Beauty comes in many forms—stunning, exciting, thrilling, perilous. Weather has all of them.

Predicting or altering the weather is the eternal dream of humanity. A merchant named Jonah, living in Assyria 600 years before the common era, gets caught in a storm. Is the storm a curse from God, or is it his own doing? In Finland in the 2010’s, Leena Lind loves her job as a meteorologist, but the activities of an aggressive finance company have her wasting her expertise at menial tasks. When her daughter Leia plays a game that involves making a video of a thunderstorm, Leena’s life is blown irretrievably off track and soon no one is safe anymore.

Modern horror story based on the latest science – this could almost happen to anyone!

There is a slightly unconventional family, including a more than a little unconventional daughter with some very, very unconventional thoughts. Something uncanny creeps into their lives, as these seemingly inexplicable injuries appear on the children. Something dangerous and freaky seems to be at large… With the first signs of violence, a horrible question arises: Who is trying to cruelly damage the family? Is it an external threat – or could it be someone… or something… from the inside?

Strangers Inside is a modern horror story, but also a stunning, gripping and frightening description of crooked family dynamics. The story is delivered by three different narrator voices, all of them having their blind points of view. Is the ultimate enemy, ripping the family slowly apart, coming from the circle of people that are closest to you?

The story of a young woman, surrounded by a world at war, who lives in the middle of hostile forces in a Nazi fortress on the dark side of the moon

Renate’s Story is based on earlier versions of the original Iron Sky screenplay, and on the background research conducted by author Johanna Sinisalo, who led the film’s original story team. The novel will be launched simultaneously with the premiere of Iron Sky: The Coming Race in 2018.

Renate’s Story is a completely independent work and contains pitch-black humor narrating the ways in which its main character, Renate Richter – raised on the National Socialist values of the 1940s – regards the cultures and habits of those inhabiting the distant Planet Earth.

Rights sold (Renate’s Story):
FINLAND, Johnny Kniga/WSOY
FRANCE, Actes Sud
GERMANY, Klett-Cotta
HUNGARY, Metropolis Media

Johanna Sinisalo’s retrospective collection of short stories, The Handless Kings and Other Disturbing Tales, consists of both stories published earlier and completely new ones. The prize stories have been extolled by Finnish science fiction fans: three of the stories published in the collection have been awarded the Atorox prize. The novelette Baby Doll was shortlisted for the Nebula Award in 2009. The stories in the collection are set in places familiar to us and yet somehow amazingly different.

The Glass-Eye is a ruthless psychological thriller which describes the dynamics of a close, creative work team. It describes how Taru finds herself in a world where the boundaries of fiction and facts blur and the prophecies begin to come true. In the world of Glass-Eye Taru learns that all relationships have hidden meanings and that nothing is necessarily what it seems. When Taru’s little sister Aija appears on the scene, the events take another turn and there is no turning back.

Johanna Sinisalo’s works hook the reader straight away. Her stories open doors to new worlds: they look at life from strange angles, they create suspense and make the reader laugh as well. Sinisalo’s books always offer sharp and open-minded analysis, and criticism of contemporary society. The Glass-Eye is not an exception. Is the television screen a window to another world or maybe it is a mirror? Does the glass-eye observe us from the corner of our living room instead of us observing it, just as George Orwell predicted?

Hidden Powers – A Guide to Hiking Trails Both Dark and Bright comprises one novelette and half a dozen other short stories, all inspired by hiking. Sinisalo pushes the boundaries of realism in her stories about humans’ relationship to nature.
The fictional stories are accompanied with nonfictional anecdotes about Sinisalo’s own hiking experiences and a section of practical tips for planning a trek.

The international fantasy bestseller (published in the U.S as Troll) and winner of the Finlandia Prize. Mikael, a young gay photographer, finds in the courtyard of his apartment block a small, man-like creature. It is a young troll, familiar from Scandinavian mythology: a demonic, wild beast. And it is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. Supposedly extinct, today it is regarded as a hairy, cuddly toy by Nordic children. Mikael gives the troll a name, Pessi, and takes him home and hides him.

The first thing Mikael does is research everything he can about trolls from the internet, from folklore, nature journals and newspaper cuttings.What Mikael does not discover is that trolls exude pheromones that smell like a Calvin Klein aftershave and that this has a profound aphrodisiac effect on all those around him. Shooting an assignment for an ultra-hip brand of jeans, Mikael finds himself fast-tracked into a dangerous liaison with Martes, the sexually ambivalent art director of the advertising agency concerned, while a couple of his friends in turn fall in love with him because he carries the troll’s scent. What Mikael fails above all to learn, with tragic consequences, is that Pessi the troll is the interpreter of man’s darkest, most forbidden impulses.

Rights sold:
Albania, Dituria
Brazil, Devir
Bulgaria, Perseus
Czech Republic, One Woman Press
Denmark, Jensen & Dalgaard
France, Actes Sud
Germany, Tropen (Klett-Cotta)
Japan, Sunmark*
Latvia, Atena
Lithuania, Vaga
Poland, Terytoria*
Russia, Amphora*
Slovenia, Modrijan*
Spain, Polledro*
Sweden, Wahlström&Widstrand
UK, Peter Owen
USA, Grove Atlantic
*Rights reverted

Reading materials:
Finnish edition
English edition
French edition

Birdbrain is a skilful portrait of the unquenchable desire of Westerners for the pure and the primitive. A young Finnish couple, Jyrki and Heidi, go on the hiking trip of a lifetime in Australasia with Heart of Darkness as reading material. To Jyrki’s great surprise, his girlfriend Heidi demands to come with him, frightened by the idea of several months of solitude. The trip gradually turns into a tortuous thriller with belongings disappearing and, even more mysteriously, reappearing. The travellers come to be at the mercy of untamed nature Birdbrain describes Western people’s desperate longing for somewhere unspoilt and primitive with biting irony. At the same time, it reveals the dark side of this longing, showing it to be an insatiable desire to control, invade and destroy.. Birdbrain reveals the dark side of the explorer’s desire: the insatiable need to control, to invade and leave one’s mark on the landscape. But what happens when nature starts to fight back?

 The Guardian newspaper and Publishers Weekly both included the novel on their list of recommendations.

Rights sold:
UK, Peter Owen
France, Actes Sud
Norway, Vega

Reading materials:
Finnish edition
English edition
French edition
Norwegian edition

“The queen is dead. The bees are gone. Thus, the world is about to end. But if you follow the bees, there are doors in the air. And a desperate man is ready to go through one.”

Albert Einstein is claimed to have said that if bees disappear from the earth, mankind has four years left to live. When mass bee-vanishings of unprecedented scope and devastation hit the United States, Orvo, a beekeeper, knows all too well where it will lead. And one day, when Orvo goes to check on his hives, he is forced to witness something he wishes he had never lived to see. The queen is dead. The epidemic has spread to Europe. The world is coming to an end.

The light of Orvo’s life is his son, Eero, whose secret animal activist existence Orvo discovers far too late. Eero’s activities as a defender of animal rights and an ardent opponent of Orvo’s inherited way of life propel the family into irreversible, gutwrenching conflict. Orvo takes a desperate step onto a path where only he and the bees know the way… This novel is a magical plunge into the myth of death and immortality, a tale of human blindness in the face of overwhelming choices and inevitabilities.

Rights sold:
World English, Peter Owen
Denmark, Jensen & Dalgaard
France, Actes Sud
Poland, Foksal

Johanna Sinisalo tells the story of The Eusistocratic Republic of Finland in 2013. Her thriller-like story of flight and fight is also between the lines a feisty social polemic. How did Finland turn into the North Korea of Europe?

The Eusistocratic Republic of Finland has prioritized social stability and national health, and outlawed practically everything that might give one pleasure or cause addiction. Well, almost everything: the distribution of sex, an essential commodity of pleasure, is made as efficient as possible. In order to achieve this, the state has bred a new human subspecies: one that is receptive, submissive and always willing. They used to be called women.

Vanna and Jare become involved in buying and selling a stimulant known to be extremely dangerous: chili. Then Jare comes across a strange religious cult in possession of the Core of the Sun, a pungent chili that is too hot to handle.

See here for a rave review of The Core of the Sun by Finland’s largest daily newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat.

Rights sold (The Core of the Sun):
FINLAND, Teos
CZECH, Euromedia
DENMARK, Jensen & Dalgaard
FRANCE, Actes Sud
GERMANY, Klett-Cotta
HUNGARY, Metropolis Media
LATVIA, Petergailis
SPAIN, Roca
TURKEY, Ithaki
WORLD ENGLISH, Grove Atlantic