In the 4th instalment of the series Anna Glad is juggling her roles as a parent of a toddler and a senior detective, with varying degrees of success. There are several suspicious deaths happening around the city, a school secretary is missing and something is at odds at the closed school building, soon to be demolished. Anna’s partner Tomas, stay-at-home dad, is like a rock to lean on, but is he a little too interested in the life of his new friend playground parent friend Mimmi Sandberg? Mimmi is 4-year-old Veera’s foster mother, and now Veera’s biological mother wants her custody back. Is Mimmi’s home as safe as she herself wants to believe?
Fantastic news from the Turku Book Fair: Matara by Matias Riikonen has been awarded the Jarkko Laine prize.
Matara by Matias Riikonen
The jury has motivated their choice as follows:
“In Matara by Matias Riikonen boys under the age of 15 spend long summer days in a present-day forest in Finland, where they have built the republic of Matara. The state, which strongly reminds of Ancient Rome, is built on rules, hierarchies and systems which are portrayed with startling intensity. In this violent world rules are followed even when it comes to fighting and on the side of struggles for power loyalty, friendship, fun and games emerge. The detailed description of the boys’ world, the precision of their observations, the flow of the story and the emotional thrill are successfully realized in Riikonen’s striking prose”.
Matara has already been acquired in Denmark and Hungary, and for World French and German, and it has been previously awarded the Torch-Bearer prize.
Thrilling news for our children’s list: The Skeleton by Malin Klingenberg and Maria Sann has been sold to Latvia, where it will be published by Zvaigzne ABC. This marks the 3rd foreign sale for the title, which has previously been sold to Korea and to World Dutch.
The book follows Theo, who is not fond of spooky skeletons: when he is invited to a costume party at his friend Roni’s house, he is terrified of the skeleton costume worn by the host. He tries to make a run for it, but he trips and falls. There’s nothing to do but go see the doctor and take x-rays.
Let’s have a look at your skeleton, says the doctor. Teo is horrified: is there a skeleton inside me? Of course there is, his mother whispers tenderly. But Teo is chilled to the bone. Is there a skeleton inside everyone? What if the little brother living inside Mommy’s tummy sees her skeleton and is frightened?
Skeleton is a tenderly told story about a child overcoming his fears while learning what each of us is made of. Sometimes parts of us break and need to be fixed with a cast.
Iida Turpeinen’s debut novel Beasts of the Sea, praised in reviews as“world-class literature”, has been pre-empted in Germany just three weeks after its publication in Finland.
Iida Turpeinen’s debut novel Beasts of the Sea is quickly becoming the literary phenomenon of autumn 2023 in Finland. The novel was published in the first week of September, and it got a glorious start when the biggest Finnish newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, declared it “world-class literature”. The first print run was sold out in a week.
In Finland Beasts Of The Sea is published by S&S, part of Schildts & Söderströms.
Sebastian Guggolz, the acquiring editor at S. Fischer, said:
“What a wonderful novel! I love the idea of telling the story of the expeditions in different times, and of the skeleton of Steller’s sea cow holding all that together, connecting the centuries. I also loved the way Iida tells her story: it is so clever to do it with different individuals, linked to the Stellar’s sea cow, and also focusing on female characters who are part or background. Iida has a beautiful style of writing, and the novel is also telling many things about science, in a very welcoming way for readers.”
Beasts of the Sea (2023)
In the novel, fascinating history meets nature loss and extinction, and science goes hand in hand with a literary, yet page-turning story. The novel spans over 200 years in three different time periods. The stories of the individuals are bound together by a wonderful, strange marine mammal, Steller’s sea cow, which became extinct soon after being discovered.
In the novel, human ambitions result into destruction of other species, but also create the urge to resurrect and preserve what can be saved.
The Mystery Of Raspberry Hill follows Stina, a twelve-year-old girl with a lung disease, as she is sent to a mysterious sanatorium in the middle of nowhere in the 1920s. The place is gorgeous but something unsettling is afoot: why are so many patients disappearing into thin air? Why isn’t anyone allowed contact with the outside world? And why does her mysterious new best friend only appear at night?
The series has set great expectations: Variety has dedicated it an exclusive feature , praising the fact that it is contributing to fill the gap for darker series that are suitable for young audiences.
This resulted in a challenge for the production team, thus quoted in Variety: “The task was to maintain the same level of horror as in the book. In my experience, pre-teens and teens love to be scared. And since the end of the story is happy and hopeful, there is room for dark shades before that.”
Congratulations to the author and the production team, and fingers crossed!
Can’t wait? Read more about the story here. But whatever you do, don’t miss out on this series!
