A story about youth that disappears and friendship that remains.
Author: Annina Holmberg
Finnish original: Annabel Lee
Publisher: Siltala Publishing 2025
Genre: upmarket fiction
Number of pages: 378 pp.
Reading material: Finnish original, English sample, English synopsis
Annabel Lee, Lolita, Lara and Angelika are born in 1964, the year of the dragon. They grow up together in a society with strict rules and almost no supervision.
Each is named for a heroine of world literature, and each carries something of her source. Annabel Lee is the daughter of a celebrated cultural dynasty. Lolita lives with her stepfather. Lara lives far from her mother. Angelika, who narrates, watches all of it and forgives most of it.
Harassment, and worse, enters these girls’ lives early. In their world it is so ordinary that it barely registers as an event, let alone a crime. But this is not a novel about victims. All four of them want things – sex, money, status, each other’s approval – and go after them with an appetite the era did not officially extend to women. Three of the four are heading somewhere dark, none of them quietly.
Holmberg writes unapologetically: romantic, frequently funny, sometimes frankly raunchy, and fast, with a 1970s Helsinki rendered in exact detail. Beneath the plot-driven narrative runs a darker undercurrent that raises questions about power dynamics.
Annabel Lee is the first installment in a four book series spanning fifty years, each named for one of the friends.
“A girl like a ballad […]the novel is a moving portrait of young minds in turmoil, and of a friendship that does not come through the years without cracks.” –Kirjakaapin kummitus literature blog
About the author
Annina Holmberg