Archive – Fiction

2020

Fernando Aramburu: Motherland, 2020

A larger-than-life story about friends who are separated by years of violence. A fascinating historical reading novel, a family story of great emotions about the years of hatred and love in the Basque Country. A political conflict tears apart a small village community in the Basque Country. The friendship of two families turns to bitter hatred when the son of one family joins the armed struggle of ETA and the father of the other falls victim to ETA. A deeply gripping family saga carefully follows the everyday tragedies and dark sadness of families, but also unshakable conviction and joy. Äidinmaa tells about the impossibility of forgetting and the necessity of forgiveness. A touching description of a nation that has to learn to live in the shadow of its violent past.

Herman Koch: Finnish days, 2020

When Herman Koch is a tall and awkward young man of 19, he decides to leave Amsterdam as far as possible from his home and chooses the distant North Karelia as his destination. This may sound romantic - but the truth behind the decision to leave is anything but. Kochi's mother has recently died, and the boy wants to escape from his father and his new girlfriend - and to get rid of old things that are still bothering him. Later, when Herman is asked about his time in Finland, he tries to make fun of his incredible experiences.

Forty years later, Herman is back in Finland and stumbles upon a collection of poems in a bookshop that accurately describes his days in North Karelia. No more laughing at him. He decides to take a closer look at his past, examines his memories and thinks about how to tell everything without distorting the facts.

Days of Finland is a deeply cutting novel about sadness, growing up and what is easier to talk about - and also about what would be better to keep silent.

Jill Mansell: It all started with a secret, 2020

Over 10 million readers can't be wrong - Jill Mansell's novel is casual holiday reading at its best!
Characters who feel like friends, surprising twists and witty words - an absolute treat to read.

Lainey is heartbroken, she has lost her job. The boyfriend rubs salt into the wound by bluntly leaving Lainey in an awkward situation. It's about that love. It's about men. An introverted Lainey declares herself a man-free zone – no men, no problems.

Fortunately, Lainey has a friend and fellow destiny Kit. A new job would be available in a Cornish family, which is looking for an energetic couple to help organize the chaotic everyday life of the family and the troublesome pensioner. But Kit and Lainey are not a couple. In times of need, a small lie feels insignificant, and so the friends end up in the middle of a chaotic family. However, the behavior of a family member confuses Lainey the most. It gives reason to suspect that Lainey and Kit aren't the only ones with a secret to hide.

Jill Mansell's romantic and warmly humorous novels have already captivated millions of readers, from teenagers to adults. And no wonder, because it all started with the secret of making the sun shine directly into the heart.

Jennifer McMahon: Children of winter, 2020

A ghost story tinged with sadness and love.
Children of Winter by Jennifer McMahon is a slow-burning and enigmatic tale of ghostly secrets, fateful choices, and bonds too strong to break.

The village of West Hall in Vermont is known for mysterious disappearances and old legends. The biggest of the mysteries is the case of Sara Harrison Shea from 1908, when she was found dead in the middle of a snow-covered field just one month after the tragic death of her young daughter.

19-year-old Ruthie lives on Shea's former farm with her mother Alice and her little sister. One morning, Ruthie discovers that Alice is missing. Searching her mother's bedroom for clues, Ruthie finds Sara Harrison Shea's secret diary under the floorboards. As she immerses herself in a century-old mystery, Ruthie discovers that she is not the only one searching for something lost. But not much frost can cover all secrets forever.

Ville Nummenpää: Viper, 2020

Ruthless Firstborn is a crime novel about greed, betrayal and violence.

Sebastian Salo is a successful business consultant in his thirties. He earns very well, always dresses stylishly and has a smile of a million euros. He speaks of water as wine and sells, for example, winter furs to the Sahara. Even bigger business bosses eat out of his hand. His gaze never averted and he never flinched. When Sebastian Salo looks towards you, he only sees you. He says what you want to hear. Men like him, women fall under his charm.

Rudolf Rankanen is from another country. A former castle gang member, an unrestrained violent man. A man that few dare to look in the eyes. Rudolf has a chicken to pluck with Sebastian. Rudolf is impatiently waiting to place Sebastian under the soil, preferably in several different pits...

How does Sebastian play his cards when a murderous motorcycle gang shows up to threaten his career and bank account fattened by embezzlement? Ville Nummenpää's first crime novel is a chilling satire about people who do nasty things with ulterior motives. When the stakes are high, human life doesn't weigh much.

Robert Seethaler: A whole life, 2020

A sophisticated and elegant novel in which one man's life opens up a view of the century that changed Europe as a whole. The subtle narrative draws the reader's eyes to the valleys and cliffs of the Alps and touches deeply. When Andreas Egger arrives in the remote valley, he is only four years old - or so it is assumed, because no one knows his exact age. The valley becomes his home for the rest of his life. Andreas is strong and resourceful, and he grows up to be a respected general worker who, after the war, clears the way to the valley for the railway, electricity, light and sound. In the shelter of the valley, the day also comes when Egger stands for the first time in front of Marie, the love of his life. And that's when Marie is gone. Through Egger, the reader witnesses the transition from an agricultural society through the war to modern times.

2019

Margaret Atwood: Testaments, 2019

The Handmaid's Tale story continues in the most anticipated book event of the fall.

It has been 15 years since the final scene of the novel Orjattaresi. The narrators of the story are three women. Atwood's inspiration has been readers' questions about the state of Gilead and the world we live in. What has happened in Gilead these years - and what does it tell us about our own time?

The Handmaid's Tale has become a symbol of the fight for women's rights in a world where Atwood's biting vision is still needed—perhaps more than ever.

Emma Hooper: Homesick songs, 2019

The Connor family is one of the few that still lives in an idyllic but deserted fishing village in the Canadian outback. After the fish disappeared, most families had no choice but to move away to find work. In order to support their family, Aidan and Martha Connor take turns traveling to work in the north. But it seems that soon it will be time for their family to leave as well. As the months rolled by, the previously so happy Aidan and Martha kept drifting further apart.

When not playing the accordion or rowing on unsuccessful fishing trips, their 11-year-old son Finn tries to solve the mystery of the missing fish. He believes he's figured out a way to find the fish and save the only home he's ever known.

Heidi Köngäs: Miriam, 2019

Remember me, he said as he drew his gun on himself – The crazy love of the war years defies the voice of reason.

19-year-old Mirjami is the middle of Sandra's daughters and resembles her mother the most. She works as a seamstress and makes snow suits. The start of the winter war means fear, lack and hardship also on the home front.

Mirjami falls passionately and madly in love, regardless of her parents' opposition. And he doesn't back down, even if the relationship puts him in mortal danger. So strong is the love of exceptional circumstances.

The war years shape the three sisters, Annikki, Mirjam and Soil. When choices have to be made, the significance of which cannot be understood at the time of the event. When the future is nothing but uncertainty.

Toni Liemaa: Silenced, 2019

When the investigating police quickly notices that the killing methods of the Helsinki cheerleader who was murdered a year ago and the student found in Espoo are very similar, suspicion of a serial killer arises. Osmo Niku of the Central Criminal Police is invited to a large investigation team to find out the perpetrator, who has managed to cover his tracks well. The murderer is by no means going to leave his job unfinished, but the next victim has already been chosen. A race begins between the police and the murderer, where the murderer is one step ahead of Niku's investigative team.

Toni Liemaa's third detective story convincingly continues the exciting Osmo Niku series. The events of the story of a writer from Riihimäkä, present-day Espoo, are located in the writer's current home.

Kaiho Nieminen: Plinth, 2019

A novel about love and the cruelty of war.
Humans are the only animal in the animal kingdom that slays its fellow species. But in a state of peace, even when injured, that beast is ready to fight for the continuity of its species and to build a stone foundation as the foundation of its abode.

When 19-year-old Einari Karttunen finds the woman of his life in the last spring of the Continuation War, his age group is called to the front. Einari gets into the worst place and miraculously survives. He is awarded the title of Knight of the Mannerheim Cross, but accolades do not replace a battle-damaged spirit. After peace returns, new foundations must be created for life in the city, where nothing is like before.

Kaiho Nieminen (b. 1941) has been a freelance writer since 1972 and Sokkeli is already his 19th novel. As a writer, he moves naturally through different centuries and describes with human precision and sympathy persistent little creatures, society's downcasts and lucky rascals.

Soili Pohjalainen: Cast failure, 2019 – also as an e-book

Cannibale. Rinse Tesiree. Those were Arttu-vaar's Nicknames for his only grandchild, Maria, who spent her childhood summers on grandma's matron's stool and in the shade of the vaar's woodpile.

When there is a call from North Karelia that Arttu has had an adventure in his pants at the bank, Maria rushes to help. And so Maria leaves her husband in the parking lot of the outdoor recreation area in Espoo and gasses towards the eastern border. The thatched cottage is full of memories: the weather has turned coldness into a virtue, and grandma followed her husband's adventures as calmly as the Queen of England, but entertained herself with skillful hidden pranks. The details of her grandparents' marriage sank into little Maria's mind, only to rise to the surface now.

When two lines appear on the pregnancy test screen in Joensuu Hesburger's toilet, Maria's plans change. While living at Artu's place, he notices that, viewed from the turning circle of North Karelia, the waddling is decreasing. If you can't explain the problems of a marriage in such a way that the widower on the other side of the party table can understand them, there really aren't any problems.

The crudely humorous Valuvika pits two generations against each other, whose lives collide in the grassy yard of the family farm. Artu's life wisdom doesn't get deep aphorisms, but sometimes the best role model is a hair cap model.

Ville Pynnönen: Dear Riksu – Cartoon stories from Riihimäki, 2019

For most people, Riihimäki just means a mandatory stop at the train station while waiting for a connection somewhere else. But of course Riksu is more than just a crossing station. Handball city's theater and museum skills have been noticed nationwide. The library's reputation is legendary. People come to the Green House mentioned in this work to listen to music from as far as Helsinki. There are a few reasons why the author of Rakkaan Riksu, Ville Pynnönen (b. 1974), believes that Riihimäki is his final hometown. In addition, Riihimäki is full of stories.

Rakas Riksu contains nine local stories dramatized as cartoon short stories by Pynnönen. Eight of them are based on real events, and the last one could very well have happened. Suuri Kurpitsa published the book in cooperation with the city of Riihimäki.

Aki Salmela: Animal shadow, 2019 (poetry book)

In the modern animal fables of Aki Salmela's poetry collection, people and animals get happily confused.

When we talk about animals, we always talk about ourselves. When we look at another, our own perceptions look back at us. In the poems of the shadow of an animal, we move around the fundamental questions of human life: What is happiness? What is love? What is the relationship between perception and the world? And above all, what kind of story are we telling ourselves about all this.

"Life is a suspense story that the world writes on fragile paper and with disappearing ink; we would never want to know how it ends.”

Aki Salmela has received Yleisradio's Tanssiva karhu and Kalevi Jänti awards for his poetry collections. The shadow of an animal is his eighth poetry collection. Aki Salmela has also translated a lot, e.g. American poetry, most recently by Rae Armantrout.

Anni Saastamoinen: Cricket, 2019

A hilarious novel from the author of Depression Diary!

Sirka has a side character name. The main characters always have beautiful names, Aurora or someone else beautiful and lyrical and personable. Sirkka is just Sirkka in name. Cricket is pushy, blunt and ordinary. Sirkka is the sauce of names. If the Cricket were an animal, the Cricket would be a badger: a lonesome and narrow path walking determinedly and determinedly, a sizzling lump of black and lighter overalls.

Sirkka is the inconspicuous neighbor who has stuck a "no plastic bags for organic waste" sticker on the garbage can. Sirkka is the gray woman in the workplace who does her work conscientiously but whose private life you know nothing about. With this book you will know and be charmed.

Anni Saastamoinen is a journalist from Savoia who has honed her written expression on Twitter. Despite the difficult subject, his first book Depression Diaries became very popular. Sirkka is his first novel.

Katja Seutu: Freezing, 2019

A poem about the state of the world

the child of man is fragile //
an icicle that melts into glass /
the darkness that first surrounds and then covers /
a company that stays a company //
child goes broke, chick goes broke, sapling /
goes, forest atmosphere goes

Frozen is writing about what is happening to our planet right now. In the poems, we travel through the sensations and visions of terror and threat, but we look for opportunities to re-establish ourselves in the cycle of nature and hope, to meet the eyes of the birds and the trees.

Katja Seutu (b. 1973) lives in Helsinki and is a literature researcher by training. Poems from the region have been translated into German and Czech. Jäätyväinen is his third poetry collection.

Johanna Sinisalo: Guests, 2019

When six-year-old Sissi cuts herself with scissors in kindergarten, her parents' world is shaken. Almost everything in Siiri and Essi's family has gone smoothly until then: there are two beautiful children and both parents are successful career women. Ess has a popular cafe and Siir has an accounting firm. The medical examination reveals that Sissi has even older wounds. Is the child protecting someone, is there an unknown threat within the family? Or will the ghosts of the past take revenge?
Vieraat was chosen as the winner of Karisto's horror novel competition in the spring of 2019. An ingenious modern horror story immerses itself in the internal affairs of the family, invisible to others. How well do you really know your significant other?

Elizabeth Strout: Everything is possible, 2019

A book that will take your heart
Elizabeth Strout, who received a great reception, enchants with her sensitive and painfully perceptive stories about the inhabitants of a small town who try to understand life in all its beauty and harshness.

Elizabeth Strout (b. 1956) is a widely read and praised American author. In 2009, he won the Pulitzer Prize for his work Olive Kitteridge, which has also been made into a four-part TV mini-series that has been praised in Finland. Strout is a native of Maine and a lawyer by training.

Gabriel Tallent: My very own darling, 2019

Fourteen-year-old Turtle Alveston is a survivor. The nearby forests are his kingdom, but at home he lives under the rule of his arbitrary father. After the mother's death, the family has been isolated, and even at school Turtle is a strange bird.

Then Turtle meets Jacob on his trip. Jacob is funny and sees Turtle in a way no one else has. Gradually, the father begins to show himself as he is: a mental and physical threat. With a new friendship, Turtle's dream of freedom awakens. In order to escape, he must use the survival skills his father has taught him.

My very own gold deals with the human ability to survive. The voice of Turtle, who is fighting for his independence, carries through the whole wild and shocking story, whose language is hypnotizing and the description of nature is dizzying.

Pauliina Old House: A life taken from the wind, 2019 – also as an e-audiobook

The best shows happen off the stage. A subtle novel about the need to be seen and the randomness of life.

Ilmo grows up in a theater family, where women immerse themselves in their roles and men are silenced into non-existence. Titi spends her childhood in an elderly Lestadio extended family, a community whose security would be good to lean on if they would just leave the wrong questions alone.

When Ilmo and Titi meet as young adults, an unexpected connection emerges. However, the winds that carry them have tuned out a long time ago. Have they gathered too much power already?

A life taken from the wind carefully examines the intersecting realities of religion and art. High aspirations attract people, but the pursuit of them sometimes pays a heavy price.

Raahelainen Pauliina Vanhatalo (b.1979) was a Runeberg candidate for her previous novel Long exposure time (2015). She writes chick lit novels under the pseudonym Veera Vaahtera and has also published two autobiographical works.

Johanna Venho: The first woman, 2019 – also as an e-audiobook

Sylvi's story alongside Kekkonen.
The first woman is a historical novel about Sylvi Kekkones. It is a novel about a woman who finds herself and her authorial voice and hopes that after living one life, she will still have time to start another.

"- In many countries, the first lady can't exercise alone.
- I'm not going to ask for permission for that."

The public role hid the radical Sylvi, who was both shy and brave, gentle and prickly, a security-oriented mother and a feminist who preferred rebellion. In his demanding position, he protected his independence and kept his own friends. When one of the most important, the writer Marja-Liisa Vartio, dies in the summer of 1966, Sylvi leaves Katerma's cottage for peace. On the other side, Sylvi's other friend, the sculptor Essi Renvall, is thinking about Sylvi's portrait sketch, how to express Sylvi's multifacetedness with a sculpture. Can you ever truly know another and what if you don't get to grow up to your own standards?

Johanna Venho is an award-winning poet and writer. The first woman is Venho's first historical novel. In Sylvi's story, Venho reflects on a woman's life cycle, identity and the limits of self-expression by interweaving fact and fiction, accurately and sensitively.

2018

Pirkko Arola: Wind vine, 2018

The work by Pirkko Arola from Riihimäkä is Ester's growth story from a small, talented girl to adulthood and beyond. The novel, loosely based on a real and saved diary, is a story of love, study, hope and longing.

The work is a realistic description of baby boomer experiences and women's liberation. A love story on this side of hope.

Alan Bradley: The spotted cat purred three times, 2018

The Flavia series has progressed to its eighth volume. Flavia returns from Miss Bodycote's girls' school in Canada to her home at Buckshaw Manor in the English countryside. Instead of a joyful reunion, Flavia is faced with unpleasant news: Her father has fallen ill, and a visit to the hospital is out of the question until his father's condition improves sufficiently.

In the company of burdensome sisters and an annoying cousin, Flavia finds the Buckshaw homestead both too restless and desolate at the same time. In order to escape her relatives, Flavia jumps at the opportunity to help the pastor's wife by carrying a message to a reclusive woodcarver in the region. There, waiting for him is the sculptor's lifeless body and a strange cat, which for some reason is at the scene of the brutal crime like at home.

Flavia's curiosity is awakened in the blink of an eye, and the dark clouds evaporate in her mind in front of a new mystery to be solved. However, he cannot imagine how the truth waiting at the end of the tangle of clues will change his life.

Paula Havaste: Bronze Star, 2018

The bronze star takes its readers to Soviet-era Estonia, Saaremaa and the vodka haze of the slouching tables of Tallinn's elite. In Estonia, in 1949, life was on the edge of a knife, under the watchful eye of Comrade Stalin. Villem is a peasant whose passion is writing nature poems. When his wife Vilja suggests that the man add one word to the name of the poem describing the sun, things start to happen quickly: Villem wins the poetry competition, and he is invited to the Tallinn Cultural Center to pick up a certificate of honor and a bronze star. Vilja equips her husband for the trip and asks him for only one thing. A pig should be found as a fire starter. The task doesn't seem difficult, but many things can go wrong in the booze fumes of a festive dinner. And what's worse, the trip to Siberia has suddenly become very short.

Teemu Helle: Poems of two cities, 2018

Runes of two cities is Teemu Helte's sixth poetry collection. The poems also move in the scenery of Riihimäki.

Duel at Teboil:
the man has a wartime rifle,
quite a cannon
the woman has a gas pistol
a cigarette in his mouth.

Mrs. Lahtinen enters
Through the door of the recycling centre
with a laser eye.
"Stop that jerk
or swing the bag,
its stomach is romantic
brick novel!”

Francesca Hornak: A week is a long time, 2018

A week is a long time when you spend it with your family.
Francesca Hornak's warm and entertaining novel takes you to an English country manor to the ultimate question: why is it hardest to live with those you love the most?

What could be better than a peaceful Christmas week with your own family? Many things, if you ask the Birch family. But when Olivia, a doctor's daughter returning from an aid mission in Africa, is ordered to quarantine, it seems natural that the whole family commits to staying within the four walls of the week. Older and adult children get a chance to get closer for once. Especially the mother of the family, Emma, ​​is overjoyed, but during the week the scenes fall. Everyone seems to have more secrets than goodwill, and staying in quarantine isn't that simple either. Secrets literally seep in through doors and windows.

Francesca Hornak is a journalist and writer. His texts have been published, e.g. In the Sunday Times, Guardian, Elle and Cosmopolitan. He has previously published two non-fiction books, and Viikko ont pūti ajad is his first novel.

Olli Jalonen: taivaanpallo, 2018

The journey of an astronomer's apprentice takes him from the island of Saint Helena to 1600th century London. In a brilliant novel, science and faith struggle as the Enlightenment dawns.

Angus wants his eyes to be as sharp as sail needles, and develops his vision by marking the positions of the stars at night. He dreams of London and becoming an apprentice of Edmond Halley, who visited the island.

A debilitating act of violence hits the boy's family, and times of uncertainty and unrest begin. The secret Catholics are scheming and the autocratic governor is playing for his own pocket. A message from the island must be delivered to motherland England, and Angus is rowed as a rabbit onto a sailing ship. His new life begins in the heights of the marching basket, and everything from the past is left behind.

Jari Järvelä: I'm talking about two sides, 2018

Two grandmothers, two truths about the civil war.
Two summer days of a 7-year-old boy in 1977, in two grandmothers. Koski separates the grandmothers from each other, but the deepest divide between them is the memories of 1918.

The grandmothers live in the same town, with a rapid in between. One's family was on the side of the reds in the civil war, the other the whites. But their children fell in love like Romeo and Juliet. And they had a son.

Water is fetched from the well and heat from a liter in the second mummy. As a playmate in the yard is the Vilho boy, who in 1918 got a hole in his stomach. The second granny flat has a prize garden, a crystal chandelier on the ceiling and Mannerheim on the wall. The boy lives his summer in two different realities and hears two different truths about young Finland from his grandparents.

Jari Järvelä is a versatile writer from Kotka. This time he uses his own childhood memories. The author's own grandmothers were on different sides in the civil war. Even though the novel is purely fictional, the personal experience gives it a special poignancy.

Katja Kettu: Rose is gone, 2018

A wild love story
A dazzling story about love, searching for one's roots and unfulfilled wishes.

"Sometimes I don't remember anything about my mother Rose, except that she was wild. The kind of wild soul that doesn't need to do great things or go on grueling adventures to be believable for what it is: a free-flowing spirit.”

Finnish Ettu wakes up from the reservation in Minnesota and notices that his beloved Rose is gone. At the police station, it turns out that Etu has been missing for 35 years. He only remembers the time when Rose was by his side. Where do the Native American girls of the region disappear, and why are the cases not solved?

Rose and Etu's daughter Lempi is half Ojibwa Indian and half Finnish. Lempi doesn't know how to live, because he is too white on the reservation and too Indian outside. Lempi assembles his own life from the memory of being close to his mother, fragments of his life experiences and his distant family roots in Finland. In his grandparents, Etu's father and mother, Lempi experiences a glimpse of that nostalgic country, which he has never actually seen himself.

Before the novel Rose is gone, Katja Kettu has written e.g. information book about Finnish-born Indians, Fintians. He has also edited an anthology that deals with sexual abuse of women. A great story grows out of these topics, which is more hopeful than reality.

Katja Kettu is known for her powerful works with a completely distinctive language. His breakthrough work Midwife (2011) received the Runeberg and Kalevi Jänti awards, and is still for many the most powerful literary experience of the decade. Ketu's most recent works are the novel Yöperhonen (2015) and the non-fiction book Fintianien mailla (2016) made together with Meeri Koutaniemi and Maaria Seppälä.

Tommi Kinnunen: A pint, 2018

"There are crystal-sharp moments that cut the past from the present. They dispel certainty and make you realize that something is possible that you couldn't really imagine before. Wars break out and accidents happen in the world, revolutions and coronations take place, according to which time is divided, but the upheavals in human life are ones that are not recorded in school books."

The Tyynälä family has grown up in the shadow of the glass factory. Jussia – the oldest of the sibling flock – is recycled in different tasks at the factory. While others develop in skills, Jussi only grows older. But he sees the world in more detail and sharper than others.

Jussi's sisters have their own lives and worries. Helmi works at the factory, but longs to return to the moments that can no longer be returned to. The hot-tempered Raili, on the other hand, has a past in Helsinki that he doesn't even know how to hide. The world can handle him if there is enough will.

With his inimitable style, Tommi Kinnunen describes the miniature world of a factory village, people's destinies and their mutual relationships in post-war Finland.

Tommi Kinnunen (b. 1973) is an exceptionally skilled portrait of people, who in a few years has become one of the most popular writers in Finland. His previous novels Lëläntienristeys and Lopotti have been critical and sales successes. Kinnusen's books have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Katja Lahti: Glassworks, 2018

"From the top of the glass, you can't see how it's made. Jam jars and champagne glasses may be the same material - or they may not be. It can only be solved by melting.” Two families within their means. Two young people groping over them. A joint Christmas makes everyone think in front of the mirror: Who am I, what did I dream about? Who deserves and what? Juhani works hard at a glass factory and dreams of his own house, where the children can play under the trees in the yard. Irina rolls perms with numb fingers and makes design finds at flea markets. Roger already has everything, a lot, and Christina doesn't know what to do with it. Juha and Lotta have the answer, the oldest of all.

Lasitehdas is a story about the life and meeting of two Finnish families, exploring the limits of middle-classness. Both have won the lottery, one in birth, the other in gambling, but the inheritance is left and received much more than money.

Britt Karin Larsen: Finnskogen, the cradle of life, 2018 – also as an e-book ja as an e-audiobook

Finnskogen, the cradle of life is a captivating historical novel about the ethnic minority of the border forests of Norway and Sweden, the forest Finns, and their life in the Suomalaismets in the middle of the 1800th century.

Liina lives hidden from people in the forest with her newborn baby girl. The child is his, no one can find out the father's name even by threatening. When winter is coming, Liina goes wandering with a child on her back to Norway in search of food and possible relatives.

On the way, he meets Mustamäki's Taneli, a wild man, bear trapper and horse stoker, who is rumored to have a conscience for killing men. The population of the area looks down on the Finns, and rumors say that the Metsäkansa are pagans, who unabashedly bathe naked together in the houses they call saunas. In order to bring this wild nation under discipline and the Lord's rebuke, a young Norwegian priest is placed in the Suomalaismets. However, the spiritual shepherd who delivers rebuke sermons has his own weaknesses.

Finnskogen, the cradle of life is the first part of a seven-part book series about forest Finns. The series revives an almost forgotten piece of Finns' history. The Finnskogen series has sold a total of more than 100 units in Norway and received unreserved praise from critics.

Markku Ropponen: A dog park novel, 2018

Finally, a workplace where even the dog is comfortable!
Dog park instructor: a dream bath for a man who has Matti in his wallet. Vauhkonen, a loose-skinned luppa ear, doesn't take a stand, just cracks his other mole.

A man who has drifted into a backwater stage in his life applies for Finland's first dog park instructor to support Vauhkonen, a lithe flea carrier from Tallinn. The vacancy is of interest to hundreds, and the selection procedure itself requires skill. The scumbag novel, created with the innermost biting of dogs and their owners, takes a stand on many kinds of tail wagging, barking and digging holes. The story of the author known for his detective stories, inspired by the frenetic humor and sizzling romance, surprises, entertains and gives great tips for job interviews.

Markku Ropponen is especially known for his Kuhala detective stories, the special spice of which is Kuhala's original, likeable dog Hippu. For years, dog lovers have been waiting for a fun treat like Koirapuistoromani from Roppe.

Jill Santopolo: The light we lost, 2018

An unforgettable love story sinks directly into the reader's heart

Set in Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Middle East, the novel describes Lucy and Gabe's relationship as told by Lucy. Lucy and Gabe, students in their twenties, throw themselves into each other's arms in the chaos of the September 11 terrorist attacks. A passionate relationship begins, which ends unexpectedly when Gabe wants to do something significant and goes to Iraq as a war photographer. Lucy, on the other hand, focuses on her career with children's programs in New York. A unique first love leaves a lifelong mark on both of them: nothing can ever replace what they once had. What if they had chosen differently once upon a time?

Tears welled up in my eyes at the same time - tears of anger and sadness and confusion and bad mood. “Gabe, Gabe,” I managed over and over again. "How could you?" I finally managed to say. “How could you not tell me? And how could you tell me just today?”

Lucy and Gabe's paths cross again years later - but is it too late?

Pirkko Soininen: Ellen, 2018

I seek the truth, it is my only truth.

For Ellen Thesleff, Florence is more than a city. It is a friend and a loved one – for 45 years.

Ellen is a novel made up of fictional diary entries. They are like brushstrokes that paint an edgy portrait of a brave and independent woman.

In Florence, Ellen worships the old masters and paints from morning to night. Family members and artist friends visit the city frequently, and the days are colored by a passionate relationship with the English theater artist Gordon Craig. Still, nothing can shake the most important thing – the passion for painting.

Jarkko Tontti: Heritage, 2018

A secret can be found in the dead mother's diaries that will make the bickering siblings see the whole family with new eyes.

Adult siblings Henrik and Anna-Leena haven't gotten along for years. Anna-Leena has been mother's confidante, while Henrik is the family rebel. The early death of the father has left its own marks on both of them. The disagreement boils down to a dispute over the summer villa, which meant different things to different family members.

Then the mother also dies and leaves behind diaries that reveal a shocking secret. Henrik and Anna-Leena have to rethink their ideas about the story of their entire family, including each other.

The conversational novel explores what connects us to each other.

2017

Lucia Berlin: The cleaner's handbook and other stories, 2017

The Cleaner's Handbook is a collection of the best short stories by Lucia Berlin from the United States. During his lifetime, Berlin was already a champion appreciated by a small circle, although he remained unknown to the general public. However, the collection, published posthumously in the United States in 2015, received an ecstatic reception from both critics and readers and brought Berlin to the attention of the entire reading public. Berlin's sparklingly simple but multi-leveled and melancholic texts tinged with black humor are subtle and insightful descriptions of American everyday life in laundromats, subsidized housing, rehab, Catholic school, fine homes and on the streets.

Lucia Berlin (1936-2004) was an American writer, literature teacher, mother, alcoholic, single parent, and hearty woman. Berlin drew on stories from his own childhood in the mining towns of the United States, his exuberant teenage years in Santiago, Chile, his three failed marriages, his lifelong struggle with alcoholism, and his years in Berkeley, New Mexico, and Mexico City, and the many jobs he held to support himself and his four sons.

A sequel to the book is coming in autumn 2018.

Peter Franzèn: Broken Wheel Ranch, 2017

A heartfelt and delightfully funny one-day novel about grandmother's birthday, where nothing really goes according to plan.

There is a feeling of a big sports celebration in the air: the matriarch of the family, Kaino, is celebrating her 80th birthday at her homestead. All of Kaino's adult children and grandchildren will be there, and surprise guests will also bring their cards to the party. But if there was a script for the party, no one seems to have read it, as the joyous reunion slowly turns into a reckless mess.

It seems to be hard to get to the party venue without getting bumped. An old tractor stumbles across the yard, which we try to start every now and then. Old grudges bubble to the surface. Somewhere you can find a bottle of clear, another one too. Threats cannot be avoided. Will we ever get to the cake?

The farm of the broken bike is a good-natured and exhilaratingly funny one-day novel about a family party where nothing really takes anything to succeed. It's a completely new opening for Peter Franzén – a lively folk-like village comedy, where the shortcomings of people's characters and behavior are viewed through warm humor.

Antti Heikkinen: Grandma, 2017 – also as an e-audiobook

A tribute to a Finnish woman.
"The 1920s were not a happy and jazzy decade of integration for my grandmother, and the coming decades were not what we have learned to talk about afterwards. My grandmother lived her childhood in a poor and communist raven keeper. An ordinary country woman, history unwritten and unread, but accidentally made and witnessed it."
Antti Heikkinen's novel Mummo is the story of a woman who feared God, hated communists, avoided the word "loved" in all its forms and considered one of the biggest highlights of her life was the turn of the year, when Ragni Malmstén performed a song comparing life and a rag rug in front of her.

The book is a tribute to a Finnish woman, a Finnish grandmother, a different kind of Finnish history and a satanically evil Finnish character, which is clichédly called sisu.

Ben Kalland: I'll take you home, 2017

Markus grows up in a strictly religious but warm-hearted family with his three sisters. Summers are spent in the summer paradise of Porkkalanniemi, and in winters, people go to the East Helsinki suburb for playing lessons or congregation meetings. The talented little sister Ellen plays as a soloist in big orchestras at a young age, and an international career is expected of her.

When Markus is on the threshold of adulthood, the family falls apart. Ellen's wonderfully playing violin falls silent, and twin sister Carola's name is no longer mentioned. Markus goes to the United States to work and stays there for thirty years.

I'll Take You Home contrasts the rules of religion with the love between family members. It tells about the crumbling bonds of siblings, the terrifying power of the community, and loved ones who become ghosts of the past.

A densely atmospheric and beautiful debut novel will reward lovers of good stories who want to think about self-betrayal, finding one's own thinking and who will stay by their side in the end.

Katja Kallio: Bearer of the night, 2017

The harsh and tender story of the restless Amanda takes you from the metropolis to the island of crazy women.

Amanda Aaltonen, who has just been released from prison, is an intelligent loose girl who does not adapt to the humble life intended for penniless women. The streets of Europe beckon, and Amanda embarks on the journey of a French hot air balloon pilot. The hard experiences in Paris cause his balance to falter, and upon his return, he is sent to Seili Island as an incurably mentally ill person.

In Seil, the islanders, patients and nurses live detached from the rest of the world. But Amanda has not come to adapt. The battle for surrender begins. When bodily freedom is taken away, the only option is to develop a secret self.

Anneli Kanto: Lahtaris, 2017 – also e-book

Lahtarit tells the story of boys from Ilajoki during the Whites' war expedition from Vaasa to Vyborg. The work, which skilfully utilizes different registers, is an accurate and realistic description of the chaos and brutality of the civil war. In the mosaic-like structure of the historical novel, in addition to the young guardians, a jaeger, a front-line medic, a pallbearer, a coffin bearer, an English translator, and a Finnish horse also make their voices heard.

Kanto combines documentary material with the novel: daily orders, newspaper articles and excerpts from memoirs and letters. Lahtarit was published on January 27.1.2017, 2008, the anniversary of the start of the civil war. It is a sister work to Kanno's novel Blood Roses (XNUMX), which told the story of female Red Guards.

"Punikki caught a faint glimpse between the trees. I aimed and shot it like a wild animal. It ducked behind a big rock, and I didn't know if I killed it. I had never shot a person before, and it felt like an ordinary thing. It would have been better if I didn't hit."

Anni Kytömäki: Stone pocket, 2017

1959. Helena's last summer is like Helena herself, long and unpredictable. "I'm not a person, I'm real", 16-year-old Helena thinks. He moves to Mustasaari, reads an explorer's book about Easter Island and dreams of adventures. At the end of the summer, however, a different kind of journey begins.

1849. Sergei has dreamed of a revolution. Now he stands in St. Petersburg on the execution platform and is afraid.

2012. Veka is going to ward treatment, but lets the bus take her to Louhuranta, where the family has a cottage. Escape is the only way to survive, maybe. Veka doesn't know yet that many others have been hiding on the same beaches. The past opens its eyes and waits.

Anni Kytömäki's Kultarinta (2014), selected as a Finlandia candidate, was a tribute to the forest. Stone Pocket transports its readers to the water and to the rock. The witty generational novel is a bold defense speech by a bright-thinking writer for the freedom of mind and body. In the work, the bedrock and the human brain, our own bedrock, are juxtaposed in a shocking way. The book describes the lives of Helena, Sergei and Veka, who lived in different centuries. The whole is built from the parts, the pieces of which can be put together from the pages of the book and from your own mind.

Heidi Köngäs: Sandra, 2017 – also as an e-book

Civil war sweeps into the backyard and crushes the future.

Sandra and Janne have built a farm on the corner of Ylä-Väär, and the children have been blessed as well. In the middle of his busy life, war comes, and Janne is taken to the guard. Sandra is left alone to take care of everything, and notices how the attitude towards her changes. You have to swallow pride if you intend to stay away from bread. But much worse is ahead.

The cold-smelling spring opens differently for Sandra's granddaughter, who almost a hundred years later studies old notes. He has learned that silence is golden and painful things are not talked about. All of the past is suddenly present, shockingly. Why does the human mind soften to forgiveness so slowly?

Tiina Laitila Kälvemark: The seventh spring, 2017

A novel about greed, love and the price of dreams. Who ultimately pays the bill for someone's happiness?

San has a dream: studded shoes, and a new ball, round and yellow like the sun. However, he can only get them after the mother has given birth to a child for the Swedish Susanne. Because Susanne wants a new baby, paid what she paid, and has ordered one from a distant uterus rental clinic.

TV meteorologist Peter, who has been suspended from the screen, would give anything if he could still predict the arrival of a heat wave. Because Pohjola hasn't had a decent summer for six years. Isn't it about time it came? Wouldn't it be fair that after years of waiting, dreams would finally come true?

Marko Leino: Suo, 2017

Miss Finland hangs as a sticky poster on my wall. A Russian prisoner of war is more of his own people than the authorities looking for him. In Kontula, a best-practice model of business is carried out tax-free and with high-quality baseball bats. In the public sauna, we do remember the wartime, but perhaps different from what the national canon tells us, since guerrilla activity has largely taken place in the men's rooms.

Marko Leino's ninth novel Suo is a fragmentary snapshot of the hundred-year-old Republic of Finland. The chapters named according to the years do not allow a conventional chronology, but the experiences of decades are juxtaposed, compared, showing how experiences, ways of speaking and lofty ideas change their shape, raise their heads in unexpected places and times.

The shards of the swamp form a whole, which is not a great national narrative, but a hundred-year-old moment, where people's destinies sometimes cross, but most of the time we are alone in one way or another - where it is often better to remember wrongly because the reality is unbearable. Great men are born and die out there somewhere, but no one can be as great and threatening as the members of one's own food court.

Metti Löfberg: nervous, 2017

Kati, who sails through the university year after year, does not eat, and does not manage to see the true state of her withering body. Even though the scale shows minimally small numbers, a completely different kind of huge creature looks in the mirror.

Jalmari, who runs a cannabis shop from home, cannot keep up with society's demands, and does not want to give up her smoking-free lifestyle, even though she dreams of a better life.

When Kati and Jalmari meet in the Tampere night, their stories begin to intertwine. Obsessions, fears and pathological behavior patterns throw both of them, but even if nothing goes as expected, they manage to leave a mark on each other, and change the directions of each other's lives once and for all

Tom Malmquist: Every moment we are still alive, 2017

Tom and Karin are expecting their first child, when Karin's condition suddenly deteriorates and she is admitted to the hospital. The child is born by caesarean section. Tom rushes back and forth through the long corridors of the hospital, he passes between the intensive care unit and the neonatal ward, he passes between life and death. When she returns home from the hospital with the baby, Karin is no longer there. Every Moment We're Still Alive is based on true events. It is a strong, unsentimental and beautiful book about the year that changed everything. It's a book about loss, all-encompassing grief, parenting, and life, lived moment by moment.

Tom Malmqvist (1978) is a poet. Every Moment We're Still Alive is his first novel. The book was Malmquist's breakthrough: in his home country it was the literary case of the year, it is still loved by readers, and has been awarded several prizes in Sweden. The work is a candidate for the Nordic Council's literature award.

Håkan Nesser: The sky over London, 2017

A spy story, a love story or something completely different? Nesser weaves incredible plot twists in his brick novel, one of the main characters of which is London, that eternal city. Håkan Nesser offers the reader a full coverage of excitement in his novel The Sky Over London.

Terminally ill Leonard Vermin travels to his former hometown of London to celebrate his 70th birthday with the people most important to him. However, some of those invited have no idea who Leonard is and why they have been invited. Who was the mysterious Carla who handed Leonard a sealed envelope in Trafalgar Square in 1968, drawing him into the operation of an Eastern European spy ring? How does The Watch Killer, a serial killer who is plaguing London, relate to the pattern?

In his rich and enigmatic novel, Nesser organizes surprises for both the reader and the book's characters. Swedish Håkan Nesser (b. 1950) is one of the most significant names in Nordic crime literature. In Finland, he is best known for his Barbarotti and Van Veeteren series. The sky above London is an independent work in Nesser's urban series. Original work: Himmel över London.

Alex Schulman: Forget me, 2017

A story about a mother and son relationship, an alcohol problem and the search for reconciliation. The familiar joy and charisma of a sparkling mother are replaced by withdrawal, clinging, loneliness and giving up. What has to happen before the boy can recognize the problem affecting the whole family and is it too late to help? When will he be allowed to start his own life?

Despite the painful subject, Schulman paints a complete picture of her mother, remembering her as a warm, funny and affectionate person.

Alex Schulman is a Swedish celebrity of the second generation. His Finnish father Allan was a well-known TV producer and journalist. Together with writer Sigge Eklund, Alex hosts one of Sweden's most popular podcasts with 750 listeners. There is also a live show under the name Alex & Sigge.

Katja Seutu: Over time with six, 2017

Standing by the fir trees is not a romantic idyll. In the measure of time, Kuusil deals with time, its wear and tear, consumption and tolerance. The wanderer who writes moves in changing seasons and places and encounters silent presence, limitation and transience.

I wrote from the void
like a cup of coffee
whose people
raise to their lips
and taste.

Katja Seutu has also lived in Riihimäki, and is currently a literary researcher from Helsinki. Kuus has his second collection of poems in due course.

Ilmar Taska: Pobeda 1946, 2017

A sensitive novel about a hard time in occupied Estonia.

A new car shines like a jewel in the eyes of a child. The little boy doesn't know that in post-war Estonia, only the state security service could afford such a treasure.
Ilmar Taska's debut novel Pobeda 1946 is a rare fine period portrait of post-war Estonia, where people tried to live a normal life in the midst of deprivation and fear.

A car driver drives a little boy who is enthusiastic about cars. A trusting child comes along and tells one thing or another about his family, things that later lead to the father's disappearance. The little boy does not know how to connect his father's disappearance with the kind Uncle Pobeda, who compassionately listens to the lonely child, but seeks refuge again and again from his uncle. The boy's aunt, a famous singer who is trying to get out of the country to her beloved in Great Britain, also has dangerous secrets.

Juha Vakkuri: Mannerheim and the German kiss, 2017

Memoirs that Mannerheim himself did not want to write. Mannerheim and the German Kiss is Juha Vakkur's first novel in 20 years and at the same time a new conquest of territory: an intense historical account of Finland's real years of danger. The work draws a fresh full-length portrait of Finland's first great man, who saved our country twice, if not three times.

The book is a novel version of Vakkur's play of the same name, which premiered in October 2017 at Helsinki City Theatre.

"When I, Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, returned from Odessa to Finland in December 1917, I was a civilian for the first time in 30 years. I had just been fired from the Soviet Russian army. Since I had no future in Russia, I was left with three options: move to Poland, France or Finland. I left for Finland because it would be the shortest way to return to St. Petersburg after the Bolsheviks had fallen from power. I had sworn an oath of allegiance to the Tsar. One revolution did not undo that. Everything went differently than I had planned. I got to know what a German kiss meant."

Meritta Veilleux: Reconciliation, 2017

Sovinto is a brilliant and brutal novel about a family thrown apart in the turmoil of the Second World War. At its center is the Finnish Ingria, whose story shows the loss of innocence and the sacrifices required by war, but also the power of warmth and humanity. A novel about remembering, gullibility, unreasonable losses and the restorative power of art. Meritta Veilleux (Koivisto) is an internationally awarded film writer and director from Helsinki. He has published two novels published before Sovinto: Londonlainen rakastaja (Otava, 2006) and Possa (Avain, 2011) as well as short stories. He has edited television documentaries and written and directed short films, television series and long fiction films.

Kjell Westö: Sulfur yellow sky, 2017 – also as an e-book

Friendship, passion, growing up – a masterful depiction of three generations from the 1960s to the present day.

Alex and Stella Rabell lack nothing. At least that's how the narrator feels in the summer of 1969, when he receives an invitation to the siblings' summer paradise. He becomes Alex's close friend, but he falls in love with Stella.
A friendship made in boyhood carries through the storms of sexual awakening and youth all the way to the golden years of success and beyond.

Afterwards, those innocent times of happiness get black frames. The image of Rabell's perfect family cracks when the narrator is drawn into their dark patterns and begins to feel more and more alienated. Who betrayed whom?

Kristina Vuori: Filippa, 2017

Filippa Fleming, a powerful woman in her brother's shadow. The name of Klaus Fleming, who suppressed the mace war, has gone down in history, but who remembers his gentle, buxom sister Filippa? Filippa grows up in the shadow of two strong-willed older brothers. At her mansion in Ylänee, Filippa is a mistress who is obeyed by numerous servants and lampstands. His cattle are hundreds of head, he breeds Friesian horses and confirms his orders with his own seal. But Filippa does not control her own life. According to 1500th century law, Klaus is his sister's guardian and decides her future. Why doesn't Klaus allow his sister to have marital happiness? Does the brother fear for the inheritance lands? Or is it something else, more sinister? Kristiina Vuori is a master and innovator of the historical novel. In the previous work, Kaarnatuuli Vuori had a historical person as the main character for the first time, and Vuori has also reached this successful solution in his sixth novel Filippa.