Previously in Not Today, Mia

Mia’s ordinary morning ended at the office with a call that could have destroyed a year-long operation. The operation was allowed to continue, but Mia’s relief did not last long. At a nearby café, she noticed a woman wearing headphones who might have been watching her. Mia decided to take a different route back to the office.

Mia returned to her office by a different route. No new challenges came her way. No one followed or watched her. She felt her mood lifting and walked with a lighter step.

Back at the office, she opened a new bottle of sparkling water and asked the same experts who had joined her on the earlier phone call to come to her room. The atmosphere was considerably more relaxed than before, and Mia spent a moment asking how Tinker Bell and Daffy Duck were doing.

The pair had joined the organisation years ago, at a time when employees’ aliases had almost been randomly picked from cartoons, which said more about Mia’s father’s sense of humour than anything else.

Poor Daffy Duck. Still, he carried his alias with honour, even though the name made absolutely everyone smile.

The organisation had rules. The only people who went by their real first names were Mia, as the director, the head of communications and the assistants.

After they had exchanged news, Mia grew serious again and returned to the morning’s phone call.

“You probably understand that Wolf’s situation is still uncertain. We need more information about his dating partner. The fact that Wolf has even the smallest suspicion about his partner’s honesty is reason enough for us to dig into the matter thoroughly. But how can anyone really evaluate all their feelings at the beginning of a relationship? This could just be normal hesitation that comes with a new relationship.”

Mia sighed. Tinker Bell nodded and Daffy Duck quietly took notes.

The tense situation had started the previous evening, when Wolf sent a message through the organisation’s emergency communications:

“I may have been exposed. The situation will become clear in the morning.”

Because the suspicion involved a new partner, Mia cursed all her employees’ relationships in her mind.

Wolf was a pleasant-looking adult man, if you liked men who didn’t bother shaving their beards and whose hair had disappeared. He had an average build and was wiry. There was just enough sparkle in his eyes that Wolf was never alone.

“Well, okay, let’s move forward with this. Lady Wolf under surveillance for a couple of days. Check the telecom data again, and the bank accounts too. Let’s continue,” Mia said.

During the morning’s phone call, Wolf had said that when he arrived at the restaurant, he saw the woman talking with a waiter. The conversation had been lively, and something in their gestures suggested that this was not the first time they had met. When Wolf came to the table, the woman blushed and the waiter quickly disappeared. He wasn’t seen in the dining room again for the rest of the evening.

Later, the woman said that the waiter was a former schoolmate. That evening, she had even dug out her old high school class photo to prove that he really was an old acquaintance. Wolf was still a little bothered by why she had felt the need to prove it further.

Tinker Bell asked what they should do next, and Mia quickly gave her instructions. Today they also needed to find out what was happening with Weasel.

Weasel was a case of her own, a really talented woman who had spent her childhood in Ankara, where her diplomat father had been stationed. She spoke Turkish and Finnish fluently, and her years of study in London had polished her English to the point that very few people could tell she wasn’t a native speaker. At the moment, Weasel was in Istanbul.

Mia also had a personal relationship with Weasel. She was Weasel’s godmother. No one other than Weasel and her family knew this. Not even the organisation knew about the connection. Mia was always filled with a warm feeling when she thought about how talented her goddaughter was.

Weasel was at the geographical starting point of the organisation’s current operation. She had infiltrated the Turkish cell of a known criminal organisation. This cell specialised in human trafficking. The trafficking route started in Istanbul and went through Finland to the Nordic countries.

Wolf and Weasel were working on the same operation. They knew of each other, but during the operation they had no contact with each other.

Mia had not heard from Weasel for a few days.

She was not worried. Yet.

Mia nevertheless had an unpleasant feeling that something was wrong with the operation. She felt it in her stomach.

Lost in thought, she took two apples from her bag. She couldn’t be bothered to go out to eat. Actually, she wasn’t even hungry. Her stress levels had been high that morning, and she thought she would close her eyes for a moment.

The high heels were kicked off again. After taking a bite of an apple, she took a nap blanket from the cupboard in her room and curled up on the sofa in her office.

Mia wondered what was wrong with this operation. She had had a chilling feeling about it from the beginning. The private organisation was only brought in when national organisations couldn’t get the job done, or when there was something rotten about a case. In this case, they had confirmed information that there were suspected double agents involved in the human trafficking operation.

Mia woke up to the sound of her phone.

Damn it, she had slept for an hour!

The caller was Tinker Bell.

“Listen, I’m looking at Lady Wolf’s accounts, and something doesn’t quite add up. Her expenses are high and her income looks small in comparison. There are transfers from a credit card to her account, but I can’t see any repayments to the credit card anywhere. So maybe Wolf really is in hot water now.”

“Oh, damn. Find out more, but don’t tell me how.”

Mia ended the call. They needed to get a message to Weasel that there was some concern at the Finnish end. Mia called Weasel’s number and left a message.

“Aunt Maiju here, just calling to ask how you’re doing. You’re probably busy, but if you have time, could you call me? I tried calling your father too, but no one is answering there either. So, Aunt Maiju was here. Kisses, bye bye!”

Mia quickly called her assistant and asked them to order a couple of tacos from Taco Bell, with plant-based protein, and a plate of nachos. That would keep her going for a while.

Weasel’s situation would have to be investigated if she didn’t make contact today. There were also things to go through with Daffy Duck, and a situation update was in order.

To be continued...

Author’s Note:
I wrote the original story in Finnish and used AI to help translate it into English and check the language. The characters, plot, ideas and original text are my own.

This book’s journey onto people’s bookshelves began in the same year I was born. I first read the book at school, in lower secondary school, and since then I have returned to it a few times.

How The Year of the Hare and its main character, Vatanen, opened up to me as a schoolgirl is very different from how I see it now.

The book tells, with a twinkle in its eye, about Vatanen, who has a job as a journalist and a wife in the city. Vatanen is returning from a work trip with his photographer when their car hits a young hare. Vatanen goes after the injured little creature, but his rescue mission takes so long that the photographer leaves him in the forest.

Vatanen eventually finds the injured hare and takes it to a vet. This is the beginning of Vatanen breaking away from the life in which he no longer feels comfortable and which he no longer feels is his own. At the same time, Vatanen and the hare begin their journey around Finland. Along the way, they experience both cheerful and troublesome adventures.

The book is seemingly light, but there is more underneath. The story has stood the test of time because it deals with a person struggling with life. Vatanen’s life looks good on paper, but in reality it is a life of constant striving that he has grown tired of. Does that sound familiar?

In the book, Vatanen saves the young hare, but as the book progresses, the roles change. Vatanen saved the hare in order to be saved himself.

Arto Paasilinna is a skilful wordsmith, and the rhythm of his writing carries the reader along through all kinds of encounters. Vatanen and the hare experience a military exercise, a forest fire, and an encounter with a bear. The story becomes absurd as the journey continues, but it does so stylishly.

The story plays with the idea of what would happen if you simply announced that you were going to change your life. Today, it could be something like: I’ll sell my possessions and start living as a nomad, vanlife-style.

As a Finn, the idea of going into the forest is not as absurd as one might think. Most Finns have a close relationship with nature, many have a summer cottage right by the forest, and they spend a lot of time there. My childhood home is right on the edge of a forest, and when I was a child, many of our games were played there. Finns are still enthusiastic berry and mushroom pickers. I can imagine, however, that in every culture this is not quite as ordinary.

Paasilinna has filled the book with increasingly ridiculous plot twists, but they are balanced by the narrator, who almost laconically drops these twists in front of the reader without making a big deal out of them. The use of the narrator works brilliantly in the book. It almost feels as if you are watching a nature documentary. The narrator’s dry style makes the situations and the text hilarious.

As a schoolgirl, I saw the book as a funny novel and understood that it was somehow significant because we had to read it. The rat race of adult life was, of course, still a completely abstract idea to me then. Arto Paasilinna’s writing still appealed to me as a schoolgirl; the book definitely wasn’t boring.

Now I think about the book differently. It brilliantly describes how something we have aimed for in life may not turn out to be what we expected it to be, and, on the other hand, how the encounters that come our way can quickly affect our everyday lives.

I’m not planning to break away from my life, but if I were, it could very well be moving to Lapland for a year, into the wilderness, to observe nature and its life.

This book is a quick journey, in a humorous way, into the Finnish state of mind. There is warmth, perseverance, and even melancholy. If you have never read Finnish authors before, this book is an excellent place to start. A man and a hare, at their best, offer a moment far away from the rush of everyday life.

Author’s Note

This text was written by me. AI was used only to translate my original Finnish text into English and to correct clear language errors.

I already had this book in my hands in Ankara in July, but I put it on the shelf at the time. At the Night of Books organized in conjunction with the Night of the Arts in Helsinki, the Academic Bookstore paperbacks were on sale for 20 percent, and I ended up buying the book.

My expectations were not high, although the theme was interesting: three sisters had lost perhaps the very sister who has held them together the most. The book describes different ways of grieving and how difficult it can be to meet each other after a loss. The sisters are financially well-off but mentally broken – another reminder that you can’t escape grief with success.

The gallery of characters felt overly precisely structured and described. The sisters were clichédly different: a success story, a fighter, and a poor-girl survivor. They have had moments together, but in the face of grief they have lived a year on their own. The book presents the separate lives of three people more than a shared sisterhood. These separate lives meet and search for a common interface and a lost sense of childhood family. None of the sisters is particularly likeable, which is why they initially remain cold as characters.

I also got the impression that the author had once read Little Women, as many of us readers have. Perhaps this brought something too much to the characters.

Alongside the grief are the sisters’ own pain points, addictions and the ability to feel something only through pain. I think Mellors sometimes gets stuck in the description of addictions. When I understand their existence as a reader, they don’t need to play such a big role; the emphasis on the description takes space away from the dynamics between the sisters.

Despite everything, the sisters gradually began to draw me in. I still sighed a couple of times when I was reading another book about people who are financially independent, not ultra-rich, but who can explore their grief for a year. Only a few really have the opportunity or the means to do so. For most people, life moves forward even in the midst of grief, when they just have to take care of their responsibilities. I thought the same thing about Meg Mason’s Sorrow and Bliss.

I would have liked a normal life for the sisters, or more humanity, alongside the grief. Now the grief seemed to be filled with a lot of bitterness towards the sisters, parents, and life, and it was sometimes difficult to get close to the characters.

The text of the book was at its best fluid, and I read it quickly. I could say that I liked the book and I didn’t like it. Sometimes I got into it, and then it made me continue until the end.

I could recommend the book to readers who love descriptive text and can stand clichéd characters.

Author’s Note: This review is based entirely on my own reading experience and thoughts. AI was used to translate my original Finnish text into English and to correct grammar.

I didn’t expect an easy read, but the book managed to surprise me with its depth.

The first thing I noticed in the book was its brutality. The book doesn’t spare the reader from nightmares or rapes. The second thing I noticed was how many layers the book has, and the third was its structure. Even in the book, the main character doesn’t have a voice. She is not the narrator of the story. Yeong-hye is described from the outside, and her inner voice gets very little space even in her own story. I suspect this was a deliberate choice by the author.

The book tells the story of a South Korean woman who was chosen as a wife. When her mental health begins to unravel after a period of insomnia and after becoming a vegetarian, she begins to break away from the shell of the traditional wife.

Yeong-hye is a woman who is there for others to use, first in the role of a wife, then to satisfy sexual desires and as an art project, and finally her sister becomes the only person she has who resembles family, apart from her sister’s child.

The book challenges us to think about the relationship between humans and nature. The main character feels a strong desire to become a tree, one that is separate from everything that belongs to the human world.

Kang criticises South Korean patriarchy and its narrow view of womanhood, and succeeds brilliantly. The author’s writing is controlled and restrained, which is in great contrast with the content. At times, as a reader, I felt as if I were in a dream world. Can the world really be this brutal?

As a realist, I find the description believable. There is a lot of evil in the world, and evil hides many different fates beneath it, so why wouldn’t there be a woman in the world who wants to disappear into a tree?

While reading, I kept thinking that any one of us can become mentally ill in an emotionally unhealthy environment. Did the family miss the weak signals, or did they not want to see them because they were afraid of shame? And did that then lead the whole family into much greater shame?

The events of the book melted towards destruction. The spiral could no longer be brought under control.

In the middle of all this horror, I admire how brilliantly the author’s writing carries the story. I also thought a lot about the cultural nuances that I probably missed because I don’t know the culture. Kang is a demanding writer. She doesn’t explain.

It may be that after I have digested the story for a little while longer, I will return to this book again.

I definitely recommend reading it. I already started thinking about who in my own circle I would recommend this book to, and who I wouldn’t.

Author’s Note: I wrote this review based entirely on my own reading experience and reflections. I used AI to help translate my original Finnish text into English and to check the language and clarity. The opinions, interpretations, and final choices are my own.

Mia lived alone, and right now she wished she had another person to whom she could vent her frustration about getting so little sleep. She had been living alone for five years. After her divorce, she hadn’t found a suitable partner, but then again, she hadn’t exactly been actively looking for one either. She had a job she loved and plenty of hobbies. What did she need a partner for, other than perhaps right now?

Mia dressed carefully. She had a distinctive style. Some might say she was beginning to look like one of those culture ladies, with her colourful dresses and Vimma cardigans. Mia herself loved colours and a comfortable, relaxed style. Even a relaxed style was carefully put together.

The right underwear and exactly the right shade of lipstick were things Mia’s mother had taught her about. They gave you confidence for the whole day. Little by little, Mia’s morning routine had come to revolve around getting dressed and doing her makeup. First skincare, with creams to prevent wrinkles, then the base, and finally, as if painting with brushes, an expression onto her face that would last until the afternoon. Or so she always thought in the mornings, only to notice that for some reason her makeup was always smudged by lunchtime at the latest.

Mia was out early, as she always was these days. For a moment, she wondered whether to hop on a tram or walk to the metro. The weather was good, so she walked briskly to the station and headed for the eastbound metro.

At this time of the morning, there was plenty of space on the metro, which pleased Mia. She didn’t like the feeling of sitting next to someone else at all. Smells made her anxious, and that anxiety could turn into a migraine attack in an instant.

When the metro arrived at Kalasatama, she walked down the stairs to street level and headed towards her workplace. Mia tapped her staff card and stepped into the empty lift. The lift doors opened directly into their office.

She sighed deeply. Her hands were sweating as she opened the door to her own room. She took off her coat, changed into her high heels, instinctively reapplied her lipstick and took a cold bottle of sparkling water from her own fridge. She sat down and opened her computer.

She was ready to begin her day as the head of an international organisation.

An organisation very few people knew about.

It didn’t take long before the office outside Mia’s door began to wake up. Assistants and experts started trickling in. Mia stayed away from all the commotion. She was waiting for an important call and rehearsing in her mind how she should react to it.

She didn’t yet know what the call would bring. Was the sense of danger bubbling inside her simply oversensitivity, or was the situation in the field becoming critical?

At exactly eight o’clock, there was a knock on Mia’s door, and she opened it to two experts who appeared relaxed. They spoke too loudly, almost giggling.

The next five minutes would tell them whether their operation had been exposed or whether they could continue.

The call came at 8:09. It was short.

Mia gripped her chair with her left hand, but kept her gaze and face open. Yes, a year’s worth of their work was in danger of being wiped out, but now more than ever, the situation had to be kept under control.

The serious atmosphere and Mia’s colourful clothes were at odds with each other. To an outsider, it might have looked comical, although there was nothing comical about it.

The operation could continue. They had got away with a scare.

Mia’s voice trembled slightly as she gave the experts their instructions. After they left, she could no longer control herself and began to cry. In her mind, she thanked the higher powers and the fact that the door was soundproof.

Now she dared to take the small handgun from her handbag and put it in the safe.

Not today.

She checked her already slightly smudged makeup, applied some powder, drank her sparkling water and went to the café next door to get an oat latte. The day had only just begun, but now there was a glimmer of a smile in Mia’s eyes.

The young people in the café looked at Mia and smiled. One of them whispered to the other,

“I wonder what theatre that lady is from. All she’s missing is a pair of big, decorative glasses.”

Mia waited while the barista prepared her usual drink and then sat down at a table in the café. She took an old Nokia phone from her pocket and dialled a familiar number.

“Hi, it’s Maiju! I’d like to book a massage for tomorrow, if you still have any appointments available. Yes. Okay. Six o’clock works.”

After the call, she wrote the appointment in her small calendar and made another call. This time to her father.

“Hi, it’s me. Everything’s fine. How’s your back today? Good. If I come by tomorrow, I can update you a little on the situation. Yes, I’ll come after my massage.”

Her father had worked for the same organisation and understood Mia’s work. With him, Mia could reflect on her feelings.

If only everything would still be fine tomorrow.

Mia noticed a woman sitting about two metres away from her, wearing headphones. Mia finished her coffee, looked the woman straight in the eye and flashed her a smile.

“Beautiful weather today, isn’t it?”

The woman looked confused for a moment, then returned her smile.

Well. Perhaps it would be a good idea to take a different route back to the office.

To be continued..

Author’s Note: I wrote the original story in Finnish and used AI to help translate it into English and check the language. The characters, plot, ideas and original text are my own.

Satu Rämö is a Finnish author who lives in Iceland with her family. Before her career as an author, she wrote non-fiction books, and her background is in economics. Satu has made a phenomenal rise to become perhaps one of the most loved authors in Finland at the moment, and that is what I thought I would write about today.

Rämö’s success is not an accident. She has worked for it.

The Hildur book series takes place in an Icelandic village. Hildur investigates crimes in the area, most often murders, together with her Finnish colleague Jakob. Each book has its own story, but at the same time, they reveal piece by piece the tragic events in Hildur’s own family. So there is always a hook leading towards the next book.

Hildur knows the area and its people, but she has her own trauma. Her parents died tragically and her sisters disappeared, and Hildur tries to solve the mystery of their disappearance alongside her work. Rämö does not really describe Hildur’s appearance, but her physical endurance is shown through her surfing in the cold Atlantic waves. It creates an image of a strong and physically powerful character. As a reader, you get the feeling that Hildur is not easily shaken. She can endure pain, cold and difficult conditions. Her unhappy family background affects her personality and her life. Rämö’s Hildur is genuine, direct and likeable.

Jakob, as her partner, offers us Finns a nice window into how a Finnish person grows to become part of an Icelandic village while still looking at the world through Finnish eyes.

In Finnish, the books are named after the first name of a character. Jakob has also got his own book, which looks more closely at the background of this Finnish man who lives in Iceland and knits Icelandic woollen sweaters.

There is one contradiction in the books that surely also keeps readers hooked. The characters are human, not perfect. That makes the books feel real. On the other hand, the crimes described in the books are absolutely terrible and sometimes almost at the limits of being believable, especially when the village itself is described as a rather peaceful place.

Rämö describes Iceland beautifully. The descriptions are so postcard-like that more than once I have found myself searching for flights to Reykjavík.

Why do I keep reading the Hildur books? I love the way Rämö describes Iceland, and by now I feel that I have found my way into Hildur’s world. With each book, I get to travel there again with characters who have already become familiar to me.

The books hold my attention well, but they also demand concentration. There are several threads running through the investigations, and keeping track of them requires me to really immerse myself in the story. And that is part of their appeal. For a while, my own everyday life is left behind.

The books have become a phenomenon in Finland, partly through skilful media work. The author herself is an absolutely charming personality. I have met her once at a book fair while she was signing books. Rämö is active on social media, where she shares both her everyday life and celebrations. In addition to being an author, she is a professional in communication and marketing. She also works hard, visiting libraries and attending author events.

Rämö has said that she uses Excel spreadsheets to help her when she writes, and I think this says something about her desire to create the characters and plots carefully while keeping all the threads in her own hands.

Rämö’s books have already found readers far beyond Finland. The Hildur series has sold around two million copies across 29 territories. The first book, Hildur, was published in English as The Clues in the Fjord, translated from Finnish by Kristian London.

If I have to look at the Hildur series completely critically, I would probably point to the fact that, having grown up in a small Finnish village myself, I find it difficult to believe that there could be so much evil and so many bad people in one place.

But hey, this is fiction, and the wonderful descriptions of the Icelandic landscapes make up for this flaw.

The Hildur Series

In this article, I use the original Finnish titles of the books.

* Hildur (2022) — The Clues in the Fjord (English edition 2024)

* Rósa & Björk (2023) — The Grave in the Ice (English edition 2025)

* Jakob (2023) — The Shadow of the Northern Lights (English edition 2025)

* Rakel (2024)

* Tinna (2025)

The English translations are by Kristian London.

Author’s note: I used AI to help translate this article from Finnish into English and to check the language. The thoughts, opinions and reading experience are my own.

It is the early 1960s and Isabel lives in the Dutch countryside, devoting her life to taking care of her family home. She is deeply attached to the house and lives her own quiet life until her brother brings his girlfriend Eva from Amsterdam to visit there.

To Isabel, Eva is chaos. She disturbs the peaceful and carefully controlled life Isabel has created for herself. The tension between the two women begins to build and eventually breaks when they start to feel attracted to each other. They struggle against this attraction, which really only creates more tension between them.

The dynamic changes when Eva stays in the countryside for a longer time, living in Isabel’s territory, in her house. Their sexual attraction is described in great detail and at considerable length. This, however, is not the biggest turn in the story. That comes when Eva’s connection to the house is revealed.

Alongside the intense love story, the novel deals with the treatment of Jewish people during and after the Second World War. There are dark secrets connected to a period when one group of people lost their rights, their property and even their lives. The biggest revelation is delivered through diary entries, and I thought this worked very well.

There is a lot of beautiful layering in the book, but the changes in rhythm made it an uneven reading experience for me. At times the tension between the women felt electric, but that intensity was not maintained throughout the novel. For me, the long section focusing on sex was unnecessary. It broke the tension of the novel without really moving the story forward. Less would have been more for me when it came to the sex scenes, although the falling in love itself was very well portrayed.

I liked the understated style, and especially the way the author described each woman’s relationship with the house. In fact, I found this more interesting than some of their interactions with each other. The house itself became one of the characters.

A skilful and layered novel, even if the uneven rhythm kept it from being a completely satisfying reading experience for me.

★★★★☆

Author’s Note: I used AI to help with English translation and grammar. The thoughts, opinions and reading experience are entirely my own.

Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason was a difficult book for me.

I tried to read it twice and couldn’t continue. There was no specific reason. There was simply a lack of chemistry between me and the text.

The third time was successful, and I finally finished it.

The strange thing is that the book is beautifully written. I like the way Mason uses words, and there was never anything wrong with the writing or the structure. So I started wondering why I found the book so difficult.

I think, for me, it was partly a question of class.

I found it difficult to read about someone who had so much and who also seemed to have the possibility to remain inside her suffering for such a long time. I know, of course, that mental illness has nothing to do with how much money you have. A privileged life does not protect anyone from pain.

But perhaps privilege changes something else.

The book seems to ask its reader a rather uncomfortable question between the lines: does a privileged life give us more space to remain inside our suffering?

I kept wondering why wealth is made so visible throughout the novel. Belgravia is mentioned again and again, constantly placing the characters within a very particular social class. Yet one element that so often accompanies poor mental health seems almost absent: money.

Nobody appears to worry very much about what happens to their income when they cannot work or function. The practical fears that can accompany illness — paying the rent, keeping a job, simply managing everyday life — seem strangely distant.

It felt as though one element of the picture was missing.

I don’t know Meg Mason’s work well enough to say whether this was intentional. Perhaps that discomfort is exactly what the novel is meant to create. Perhaps the privilege surrounding Martha is not incidental at all.

Or perhaps this says as much about me as a reader as it does about the book.

Maybe that is why I never really connected with Martha. I understood her suffering, but I didn’t particularly like her. Those two things can exist at the same time.

Interestingly, I did like her sister Ingrid.

Perhaps that is what finally made Sorrow and Bliss interesting to me. It took me three attempts to finish it, and I am still not sure I liked it. But it left me thinking about something beyond Martha herself: not who has the right to suffer, because everyone does, but who has the space to stop when they do.

And despite all this, I’m not quite done with Meg Mason. Her new novel, Sophie, Standing There, is coming out this autumn and is being described as funnier than Sorrow and Bliss. Considering how much I liked Mason’s writing even when I struggled with Martha, I think I may have to give her another chance.

AI Author’s Note: The thoughts, opinions and reading experience in this piece are entirely my own. AI was used for English translation and grammar support.

Everyday life was busy, and they loved escaping it every now and then. At home, things sometimes felt a little too predictable. There was always cleaning to do, laundry waiting, food to cook. Outi was usually the one who planned their little escapes, sometimes surprising Mika with them.

Mika was having a slow morning at work. A couple of meetings had been cancelled, all his projects were in good shape, and he found himself thinking about the coming weekends — and then simply about that evening.

It would be nice to do something with Outi.

On impulse, Mika booked a hotel in Koli, near Joensuu, for the weekend and immediately started planning some hiking in one of Finland’s national landscapes. The hotel would have a magnificent view over Lake Pielinen, and the trails would give them something to work with now that they had both suddenly become enthusiastic about running.

It was several hours from Helsinki, of course, but they could take the train and rent a car in Joensuu.

Yeah. The plan was coming together nicely.

They could do something fun in Helsinki tonight too. Maybe he could call Outi and tell her to come straight into the city centre after work. She probably wouldn’t want to go anywhere fancy, not in her work clothes and already a little tired, so there was no point making a dinner reservation.

Mika settled on Café Esplanad. They could get salads there, and some of the best cinnamon buns in the city.

The August evenings were still wonderfully warm, although the cooler breeze was already giving small hints of autumn.

Summer in the North was short.

Outi was surprised when she noticed that Mika had called and sent her a couple of messages.

That was unusual.

Mika hardly ever messaged her during the day. Somehow, without ever really discussing it, they had agreed that work hours were work hours and they didn’t need to keep messaging each other.

When Outi opened the messages, she immediately cheered up.

Yes, Mika.

Her Mika had done something impulsive.

The message said he would be waiting for her at a café after work. Outi almost felt like humming, but she still had to concentrate for a little while longer.

Outi arrived at Café Esplanad first and found them a table outside. The sun was surprisingly hot. It was one of those August afternoons when the clouds kept cooling everything down, but the moment one moved away from the sun, the heat suddenly seemed twice as strong.

Outi lowered her sunglasses over her eyes, took off her cardigan and fiddled with her phone while she waited.

Soon she saw Mika walking towards her.

They went inside to get salads and iced coffees.

Once they were settled at the table, Mika could barely contain himself. He wanted to tell her what he had done.

So he just blurted it out.

“We’re going to Koli for the weekend.”

“Um. What?”

For a second, Mika worried that maybe the idea had been too spontaneous. Maybe Outi didn’t like it after all.

His voice was a little less enthusiastic when he continued.

“We’re going to Koli. There’s a spa, the running trails are excellent, and there’ll be plenty of scenery for you to photograph for your Instagram.”

Outi reached across the table, took Mika’s hand and squeezed it gently.

“Thank you. This is absolutely wonderful. I was just wondering how we’re getting there and whether a weekend is enough. But I’m guessing you’ve already thought about all of that.”

She gave him a fond grin.

“Yeah. I just suddenly missed North Karelia, and for once I wanted to surprise you. Are you surprised?”

“Well, yes!”

Mika told her the rest of his plan, and Outi nodded along.

She didn’t tell him that she had actually been longing for a quiet weekend at home.

This was still a wonderful thing.

“Now we just have to keep our fingers crossed for good weather so we can actually get outside,” she said.

Outi realised it had been years since she had last been to Koli. She had often gone there with her family when she was growing up, skiing in winter and hiking in summer.

It would be nice to go there with Mika.

Outi and Mika had finished their salads when Mika said, “I don’t think we’re in any hurry to get home. Should we have cinnamon buns too?”

Outi laughed. So Mika had had an ulterior motive for asking her here after all — he was craving something sweet.

Outi suggested they share one, since the buns were enormous. Mika stood his ground and insisted they each get their own. They could always take the rest home.

Outi had no choice but to agree, but really, she was just happy.

Maybe this was exactly the kind of moment she needed in the middle of the week.

They had been eating for a while when Mika started talking.

“We used to spend our winter holidays in Koli quite often. My dad taught us to ski there, and over the years, we kids got pretty fearless. My uncle lived around there, and that’s where my dad was from too. I remember sometimes it was absolutely freezing, but we just put on more clothes.”

Outi listened, and a faint blush began to rise in her cheeks.

“Wait. When were you there with your family?”

“The last few times must have been sometime in the mid-nineties. And before that, maybe five years in a row.”

Outi stared at him.

“We were there at the same time!”

“What?”

“Seriously, can this be true? How have we never talked about Koli?”

Mika thought for a moment, then his face began to change.

“No. You weren’t always with two girls about your age, were you?”

Outi looked at him and gave a little laugh.

“Yeah. My sister and my cousin.”

“And you weren’t hanging around with a slightly older boy?”

They both felt something shift between them, so suddenly that the hairs on their arms stood up.

They knew.

They hadn’t met for the first time fifteen years ago. They had already been watching each other long before that.

Disbelief was written all over both their faces.

“How?” Mika said. “How have I never realised this before?”

“I don’t understand it either,” Outi said. Then she pointed at him. “You. You were the boy in the yellow jacket and red trousers!”

Mika nodded.

“Guilty.”

They both burst out laughing, holding hands across the table, still unable to believe it.

“And you had pink trousers and a white jacket.”

“Yes!”

“And we rode the chairlift together loads of times. I just never really dared to talk to you. I was so shy,” Outi said.

“And I was the fucking king of the mountain,” Mika laughed. “Best skier there, with the best girls on the lift.”

“This is completely insane.”

“My mum has always said your parents look so familiar.”

“Well, no wonder. We spent our holidays in the same place.”

“We always stayed in a caravan,” Mika said. “My uncle kept it parked there.”

“We stayed at the hotel,” Outi said.

“Well,” Outi said after a moment, “maybe we really do need to go to Koli and reminisce.”

“No. Now we’re going there to make some more memories together.”

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Author’s Note: This story is part of my Outi & Mika series. The characters and story are mine. I used AI to help with the English translation and grammar.

The Moomins are, of course, wonderful, but today they are easily thought of mainly as a world for children, partly because of the later television adaptations. I warmly recommend reading Jansson’s original Moomin books as an adult too. Personally, I have got the most out of them as an adult. There is loneliness, fear, freedom, feeling like an outsider, friendship and love in them in ways that can open up differently at different stages of life.

Jansson is also one of my own role models as a writer. I especially admire the way she describes small moments and allows tension to exist even between people who are close to each other, without feeling the need to smooth it away. Her characters are allowed to annoy each other, be selfish, get angry and say things directly. Jansson does not start explaining to the reader who was right or wrong, nor does she put her characters down because of their bad moments. She trusts that love and friendship can carry the rough edges too.

The Summer Book was originally published in Swedish as Sommarboken in 1972. Translated into English by Thomas Teal, the novel takes the reader to a small island in the Finnish archipelago. Life on the island is strongly influenced by the weather and nature, which Jansson describes beautifully and with respect. The island provides a wonderful setting for the summer that Sophia and her grandmother spend together and for their conversations.

There is no single plot in The Summer Book. It is a description of moments during one summer.

The conversations between Sophia and her grandmother are sharp. They are both stubborn, and they regularly sulk with each other. They do not need to be constantly affectionate or even understand each other, because underneath it all is the trust that the other person will stay. It is exactly this edge in their relationship that I find comforting.

There is also a lot of humour in these small moments, and sometimes it feels like the humour belongs only to Sophia and her grandmother. It made me think of the humour between my own mother and my daughter. When we watch television together, I don’t always understand what the two of them are laughing at. Sometimes they burst into laughter mid-conversation, at what seems to me entirely the wrong moment — there’s a kind of competition between them over who can say something more outrageous, without either of them actually being crude. I don’t always get the joke, but I can see what’s happening between them.

While reading the book, I also thought about my own relationships with my grandmothers. Many memories came to mind, including those in which our mutual frustration showed.

There is a sense of freedom in the grandmother’s life, but her physical limitations bring new kinds of restraints. Sophia has lost her mother, her father is on the island, and grief is present in the book, but it does not confine the book to it.

For me, the most familiar part of Tove Jansson’s writing is, of course, the Moomins, and in a way, the edginess of the Moomin world can also be seen on this island. Not everything is soft and fluffy; the characters are allowed to be angular and complex in their own ways. Trust and love carry that too.

Jansson is at her best in moments like the one when millions of tiny moths dance above the island’s tallest pine, rising and falling together.

I reread The Summer Book for this piece. This collection of moments gave me room to breathe. The writing breathed, and I breathed as a reader. When I reached the last page, I was genuinely annoyed that I had to leave the island.

Author’s note: The thoughts, memories and words are mine. I used AI to help me translate the text into English and tidy up the grammar.

Liisi was annoyed.

She had promised to meet the mother of her goddaughter after work at a café, but now she was exhausted. A headache was beginning to build, sending sharp little stabs of pain through her temples every now and then.

She wondered if she could still cancel. Merja was probably already on her way to Café Esplanad and would surely be disappointed if she didn’t show up.

The day had been long and tiring. The atmosphere at the office had been tense. There had been many changes in her team lately, and it left Liisi feeling anxious. She used to love the office and the people she worked with. Now all that remained were the occasional tired coffee breaks.

She swallowed a painkiller, finished the last of her energy drink, packed her bag, and decided to hurry to meet Merja.

Merja was already waiting when Liisi arrived. She had bought two enormous cinnamon buns but called out that she hadn’t dared to order Liisi’s coffee without asking first.

Liisi returned with an oat milk latte and sat down beside her. Merja had found a lovely table on the terrace, and almost immediately Liisi felt she had made the right choice by coming instead of escaping home.

For a while they simply drank their coffee and ate their cinnamon buns. After the first few bites, Merja finally asked how things were going.

Liisi let out a long sigh.

“Nothing much to report, really. Work, the gym, books, and dreaming about trips. That’s about it. No new men. Not even another hopeless crush on some completely unattainable man. And work... well, work is what it is.”

Merja thought for a moment.

“Our lives really are in completely different stages right now. I’d give almost anything for the kind of everyday life you have. After work I pick up the kids, do laundry, make dinner, supervise baths, and by the time I finally get everyone listening to a bedtime story, I’m usually the one falling asleep while reading it.”

She smiled.

“Pasi gave me tonight off and is handling everything at home. He’d do even more if he could, but you know what life is like when you’re self-employed. There’s always work.”

Liisi bit the inside of her cheek before answering.

“Maybe. But you still have Pasi and the children. I go home to an empty apartment.”

Silence settled between them for a moment.

Then Merja burst into laughter.

“Should we swap for a week? You take Pasi and the kids, and I’ll happily take your books and your gym classes.”

Liisi couldn’t help laughing too. Merja’s laughter had always been contagious, the kind that spread from one person to another like a yawn.

For a while they focused on their cinnamon buns again before their conversation drifted back to their university days, when they had wandered from one student party to another around their university town.

Suddenly Liisi remembered something.

“Have you heard anything about Jaana?”

Merja’s smile faded.

“It’s been a while, but I know roughly how she’s doing. Not very well.”

She paused.

“Her husband became seriously ill about a year ago. Jaana is his full-time caregiver now.”

Liisi sat quietly for a moment.

“Maybe I shouldn’t complain about my own life. It’s sad. We had so much fun during our final year at university. Back then, none of us realised how quickly life could change once we became adults.”

Merja nodded, then grinned.

“’Adults?’ I think you mean middle-aged.”

That made them both laugh again.

Soon Merja started wondering if she and Pasi knew any decent single men, and Liisi felt like throwing the remaining crumbs of her cinnamon bun at her.

When the laughter finally died down, Liisi grew serious.

“I’ve actually been wondering if I should download Tinder again. I don’t really meet anyone anymore.”

Merja’s eyes lit up instantly.

“Let’s make you a profile right now!”

Liisi protested, but eventually gave in.

After choosing the right photos, they wrote her profile together, both trying not to laugh.

“A slightly worn-out Emily of New Moon looking for her Tom Sawyer.”

“Bonus points if you read books, make excellent coffee, and start your first message with something more original than ‘How are you?’”

By then they were laughing so hard that tears filled their eyes.

Only then did they notice the café was about to close.

They hugged goodbye, and Liisi handed Merja the gift card to Normal that her goddaughter had wished for, along with bags of sweets for Merja’s other children.

That was simply who Liisi was. She always remembered people, even when there wasn’t a birthday or any special occasion.

Liisi stepped onto the tram and waved at Merja, who was waiting for her bus.

“I’m so glad I came instead of going straight home.”

She had just unlocked the front door of her apartment building when her phone buzzed.

Match.

Author’s Note
I wrote this story myself. AI was used only to help polish the English language and improve grammar where needed. The story, characters, dialogue, and creative choices are entirely my own.

I very rarely read historical fiction, let alone books connected to the history of natural science. Maybe that is why I had avoided this book, even though I had heard many people praise it. Now that I have promised to introduce Finnish literature to you, I had a good reason to read it.

Iida Turpeinen is a Helsinki-based author and literary scholar. She is currently working on a doctoral dissertation about the intersection of literature and natural science. She spent several years doing research for this book and her research background is visible in the novel, but especially her flowing storytelling makes the book memorable and easy to read.

And what a gem this book is!

The book begins at the LUOMUS - Natural History Museum in Helsinki. It is a place that is very dear to me. I often visited it with my daughter when she was younger, and I have also been there with my pupils. Steller’s sea cow was already familiar to me from the museum, but now I finally got to read its whole history. I would never have believed that such powerful stories were connected to it.

Turpeinen follows the journey of Steller’s sea cow’s bones to Helsinki and tells about the people connected to them along the way. Steller, the naturalist and theologian after whom this huge animal was named, joined Captain Bering’s expedition, where they were searching for a sea route from Asia to America. The year was 1741, and they left with two ships.

Well, the journey did not go exactly as planned. It even became Captain Vitus Bering’s last journey. Steller hoped he would have a chance to study nature, and he got that chance when the expedition became stranded on Bering Island. Only one damaged ship was left and the crew was starving. Soon they started eating the gentle giants of the sea that had never learned to fear humans: the sea cows. Steller studied the sea cows carefully, measured them and wrote down his observations. In the end, what was left of the crew returned home, taking Steller and his observations with them.

The University of Helsinki wanted very much to get the sea cow’s bones for its collections and research. The task was given to Hampus Furuhjelm, the Finnish governor of Russian Alaska. At this point Turpeinen continues the story through the eyes of Hampus’s wife, Anna. Hampus marries Anna because he needs a strong and capable wife, and soon Anna travels to Alaska, first spending some time in European high society. Anna feels early that’s she is pregnant and the beginning of Anna’s pregnancy is described beautifully. While reading, I felt as if I was watching a nature documentary.

As I was reading Turpeinen made me, a reader, observe human beings too. Turpeinen succeeds in placing humans among all living creatures. She writes about humans on the same level as other living beings, but in this story humans are the predators who destroy their surroundings and continue causing biodiversity loss even today.

Sometimes the sea cows and their extinction move into the background while the novel follows how the fur trade also destroys other animal populations, such as sea otters, which were hunted almost to extinction because of their valuable fur.

A harsh everyday life is waiting for Anna in Alaska. But she is not the last voice in the novel. The next storytellers bring their own perspectives to the events, until the bones of Steller’s sea cow finally find their present home.

Just think about it: only 27 skeletons of Steller’s sea cow remain. It is sad that it never learned to fear humans. Thank you, Iida Turpeinen, for this wonderful story. I would never have taken this journey without your careful research and your ability to write.

The next time I walk past Steller’s sea cow in the museum, I will stop for a moment and say I am sorry.

Author’s Note:

I read Elolliset in Finnish, so this review is based on the original language. AI helped me translate it into English, but the thoughts, opinions, and reading experience are entirely my own.

The love of reading runs in my family. My father recommended adventure books, while through my mother came girls’ books. My great-aunt worked at the library, so in that sense, too, the library always felt familiar.

And when my parents first met, my mother was working in a bookshop, and my father became a regular customer. But perhaps that’s a story for another time.

When I was school-aged, I read absolutely everything. We had the classics at home, and from the library I sometimes borrowed books from the adult section—until that came to an end. I had read a whole stack of Agatha Christie mysteries. I loved the stories, but afterwards I couldn’t really sleep. Maybe the Sandman forgot to visit. Or maybe I was simply too scared to fall asleep and as a result, I was no longer allowed to borrow Agatha Christie’s books.

Then came the years when young adult books contained everything that mattered. Sometimes my parents didn’t believe how quickly I read, and they even quizzed me about Merri Vik’s Lotta books to make sure I had actually read them. They were probably a little frustrated that we had to visit the library so often.

Let’s jump to the present. I still read a great deal. I use an audiobook service, and I also read books on my phone using a reading app. And despite having access to more books than I could ever finish, I still find it far too easy to buy new ones. My bookshelves keep reminding me that hope always arrives before free time.

Today, I think about reading from a different perspective as well.

Children today read much less than they used to, and I believe that at this very moment, in the age of AI, reading is more important than ever.

At school, I teach children to read and write within the time that the curriculum allows. The truth is that reading only at school, and only for school, is not enough to develop a deep understanding of literature.

In Finland, we have a free public library system. Even children can get their own library card, and there is a library in almost every town and neighbourhood. I encourage families to visit the library together. In Finnish libraries, children’s sections are places where children are allowed to make noise. Parents don’t need to avoid them just because their child is energetic or loud.

It wasn’t until a few years ago that I realised how many cultural differences are connected to reading. Some of my pupils grow up in homes without a single book. Instead, they may come from families with a rich tradition of storytelling.

Over the years, I have made reading lists for parents. Sometimes families don’t visit the library simply because they don’t know where to begin or which books to borrow.

Nothing makes me happier than hearing a pupil tell me that their mother first went to the library to borrow the books from my list, and that the next time they went together. I also love watching my pupils find their own favourite way to read. Before long, our daily reading time becomes a routine. They simply pick up a book and begin.

The skills I hope today’s children will develop are the ability to question what they read and the perseverance to read even long books. These are skills we need now more than ever.

Reading a long novel feeds the imagination and opens the door to other worlds. It teaches emotional skills and empathy. It also helps us recognise different voices and understand that not every story is equally trustworthy.

It is true that children and teenagers today grow up in a world that offers far more stimulation—or at least a different kind of stimulation—than the one I knew as a child. Books now compete for their free time with games and YouTube. And I think it’s wonderful that young people have choices.

What I encourage families to think about together is which choices are valuable, and how to find the right time and place for each of them.

I believe reading becomes a way of life when children see adults reading. They are read to, and they are offered books that are appropriate for their age.

Next week, I will meet my pupils again. We will visit our local library regularly. I will read aloud to them, and when it is time for silent reading, I will take out my own book.

Author’s Note: This essay is based on my own experiences, memories, and reflections. I use AI to help with grammar and language, but every idea, opinion, and personal story in this essay is my own.

One of My Favourite Writers: Pajtim Statovci

Some writers tell stories. Others leave something inside you. Pajtim Statovci is one of those writers for me.

Born in Kosovo in 1990, Statovci came to Finland as a child after his family fled the Yugoslav wars.

His novels often explore identity, memory, belonging, and the marks history leaves on people. He has won the Finlandia Prize twice, Finland’s most prestigious literary award, and several of his books have been translated into English, including My Cat Yugoslavia, Crossing, and Bolla.

His newest novel, A Cow Gives Birth at Night, translated by David Hackston, will be published in English in early 2027, and I hope it will introduce many new readers to his remarkable writing.

The novel follows a man who grew up in Finland but returns to Kosovo as an adult. As he revisits his childhood, memories begin to surface. Some are clear, others uncertain. Did it really happen? Through his journey, Statovci explores trauma, family, war, revenge, and the things people carry for years, sometimes for a lifetime.

What always brings me back to Statovci is his language. It is rich, poetic, and somehow hypnotic. Beauty and brutality exist side by side. One doesn’t make the other smaller. Still, something kept pulling me forward. I don’t think it was hope. Hope is almost too fragile in this novel. Maybe it was the protagonist’s quiet determination to remain part of his family, despite everything that had happened. He keeps returning, keeps searching, even when there are no easy answers. I wanted to understand how one person can carry so much pain and still keep going.

This is not an easy novel. There was more than one moment when I wanted to put the book down. Not because it wasn’t good, but because it was almost too much. The violence is raw. The pain feels real. Some scenes are genuinely hard to read.

As I read, I kept thinking about how unfair the world can be. How much can one person carry before the mind can no longer protect itself? And what happens then? We often believe that knowing the truth will bring peace or healing. This novel made me question that. Can the truth really make anything easier, or does it simply give a name to the pain?

It can take us into emotions we would rather avoid. Hatred. Revenge. Fear. The kind of acts that seem impossible to forgive. A novel gives us a safe place to sit with those feelings without telling us what to think. It doesn’t excuse violence or cruelty, but it helps us understand how people can be shaped by trauma, history, and impossible circumstances.

What stayed with me most is that even in all the darkness, Statovci never lets his characters become only victims or only monsters. There are small moments of humanity that don’t erase the violence, but remind us that people are always more complicated than the worst things they have done or endured.

To me, this is also a novel about different realities. About how the place and time we are born into can shape an entire life. About memory, survival, and the weight we carry from one generation to the next. About what happens inside families, and why some things remain unspoken.

When I finished the last page, I didn’t feel like I had only read a novel. I felt like I had travelled somewhere I could never have imagined on my own.

The best books don’t always leave us happy. Sometimes they leave us with questions we never expected to ask. A Cow Gives Birth at Night is one of those books. It is difficult, brutal, and impossible to forget.

Author’s Note

The content, ideas, reflections, and opinions in this review are entirely my own.

As English is not my first language, I use AI only to help with grammar, word choice, and language clarity. Every interpretation, conclusion, and final editing decision is mine.

It was time to disappear from everyday life for a moment. Outi had planned a surprise for her husband Mika. Their home was a mess after the work week — they’d only really passed through it, each on their own schedule.

There wasn’t much shared time, but life was good. They both had work they enjoyed and time for their own hobbies. Unfortunately, over their years together they’d never found a shared hobby. But they both had a talent for leaving everyday life behind. As travel companions, they were a perfect match.

Mika came to Helsinki Railway Station as agreed, straight from work and the gym. Outi waited for him hungry, wondering whether this weekend’s surprise would be a hit or a miss. She’d packed both their bags, though there hadn’t been much to pack.

It was almost eight on Friday evening and the hunger was already gnawing at Outi’s stomach — she wasn’t used to eating this late. Soon she spotted Mika among the crowd; the station was full of young people giggling and preening in little groups. Friday night, and the city was getting ready for people who wanted to celebrate. Outi was tired, and the hunger and tiredness showed on her face.

Mika came up to Outi looking happy, kissed her quickly, and took the bags to carry. He asked right away — when do we eat? Outi said they’d walk a bit first, toward the Market Square. Mika was in. They walked in silence for a while, but Mika slowly started telling her about his workday. Outi listened.

At the Market Square, Outi revealed to Mika that the walk would continue on to the Katajanokka terminal. They’d be on the overnight ferry, stopping in Tallinn harbor. Mika grinned and said he’d guessed the plan. A mini-cruise.

For many people a mini-cruise meant rowdy partying, but for Mika and Outi it meant good food and a chance to put off cleaning the house.

Outi had things on her mind and wanted to talk to Mika about them — maybe there’d be time over dinner. At the terminal they checked in at the self-service kiosk and got their cabin key and dinner card. The cabin was nicer than usual, but the cruise had otherwise been cheap.

Outi had always loved cruises on the Baltic. Something about them charmed her, and she never minded how easy it all was. In the evening, a generous buffet where you could pick exactly what you liked, and wine if you felt like it. In the morning, a big breakfast. And the sea view, whatever the season — in winter she loved listening to the ship breaking through the ice, in summer the endless light of the nightless night.

Mika hadn’t always liked cruises; earlier he’d taken rowdier trips with friends, but with Outi he’d learned to like these small getaways.

The Viking XPRS was a familiar ship to them both, and they found their cabin easily. In the cabin they held each other tightly for a long time. This shared moment was needed. For a moment they could both leave everyday life behind and focus on being together. The hugging ended when Outi’s stomach announced its hunger loudly. It made them laugh, and they headed for the restaurant.

They were both hungry and piled their plates with a mix of appetizers and hot food — a total etiquette violation, but it didn’t bother them or anyone else. They sat at a window table and looked out at the sea and the slowly darkening night.

When the worst of the hunger had eased, Outi got herself a glass of white wine and slowly began to say something that made her a little nervous.

“Have you noticed I’ve been running regularly for the past month?” Mika nodded. Outi said she’d decided that next year she would run a trail marathon. Mika burst out laughing in relief. “Really good! For a moment I thought you were about to tell me something completely different.”

“You looked so serious.”

“Yeah, I am,” Outi said. “I’m taking this seriously. I feel like I want to actually finish something. There’s always something unfinished about my work, and I want to see that I can reach this goal. These past years I’ve given up a lot of my goals.” Mika turned serious and took her hand. “Of course. I understand.”

There was nothing more to say about it. They got far too much dessert and wondered how they’d manage to eat it.

They watched a few rowdy groups for a while and sat a bit longer before heading back to the cabin.

In the morning the alarm rang early. They spent a moment close to each other, then went down for breakfast. After the first coffee, Mika said: if you’re running, I’ll run too. Under the table, Outi squeezed his leg.

After breakfast they’d be in the harbor, and at home the vacuum, the laundry pile, and a week’s dishes would be waiting.

Outi was happy walking through quiet Helsinki. It was still early. Almost the whole weekend was still ahead — and so was the shared run with Mika.

Author’s Note

This is a work of fiction.

The characters, conversations and events are imagined, although the feelings behind them are inspired by ordinary moments that many of us recognize.

English is not my first language, so I use AI as a language tool to help refine grammar, vocabulary and phrasing. The story, its characters, themes and every creative decision are entirely my own.

The calendar still says summer, but the supermarket shelves tell a different story. Beach towels and picnic blankets have given way to backpacks, notebooks and pencil cases.

It’s the time of year when the wind begins to change. Nothing dramatic, just enough to make me realise another season is already on its way.

I love my job.

Every year around this time, my thoughts begin to shift.

Without meaning to, I start counting the days that are left. I wonder if there’s still time for one more good book, a spontaneous day trip to Tallinn, a picnic on the rocks at Suomenlinna, or an evening that stretches long after sunset.

Part of me wants to disappear for just a little while longer. Into mornings without an alarm, coffee that’s still hot when I finish it, and days when nobody is calling my name.

Before the summer ends, I’ll sit on my balcony with a glass of wine after the evenings have finally turned dark enough for the string lights above the table. I’ll stay there a little longer than usual.

Because I know exactly what comes next.

The circus always begins at half past eight.

Before I’ve even put my bag down, someone is calling, “Teacher!” Another is tugging gently at my sleeve. Someone needs help tying a shoelace. Someone else is in tears because a friend didn’t save them a seat.

Some of them still can’t zip up their own jacket, but they trust me with the kind of confidence only young children have. They want to learn everything at once. Some mornings, that curiosity is the best part of my day.

By the second lesson, someone can’t find the pencil they were holding two minutes earlier.

By ten o’clock, I still haven’t had time for a bathroom break.

I wouldn’t change it.

Soon enough, my calendar will begin to fill with meetings and lesson plans. The classroom door will open. The pupils will come running in.

The circus will begin again.

The world has already moved towards autumn.

I haven’t.

Not yet.

Author’s Note

This essay is entirely my own.

The observations, memories, and reflections come from my life. Every decision about what this essay says and what it leaves unsaid is mine.

English is not my first language, so I use AI as a language tool to help refine grammar and word choice. Sometimes it helps me find a clearer way to express what I already know I want to say, but every final decision remains mine.

AI cannot remember the feeling of standing in front of supermarket shelves at the end of July, watching beach towels disappear and backpacks take their place. It cannot remember the first “Teacher!” of a new school year, or what it feels like to realise, by ten o’clock, that you still haven’t had time for a bathroom break.

Those belong to my life.

This essay is mine.

My dear girl,

You’re packing a life now,
not just boxes.

Mugs.
Soft toys.

Dyson. (Mine.)

Things that,
without either of us noticing,
became
our everyday.

I keep thinking
I’m supposed to give you
one last list.

Lock the door.

Trust your instincts.

Don’t apologise
for taking up space.

Call if it’s late.

Eat something proper.

Sleep.

But we’ve spent years
learning each other.

You already know
everything I could say.

And the rest—

the mistakes,
the glorious decisions,
the people you’ll love,
the people you’ll leave,
the nights you’ll cry
for reasons that refuse
to become words—

they’re yours.

I can’t live them
instead of you.

So I won’t stand here
pretending
I can protect you
from a world
that never once asked
for my permission.

I’ll make you
a different promise.

When your name
appears on my phone,

I’ll answer.

There will always be
a place
where you don’t have to explain
why today
was too much.

You can come home
successful,
heartbroken,
certain,
confused,
or somewhere in between.

You never have to earn
your place here.

And sometimes,

I will bite
the inside of my cheek
so hard
it almost hurts,

because every part of me
will want to say,

I warned you.

Or,

You should have…

Instead,

I’ll ask,

“Do you want a Coke?”

the same way
I always have.

Then I’ll listen

until the story
becomes
bearable to tell.

Go.

Fill your life
with stories

I would never
have dared
to write for you.

And Findus
will still be
waiting at the door,

never quite certain

which one of us

he’s waiting for.

Author’s Note

This poem is entirely my own.

The memories, the relationship, and every choice about what this poem says—and what it leaves unsaid—come from me.

English is not my first language, so I use AI as a language tool to help refine grammar and word choice. Sometimes it helps me find a clearer way to express what I already know I want to say, but every decision remains mine.

AI cannot remember my daughter leaving home, Findus waiting by the door, or why offering a Coke has always been one of the ways we say, I’m here.

Those belong to my life. The poem is mine.

I want to explain how this actually works, because I don't think "I use AI" and "AI wrote this" mean the same thing, and I'm tired of the distance between them being assumed instead of asked about.

Here is what is mine. The people are mine with their feelings, whether it's a village book club or two women in Alanya — none of them existed before I put them somewhere. The events are mine: what happens, in what order, and why one thing has to happen before another can. And the rhythm is mine, where a sentence stops short, where a scene gets one paragraph and where it gets four, when a character says less than she means to. Nobody can hand me that. I've tried to imagine someone handing me that and I can't picture what it would even look like.

What I bring to Claude or ChatGPT is usually one of three things.

The first is the language itself. English isn't my first language. I write it well enough that people don't think about it until something's slightly off — a preposition that's almost right, a phrase that's grammatically fine but that no one would actually say. I need a second pass for that, the way I'd want a native reader to check something before I sent it anywhere that mattered. That's not a small thing to admit, but it's an honest one.

The second is talking a story through before it exists. Not "write me a scene" but more like describing a problem out loud to someone who won't get bored. Why doesn't this chapter work yet. What is a character actually doing in this scene besides narrating. Sometimes I need to hear my own thinking said back to me before I can tell if it's right. I did this with people before I did it with a chat window. I still do it with people. This is just available at six in the morning when the people I'd normally call are asleep.

The third is catching my own tics. Left alone, I write things that sound finished before they're true, a tidy summary sentence, an ending that closes too neatly, three sentences in a row with the same shape. I ask for that to be flagged. Then I decide, myself, what to do about it. Most of the time the fix is to cut the sentence entirely, not to have it rewritten.

The question underneath all of this, for me, is why I'm writing in English at all, and that one has less to do with AI than with geography. Finnish is a small language. Beautiful, exact, mine — but small enough that certain kinds of conversation don't really exist in it, or exist for a much smaller room of people than I'd like to be talking to. In English I can put a café vignette next to a stranger's essay about grief and have both of us actually reading each other. And I live between two countries now, not one — Finland is where I'm from, Türkiye is where a good part of my imagination currently lives, and English is the only language that sits evenly between the two without asking me to pick.

None of that makes the Panagram number less irritating. A tool told me my own sentences weren't mine, and I don't have a way to argue with a percentage. That's the wrong argument anyway. I can only describe how the work was actually made. Claude or ChatGPT may appear somewhere in the process, usually during copyediting, sometimes as a sounding board, but the imagination, the people, the events, and the rhythm existed before the conversation started. I won't run the AI-detection badge on my posts. Where it's relevant, I'll just say plainly that they were part of the process.

Co-written with Claude, an AI writing partner — the thinking, the story, and the decisions were mine; it served as a listener and language check, exactly as this piece describes.

Every now and then, instead of going home after work, I head to Lapland Hotels Bulevardi. I check in, leave my bag in the room, and almost immediately head back outside. My Pilates studio is only a few hundred metres away, so there’s just enough time to change before class begins.

An hour later, my husband is waiting for me outside. We walk back to the hotel together.

My daughter is an adult now, and her boyfriend often spends weekends at our home. I love that this stage of life has arrived. But every now and then, we need twenty-four hours that belong only to us.

Not because we’re escaping our lives.

Simply because it’s good to remember what a weekend feels like when it belongs only to us.

After a few visits, the room has become familiar. It’s dark in the best possible way—warm and cosy without ever feeling heavy. The kind of room where your shoulders relax almost before you’ve put your bag down.

We walk to Via Tribunali.

“Two Margheritas.”

Someone once told us that’s the pizza every good pizzeria should be judged by. If they can make a perfect Margherita, everything else on the menu will probably be good too.

We’ve never felt the need to test the theory.

The waiter recognises us now.

Or perhaps he simply recognises two people who always order exactly the same thing.

Every now and then we share a dessert. I usually end up eating most of it.

Somewhere between the pizzas and dessert, we catch up on everything that didn’t quite fit into the week. Work, books, places we’d still like to visit, and the kind of conversations that are difficult to have when you’re both thinking about what needs doing next.

After dinner, we walk along Aleksanterinkatu towards Stockmann. Friday evening has its own atmosphere in Helsinki. People are meeting friends, restaurant terraces are filling up, and the city feels as though it’s taking a deep breath after the working week. We love being part of it.

Our destination isn’t a wine bar or a pub.

It’s Stockmann Herkku.

We buy snacks for a film. We almost never eat them.

Back at the hotel, the sauna is the first thing we switch on. It always takes longer than we remember, and every time we stand there wondering why we didn’t turn it on five minutes earlier.

Some of our best conversations happen there. There’s nowhere else we need to be and nothing we have to do.

When the sauna is over, we settle into bed with our film and the snacks we’ve just bought. The film rarely lasts very long.

After a busy week, sleep arrives quickly, usually long before the credits. There is something wonderfully luxurious about resting your head on an impossibly soft pillow and realising that tomorrow morning there is absolutely nowhere you have to be.

I don’t remember falling asleep. I remember thinking the pillow was too good to be true, and then nothing.

Morning comes early, not because we set an alarm, but because this is simply what happens at this stage of life.

We arrive among the first guests at breakfast.

Breakfast is one of the reasons we keep coming back. Warm bread, fresh berries, leipäjuusto (Finnish bread cheese) with cloudberry jam, and the hotel’s signature oat porridge, slow-cooked for hours until it’s wonderfully creamy. I start looking forward to it the night before. Somehow it tastes even better knowing there’s nothing waiting for us after breakfast except another trip to the sauna.

Late checkout means there’s no need to rush, and somehow that changes the whole rhythm of the morning.

When it’s finally time to leave, we step onto a bus.

Twenty minutes later, we’re unlocking our own front door.

The cat comes to greet us, stretching.

Every time we leave, we find ourselves saying exactly the same thing.

“We’ll come back.”

The book Hildur by Satu Rämo is referred to by its original Finnish title throughout the story. It has been published in English as The Clues in the Fjord.

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