Month: June 2024

Continuing our series of author interviews, here comes a round of questions with Dr Julia Korkman, author of Memory Dependent.

Dr Julia Korkman is a senior programme specialist at the UN-affiliated European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control, the elected president of the European Association of Psychology and Law. Memory Dependent is one of HLA’s top non-fiction titles, and it approaches criminal investigations from an unexpected angle: Korkman highlights how people are used to thinking of their memory as an exact image of what they experienced, almost like a surveillance camera. This has important consequences for criminal investigations: the first, that witnesses are the key to the resolution of a case, as they are expected to provide reliable accounts of what happened, and the second that, if a witness is proved wrong by other facts or other witnesses, then someone must be lying.

Except, is that really how memory and investigations work? What do witch trials and modern miscarriages of justice have in common? And how can jazz singing and forensic psychology be a match made in heaven?

You can read the whole interview here.

The World French rights to The Mythicals series by Miila Westin have been sold to Sarbacane, marking the fourth foreign deal for this amazing graphic novel series.

The Mythicals series by Miila Westin is quickly becoming an international hit: the World French rights to Endless Winter (Mythicals #1) and A Dangerous Dream (Mythicals #2) have been acquired by Sarbacane in a two-book deal.

Miila Westin’s The Mythicals Series combines adventure for middle-grade readers, Balto-Finnish mythology and wow-worthy illustrations. In Endless Winter (Mythicals #1) we follow little Eevi, who is mourning the loss of her grandfather while snow continues to fall, even though it’s June. One day, after receiving a curious necklace from her grandmother, Eevi starts to see forest creatures, like Otso the gnome and the crop elves, whose existence she ignored. They know why winter seems to be endless, and have a plan to save spring that will lead them all the way to the Underworld. It’s their chance to save the spring, but is it also Eevi’s chance to bring Grandpa back?

In A Dangerous Dream Eevi is lonely: after their successful adventure, none of her friends has been in touch, and no one believed her when she explained what happened. Then, one night Otso comes knocking at her window and asking for her help. His sister is sick, and Eevi’s necklace could be the key to saving her, so she goes along. But why does Eevi keep having scary dreams? And are they really just dreams?

Sarbacane is a beautiful French publishing house founded in 2003 and specialised in high-quality, award-winning literature for children and young readers. Their broad list includes an excellent selection of graphic novels and comics, so we couldn’t happier to have them as the French home of The Mythicals.

Warmest congratulations to the author and the publisher!

Beasts of the Sea by Iida Turpeinen, the hot book of autumn 2023, is now travelling to Turkey, where it will be published by Timas.

Steller’s sea cow continues to swim out into the world: the Turkish rights to Beasts of the Sea by Iida Turpeinen have been sold to Timas in a deal brought to us by our co-agents at Anatolia Agency.

Beasts of the Sea was the hot book of autumn 2023 and it quickly rose to fame as the most internationally successful debut from Finland ever. Its right were acquired in auctions, or with aggressive pre-empts, by some of the leading and largest publishers throughout the world.

The book centres around Steller’s sea cow, a sirenian creature lost forever to extinction in the 1800s. Approaching natural diversity through individual destinies, Beasts of the Sea is a story of great adventure, grand human ambitions and the urge to resurrect what humankind in its ignorance has destroyed. The novel is the winner of The Thank You for the Book Award, Finland’s booksellers’ prize, the best debut award, the Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize, and a nominee for Finland’s biggest literary award, the Finlandia Prize, as well as for the Torch-bearer Prize. Its international breakthrough has been acknowledged for example by the Bookseller. In Finland, the book is published by Kustantamo S&S, a part of the Schildts & Söderströms publishing group.

Timas is a Turkish publishing house that has been striving to bring great Nordic literature to the Turkish audience for a while now: they are the home of our very own Thing That Fall From the Sky by Selja Ahava, now on its second reprint in Turkey, and the home of other Nordic contemporary voices of high caliber and great popularity like Alex Schulman and Lisa Ridzen from Sweden. Their beautiful editions and translations have earned them a solid reader base with the Turkish audience, and we trust that Beasts of the Sea is in amazing hands.

Congratulations to the publisher and the author!

The Mythicals series by Miila Westin, which began with Endless Winter and is now continuing with A Dangerous Dream, is travelling to Denmark, where it will be published by Straarup.

Miila Westin’s stunning The Mythicals series is on a roll: Endless Winter and A Dangerous Dream have been acquired by Straarup in a two-book deal, thus securing the Danish rights to the series.

The Mythicals is a middle-grade graphic novel series that draws inspiration from Balto-Finnish mythology. In Endless Winter (Mythicals #1) we follow Eevi, a girl who has just lost her grandpa and is worried as it’s June but winter shows no signs of ending. A mysterious necklace shows her that there’s more to the world than what meets the (human) eye: a group of crop elves and a gnome, Otso, become her unlikely fellows in a journey to the Underworld. It’s the only chance to put an end to winter and save the arrival of spring, but is it also Eevi’s chance to bring Grandpa back?

In A Dangerous Dream (Mythicals #2) Otso shows up again in Eevi’s life, asking for her help to save his sister, who is severely ill. Only Eevi’s mysterious necklace can save her, and she agrees to help her friend. But why does she keep having scary dreams about the sun going dark? As Eevi soon learns, dreams are rarely just dreams, and they can be very dangerous.

Miila Westin is an established, award-winning illustrator and Endless Winter marked her debut as author. For it, she received an honourable mention for the Punni award and the Most Beautiful Book of the Year Award.

Straarup & co is a Århus-based publisher who has become the Danish home of many well-loved and successful Finnish titles and authors. Among them are Karin Erlandsson‘s titles, including the latest Juno Lights The Moon, Anja Portin‘s Radio Popov and The Book of Misty Trees, and Saara Kekäläinen & Netta Lehtola’s The Princess Who Did A Runner.

This is the third foreign deal for Endless Winter, whose World Spanish rights are with Galimatazo, and the Czech rights with Host.

Congratulations to the author and the publishers!

Juhani Karila’s wildly successful Fishing For the Little Pike has won the Silver Foreword Indies Award with the US edition, published by Restless Books.

Juhani Karila’s Fishing For the Little Pike, our wildly successful, wonderfully weird and internationally best-selling title, has won the Silver Foreword Indies Book of the Year Award in the category Literary Fiction.

 Foreword Reviews is a US-based platform dedicated to discovering, reviewing, and sharing the work of independent publishers, and it assigns on a yearly basis a literary award for fiction, non fiction, children’s literature and general works. In the US, Fishing For the Little Pike is published by Restless Books.

Fishing For the Little Pike is Juhani Karila’s debut novel and it follows Elina Ylijaako, a young woman who is under the spell of a curse that forces her to travel back to her home village in the Finnish Lapland to fish a specific pike from a specific pond every year, or she and her childhood love will die. This year, however, the supernatural gets in the way in the form of a mythological creature haunting the pond, all while a detective is on her trail as she is suspected of murder. Funny, surprisingly wise and proudly weird, Fishing For the Little Pike was an instant hit upon its release, and it has so far travelled to 17 language territories. In Finland, it is published by Siltala.

Warmest congratulations to the author and the publishers!