Salla Simukka and Emmi Itaranta at Politics & Prose

The fate of a chaotic world hangs on the actions of brave seventeen-year-old women—at least as envisioned by these two new talents of Scandinavian fiction.

In the first novel of Simukka’s Snow White Trilogy, As Red as Blood (Skyscape), Lumikki Andersson follows a trail of blood in the snow to bloody cash in her school. Soon she’s caught up in a struggle with a drug cartel—one that has her classmates, friends, and father under its control.

The Europe of Itaranta’s powerful debut novel, Memory of Water (Harper Voyager), is ruled by China, and strongmen from New Quian occupy Scandinavia. The world map may have changed, but water is still the most precious commodity; the few “tea masters,” including young Noria Kaitio, who know the sources of water, face increasing pressure to give up their secrets to the government.

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