Author: Urpu Strellman

Eva Frantz’s novel The Eight Maiden is the winner Clue of the Year Award, given to the best crime novel of the year.

Eva Frantz’s second book in the crime series about police detective Anna Glad, The Eighth Maiden (2018) was awarded with Clue of the year by The Finnish Whodunnit Society. The yearly award has been given to the best crime novel now 34 times, but never before to a Finland Swedish author.

The board stated that The Eighth Maiden describes the milieu of a small Finland Swedish town with skill. The tension builds little by little and without excessive violence. The novel got special recognition for the way it describes young people, as did Frantz’s ability to dive into their world with subtlety. The board emphasized that even with such a harsh theme as sexual abuse the novel has a tender and unmoralizing tone.

The Eighth Maiden is also nominated for the Torch-bearer Prize, given to the Finnish book with most potential in foreign markets. (The news is here.)

The first novel of the series is The Blue Villa (2017). Before these Frantz has written a stand-alone crime novel Summer Isle (2016).

Eva Frantz was last awarded in February for her middle grade horror novel Raspberry Hill (2018) with Runeberg Junior Prize (news here).

You can read more about Eva Frantz here.

Sisko Savonlahti’s autofictional debut novel Maybe This Summer Everything Will Change has been sold to Norstedts in Sweden.

The bestselling novel, described as “the novel of this generation”, tells the story of a young city dweller, a woman with a looming fear of failure, need to achieve – and find happiness. Nominated for the best debut novel of the year prize and praised by readers and critics alike, it is at the same time light and heavy, humorous and self-ironic.

Read more about the book here and about the author here.

Minna Rytisalo’s bestselling novel Mrs C. is one of the three nominees for Book of the Year in Bonnier’s competition for Grand Journalism Prize. The jury stated:

“Mrs Canth, a teacher’s wife, lives through a marriage which grows to be happy and in which the wife and the husband work together for the things that matter to them. The support of her encouraging soul mate carries Mrs C even when she needs to continue the work on her own. Being a pioneer and putting herself at stake doesn’t take much but everything.  The awe-inspiring novel opens a window to the private life of a historical figure.”

The novel, indeed a bestseller in Finland, has been nominated also for the Torch-bearer Prize, given to the the novel with most potential abroad, and the Lappi Literature Prize. Read more about it here.

Rytisalo’s debut Lempi, also a huge success, has won numerous awards and been successful also in Germany, published there by Hanser. More about Lempi here.

The Weather that Changed the World, a narrative nonfiction title by science journalist Marcus Rosenlund has been sold to three areas.

In Estonia, the book has been acquired by Ühinenud Ajakirjad and in Hungary by Cser Kiado. The Spanish world rights have been acuired by a Mexican publisher Elefanta.

Rosenlund shows in The Weather that Changed the World how wars have been lost and civilizations changed not only due to people’s own actions only but because of the power of weather. Building bridges from the past to what is happening with the climate today, the booktells the story of weather and how it has shaped our world and history.

The book, published in late October 2018 in Swedish by Schildts & Söderströms, will come out in Finnish in a couple of months.

The author was awarded by the Society of Swedish Literature in Finland for Weather that Changed the World with an award of 16,000 euros. “This important book binds scientific facts with history and social studies. Rosenlund cites Kant’s battle cry Sapere aude! Dare to know!. It is a demand that should be repeated more often in the age of alternative truths, and not least when it comes to climate. The book is accessible popular science in the best possible way.”

Read more about the book here.