The enchanting origin story of Louhi, the witch queen of Pohjola from the Finnish national epic Kalevala 

✓ For readers interested in folklore and fantasy
✓ Emmi Itäranta’s award-winning debut novel Memory of Water (2012) is a classic and an international hit: published in 25 territories!
✓ Itäranta has been 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)!
✓ Emmi Itäranta’s writing has been compared to that of Ursula K. Le Guin!

Award-winning author Emmi Itäranta’s latest novel Snowsinger takes the readers to a mythological past, a world of magic and shapeshifting. Harmony and respect reign between humans, nature, and animals. Until the idyll is broken and the lust for power, the desire for revenge, and greed arise.

Lauha is living her childhood in Pohjola where strong women rule, each of them with their spell-shape, or animal form. When Lauha is nine, a foreign tribe attacks Pohjola and kills most of her family, while Lauha flees with her mother and two younger sisters. After many hardships, Lauha ends up in the safety of a women’s forest community known as Metsänpeitto, where she lives silently for years.

After a tragic incident, Lauha decides to have revenge on the conquerors of Pohjola and reclaim her home. Defending Pohjola and keeping her family safe shapes Lauha into Louhi, a woman feared by many. The painful memories of her escape drive Louhi to choices that have fateful consequences to the people of Pohjola and to Louhi herself.