are they searching for? Then, a fascinating English duke begins to court Arabella…

Book #3: Mariam

Mariam, the daughter of a highborn Persian lady and a Swedish tradesman, moves to Porvoo in the midst of the Finnish War and becomes the talk of the whole city. When her brother is arrested in Sweden, Mariam doesn’t hesitate in running to his aid. She’s read Jane Austen’s new novel Emma, whose independent heroine encourages Mariam to act. A mysterious baron promises to help her, but can she trust him? And why do his silvery eyes remind Mariam of something?

Upcoming books in the Silk Sisters series:

Book #4: Eleonora (2025)

The year is 1825, and the artist Eleonora Gray is struggling to make a name for herself in the spa town of Bath. When the Royal Society of Artists of England offer her a visit to the castle Butterfly Heights in Scania, her problem seems to be solved.

She heads for the mysterious castle everyone whispers about. Upon the arrival of Lady Mimosa, a relative of the castle’s owner, Eleonora has no more room for boredom. The ladies decide to plan a ball, where they shall capture the hearts of the local gentlemen.

Book #5: The Unruly Baroness (working title) (2025)

Baroness Morgenstierne has decided not to let conventions rule her life! She arranges a contest for her hand, to find a husband. But when admirers besiege the baroness, things get more complicated than she had envisioned and there’s an unforeseen turn of events…

Book #6: The King’s Beloved (working title) (2026)

Oslo, Norway, anno 1817. Crown prince Carl Johan of Sweden appears at palace maid Mariette’s cottage. A diary has been found, secrets come to light, Mariette is transferred to the Stockholm court. But will she always only be a rich man’s mistress?

Reading material:
English edition
Finnish edition

The Moonday Letters

Emmi Itäranta

A scifi mystery and a love story that bends space, time, myth and science.

✓  Third novel by internationally bestselling and award-winning author

✓  Longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award of 2024 and the British Science Fiction Association Awards of 2023!

✓  Winner of the Tähtivaeltaja Award of 2021!

✓  English edition available, written by Emmi Itäranta and published by Titan Books!

The Moonday Letters has elements of clifi, elements of suspense, and feels Golden Age-y in its imagination of how space has been colonized in the wake of Earth’s transformation.

Lumi is an Earth-born healer whose Mars-born spouse Sol disappears unexpectedly on a work trip. As Lumi begins her quest to find Sol, she delves gradually deeper into Sol’s secrets – and her own.

While recalling her own path to becoming a healer under the guidance of her mysterious teacher Vivian, she discovers an underground environmental group called Stoneturners, which may have something to do with Sol’s disappearance. Lumi’s search takes her from the wealthy colonies of Mars to Earth that has been left a shadow of its former self due to vast environmental destruction. Gradually, she begins to understand that Sol’s fate may have been connected to her own for much longer than she thought.

Part space-age epistolary, part eco-thriller, The Moonday Letters is also a love story between two individuals from very different worlds.

Reading material:
English edition
Finnish edition

Memory of Water

Emmi Itäranta

A story of growing up, of the power of friendship – and, above all, undying hope in a wrecked world

✓  International hit: rights sold to over 25 territories!

✓  Winner of the Young Aleksis Prize of 2013 and the Kalevi Jäntti Prize of 2012!

✓  Nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and the Golden Tentacle Award! Included on the Honor List of the Otherwise Award (formerly James Tiptree, Jr. Award)!

✓  International Feature film premiered in Finland in September 2022! Distribution in Germany, Italy, Sweden confirmed with more territories to come!

✓  Emmi Itäranta’s writing has been compared to that of Ursula K. Le Guin!

The story is set in a drought-ravaged, war-ridden future world where fresh water has become the privilege of a few and tea masters have been keepers of natural springs for centuries, Memory of Water tells the story of seventeen-year-old Noria, set to become the next tea master in her village. When her father dies, she finds herself alone with the dangerous responsibility of guarding a hidden spring that can save lives – or provoke people to kill.

As war spreads into her homeland, Noria’s loyalties are torn between keeping her duty and helping her dearest friend Sanja, whose family can barely survive on their water rations. Together the girls unearth knowledge about the past that has remained buried too long and begin to plan a journey to the Lost Lands, forbidden areas that might hold unexplored water resources.

Yet the web of the military is closing in on Noria’s secret. Sanja disappears mysteriously, and Noria is placed under house arrest. Knowing her own life is in danger, Noria must face a choice in order to secure the hidden information for others.

Reading material:
English edition
Finnish edition

Troll

Johanna Sinisalo

“A punk version of “The Hobbit”” – USA Today

✓ Feature film in development by Måns Mårlind (“The Bridge”) & Tuppence Middleton (“Downton Abbey: A New Era”)!      

✓ Winner of the Finlandia Prize of 2000! Winner of the James Tiptree, Jr. Award of 2004!

✓ An international bestseller with rights sold to 19 territories!

✓ Johanna Sinisalo has won the Prometheus Award of 2017 and been nominated for the Nebula Award of 2008, the Prix Escapades of 2012, and the Grand Prix de L’Imaginaire of 2017!

Mikael, a young gay photographer, finds a small, man-like creature in the courtyard of his apartment block. It is a young troll, familiar from Scandinavian mythology: a demonic, wild beast. And it is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. Supposedly extinct, today it is regarded as a hairy, cuddly toy by Nordic children. Mikael gives the troll a name, Pessi, and takes him home and hides him.

The first thing Mikael does is research everything he can about trolls on the internet, from folklore, nature journals, and newspaper clippings. Despite his studies, Mikael does not learn that trolls exude pheromones that smell like a Calvin Klein aftershave and that this has a profound aphrodisiac effect on all those around him. Shooting an assignment for an ultra-hip brand of jeans, Mikael finds himself fast-tracked into a dangerous liaison with Martes, the sexually ambivalent art director of the advertising agency concerned, while a couple of his friends in turn fall in love with him because he carries the troll’s scent.

What Mikael fails above all to learn, with tragic consequences, is that Pessi the troll is the interpreter of man’s darkest, most forbidden impulses.

Reading material:
English edition
Finnish edition

The Core of the Sun

Johanna Sinisalo

From the queen of “Finnish weird,” a captivating and witty speculative satire of The Handmaid’s Tale-esque welfare state where women are either breeders or outcasts, addicts chase the elusive high of super-hot chili peppers, and one woman is searching for her missing sister.

✓  Rights sold to 12 territories!

✓  Winner of the Prometheus Award of 2017!

✓  Feature film in development in Los Angeles!

Set in an alternative historical present, in an “eusistocracy”—an extreme welfare state—that holds public health and social stability above all else, The Core of the Sun follows a young woman whose growing addiction to illegal chili peppers leads her on an adventure into a world where love, sex, and free will are all controlled by the state.

The Eusistocratic Republic of Finland has bred a new human sub-species of receptive, submissive women, called eloi, for sex and procreation, while intelligent, independent women are relegated to menial labor and sterilized. How did Finland turn into the North Korea of Europe? 

Johanna Sinisalo’s tautly told story of fight and flight is also a feisty, between-the-lines social polemic—a witty, inventive, and fiendishly engaging read.