Month: January 2025

Fishing For the Little Pike by Juhani Karila is travelling to Slovenia, where it will be published by Pivec. This is the 21st language territory for this title.

Fishing For the Little Pike by Juhani Karila continues to enchant international publishers: this title is travelling to Slovenia, where it will be published by Pivec, marking the 21st language territory for this title.

Fishing For the Little Pike by Juhani Karila, published in Finland by Siltala, has since its release in 2019 won over readers both domestically and internationally with its quirky atmosphere and fast-paced and multi-faceted plot. In Finland Fishing for the Little Pike (2019) was awarded with Kalevi Jäntti Prize and Tähtifantasia Prize, and nominated for the Jarkko Laine Prize, and the title is currently running for the globally prestigious Dublin Literary Award.

The book follows young Elina as she returns to her hometown in Eastern Lapland on her yearly quest to fish a specific pike out of a specific pond. Her life and an old lover’s depend on it, but this year a detective is on her trail, and the pond has a new inhabitant. These ingredients come together in a successful mix of Lappish atmosphere, a generous sprinkle of magic and mythology, and an equal dose of humor and wisdom.

Pivec is a mid-sized Slovenian publishing house and family business, founded by Milena Pivec and now being run by the second generation of the family, Milena’s daughter Zala Stanonik. The acquiring team at Pivec has stated their enthusiasm for the book with warm words:

“Fishing for the Little Pike was one of the few [titles], that really caught our eyes and hearts upon the very first reading. We found it a heartfelt ode to Eastern Lapland, a piece of land that is dismissed even though its stories and mythological creatures are impressive and rich and incredibly attractive. Our traditions, folk stories, our forests are filled with similar creatures and whisper similar tales as those of Eastern Lapland. Some of us still remember walking under mighty beech trees, spruces and oaks as kids, listening to our parents and grandparents telling stories about tree spirits, water creatures, fairies and other invisible beings that defined our lands as much as its visible elements did. Then the modern times came, and people had less and less time to wander the nature. Within one or two generations we stopped telling the stories too. That is probably the main reason why we were enchanted by the storytelling of Fishing for the Little Pike – it seamlessly intertwines the past and modern times into a breathtakingly beautiful story, reminding us that just because we stopped telling those tales all the magical beings are still here with us, and just as much a part of our lives as they used to be.“

Warmest congratulations to the author and the publisher!

The Thick of the Forest by Linnea Kuuluvainen is travelling to Estonia, where it will be published by Varrak.

The Thick of the Forest by Linnea Kuuluvainen is on a roll: this title is now travelling to Estonia, where it will be published by Varrak. This is the third foreign deal for this title, already nominated for the Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize for the best debut of the year.

The Thick of the Forest is set in a near future where nature has started fighting back against human exploitation, destroying the world as we know it. Mixing elements from Orwell’s 1984 and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale in the unique setting of a Finnish forest capable of utter destruction, The Thick of the Forest is an entrancing and linguistically captivating first novel about a forest that haunts people and two women, Edla and Ingrid, whose stories intersect.

The result is a rich telling of the relationship between mankind and nature, and of how the lines dividing them become increasingly blurry in the depth of the forest. In Finland, the book is published by Gummerus.

Linnea Kuuluvainen (b. 1996) is a Turku-based author with a background in literature and creative writing studies. Her prose is distinguishable for its magical realism and lyrical depth.

Varrak is an Estonian publishing house founded in 1991, and nowadays one of Estonia’s largest publishing houses. Its list ranges from intellectual non-fiction to a broad range of fiction, and children’s literature. Varrak is the Estonian home of celebrated authors like Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Salman Rushdie, James Joyce, Margaret Atwood, and many more.

Warmest congratulations to the author and the publisher!

Liv! by Helmi Kekkonen and Rainbow Swallowtail by Ilja Karsikas are running for the Most Beautiful Book of the Year Award.

The nominations keep rolling in for our beautiful list: Rainbow Swallowtail by Ilja Karsikas and Finlandia-nominated Liv! by Helmi Kekkonen are running for the Most Beautiful Book of the Year Award.

Each year, the Finnish Book Art Committee selects the most beautiful books published in Finland during the previous year. One title is awarded as the Year’s Most Beautiful Book, and others, organised according to their categories, receive honorary mentions.

Rainbow Swallowtail by Ilja Karsikas is running in the category Most Beautiful Children’s Book for its design and illustrations, all by Ilja Karsias. Rainbow Swallowtail is a colourful feel-good story about the meaning of friendship and how important it is to know how to ask for help and forgive. It follows Rina and Marla, two friends who get into a fight in the middle of a game. Both are sad and struggle to apologize. Thankfully a colorful adventure brings them together again, and their friendship is stronger for it. In Finland Rainbow Swallowtail is published by S&S.

In Liv! we follow 22-year-old Liv, who is on holiday on an island in the Finnish archipelago with her family. One day she is approached by a man while she is sunbathing on the cliffs, and he is a little too friendly, sits a little too close. Nevertheless, Liv is intrigued, and agrees to meet him again without telling her family. What awaits Liv at their meeting seems obvious to the reader, even though it shouldn’t be. Slowly, Liv opens up about being assaulted, and all the women in her family enter a collision course: they all want what’s best for Liv, but each of them has a different opinion as to what that is. Liv! is a choral reflection around a harsh, but necessary question: what would you do if it happened to you? Liv! is running for the Most Beautiful Book of the Year Award in the category Most Beautiful Cover for its stunning cover designed by Elina Warsta. In Finland, Liv! is published by Siltala.

Congratulations to all nominees, authors, publishers, and graphic designers – and fingers crossed!

Then Die Contentedly (Anna Glad #5) by Eva Frantz is travelling to Germany, where it will be published by Aufbau, who is publishing the rest of the series.

Thrilling news for German readers: Then Die Contentedly (Anna Glad #5) is travelling to Germany, where it will be published by Aufbau, who is publishing the rest of the series.

In Then Die Contentedly four women gather to spend an autumn evening together: Krisse, Hannele, Sylvia, and Britt got to know each other at the end of the 1990’s when they sang in the same student choir, and started the tradition of having a girls’ night every summer, with crayfish and snaps on the menu. It is a fancy crayfish party with all needed drinks, and the night is festive. But when day dawns, only two women wake up at the old house: one, Krisse, is dead and another, Sylvia, is missing. Anna Glad is supposed to stay off the case, but her instinct and her curiosity have the best of her, and she’s soon entangled in a complex case held together by a web of lies and blackmailing. Touching on subjects like domestic violence and alcoholism, Then Die Contentedly is a fast-paced detective story with plenty of twists and turns.

The Anna Glad series is a five-volume series following detective Anna Glad, a refreshingly relatable 30-something police detective whose private life and crime investigations have hooked readers in five countries, and sold over 100.000 copies in Finland.

Eva Frantz is an established Swedish-speaking author, whose production ranges from children’s novels to crime for adult readers. Her books have travelled to over 10 countries overall. In Finland, her works are published by Schildts & Söderströms.

Aufbau is a large German publishing whose list ranges from Nobel-winning authors like Han Kang to classics of international literature, to trending crime and romantasy titles.

Congratulations to the author and the publisher!

Penelope and the Curious Clothing Commotion by Saara Kekäläinen and Reetta Niemensivu, Wept Another by Merja Mäki, and Christmas at the Falke Castle by Ann-Christin Antell are running for the Storytel Awards.

Storytel has published its list of nominees for the Storytel Awards, and we love to see several HLA titles making the list:  Wept Another by Merja Mäki, Christmas at the Falke Castle, one of the three novellas in Christmas at the Cotton Mill by Ann-Christin Antell, and Penelope and the Curious Clothing Commotion by Saara Kekäläinen & Reetta Niemensivu have been nominated in the categories of literary fiction, romance, and children’s literature.

Storytel Awards are given to books in the categories of literary fiction, crime and thriller, romance and feel-good, nonfiction and children’s literature on a yearly basis. The winners are chosen among the nominees by the users’ vote and by a professional jury, and will be announced on March 13th at the Storytel Awards Gala.

Wept Another follows Larja, a young woman from Eastern Karelia. It is 1942, and peace has momentarily descended on this bit of territory recently reclaimed from the Soviets by Finnish troops. Larja has been studying at a teacher training camp and upon her return to her home village she has to come to terms with the fact that nothing is as it was. Her grandmother Matja, the village’s most-respected professional lamenter, is deathly ill, and her little sister Pola carries a secret deep within her heart.

Their mother and father, carted off to a gulag years ago, are still missing. As Larja cares for her ailing grandmother, she listens to the messages the trees are sending her on the northern winds and discovers that she too has the gift of wailing. However, it requires great courage to accompany the dead to the other side, and she has been focusing on a career as a teacher. After a Finnish man steps into her life, Larja finds herself again torn between two different worlds. Wept Another is the story of a young woman who has grown up between two cultures on the border of two countries. It is a tale of roots and the ties that bind us, but above all, of the choices that you must make in life.

Christmas at the Cotton Mill is a festive collection of short stories set in the same fictional world as the successful Cotton Mill trilogy, which follows three generations of the Barker family throughout the decades.

Christmas at the Cotton Mill follows each of the three generations giving readers new insight into their family life, Christmas traditions, and backstory. In Christmas at the Falke Castle it is 1939 and Paula Falke (née Barker) is charged with planning Christmas for the whole family and the workers of the factory while her husband is fighting at the front. A happy ending seems impossible, but hope springs everlasting and the Falke family is in for a joyful Christmas after all.

In Penelope and the Curious Clothing Commotion Penelope is learning to get dressed by herself, but she has a sneaking suspicion that the clothes have it in for her. If she does not watch out, the knotted tights will bunch her in as well. Is there a gnome living in their house, one who nibbles a tissue sample off every sock and eats a sock from each pair? What if Penelope gets lost inside her clothes and pops out of a sleeve and into the wrong story? Or accidentally puts on Dad’s shirt and has to shave and go to work every morning?

Congratulations to all nominees, and fingers crossed!