One day Aliide finds a battered girl in her garden. The girl is on the run and needs a place to hide. Will Aliide offer her that? Two similar stories set half a century apart unfold in the remote farm house.

I was pleasantly surprised by the book, I'm not a huge fan of Finnish writing and literary prizes are an instant turn off (this won two major ones) for me but Oksanen's book was gripping from the beginning to the end.

I'm surprised it's categorised as crime literature. Yes, there is a crime (many of them) but it wasn't really a whodunit. Perhaps it was for marketing reasons, considering the recent success of Scandinavian crime writing.

In the mail, going to UK, enjoy!

This arrived today - thank you very much! Sounds really good =)

This was brilliant - thanks again saarahoo for sending it to me =). It was such an addictive read; good reading for my Easter holidays. I don't get why they class it as crime either - there's mention of Stieg Larsson on the back cover. As writers and genres they are completely different. It's a bit dull that they have to lump everything coming out of Scandinavia as "the next Stieg Larsson" as if that's all Scandinavia can produce.

It's a good historical thriller about families, betrayal and jealousy, and also a good delve into modern Estonian history. I've never read a book set in Estonia before. These books set during the war always make me cross; just seeing what people are capable of, and the sheer arrogance, to think they have the right to treat people that way. The communists crippled that country; not that the Germans and their occupation before was any better. Hans Pekk might have liked to think he was fighting for justice, the great underdog, but he wanted to team up with the Germans, and for the brief time they did occupy the country, the Jewish families had to quietly sneak out of the country and into Russia if they wanted to survive.

Aliide, the younger sister, doesn't come out of it too fantastically, but I liked her in a way. She comes over very human, having made a lot of mistakes, but she didn't have an easy life either. And you've got to wonder, if we lived her life, what would we have done? She was always overshadowed by the prettier, more competant, more perfect older sister Ingel; who even ended up marrying the man, Hans Pekk, whom Aliide had fallen in love with at first sight. Aliide then had to live with them on the farm, always hearing about how Ingel's cooking is better, Ingel is more beautiful, and Ingel scolding her for not making the preserves right, not trusting her to do certain jobs. You can understand why someone might be lacking in confidence and become bitter and resentful with that background. Then of course Hans Pekk, German sympathiser has to go into hiding, and the women are dragged off for interogation. Aliide is beaten and humilated for this little family unit. According to her side of the story, she never tells, and although she later finds out that Ingel and her daughter, Linda,'s names are on a deporation list to go to Siberia, this is a shock to her. Although if I understood the papers at the end, she was actually a spy, and more in with the communists - even more so than the communist she ended up marrying for protection, who was suspected of being a spy for the Americans?!?! It's a complicated, trechourous world and you can't trust anyone.

And then there's the story in the 90s, with Linda's daughter turning up at Aliide's farm, wanting to hide from the Russian mafia. Her problem is a common one, having being misled into prostitution and pushed into human trafficking, she is taken to Estonia and ends up killing one of the customers to get away. She then flees to the relative she sometimes heard her grandmother talking about.

And the end of the book ends so sadly, disillushioned, I suppose like everyone's lives in this book. We don't know if Zara, the granddaughter manages to escape the criminals and build a life for herself; and Aliide's planning to burn the house down, herself inside curled up with the bones of Hans Pekk (a man she never got to love her).

There were a lot of flies in this book. Random thing to say maybe, but they kept being mentioned here. Being attracted to all the rot and bad meat?

Taking this to the March York bookcrossers' meet up. I hope someone takes it as it was a very good read.

Picked up at the York BookCrossing meet. Looked quite interesting, and quite excited by the fact that it started off in Helsinki.

A bit intense. I knew next to nothing about Estonia, so I found it very interesting to learn a bit more about its history, although I enjoyed the parts set in the Soviet era somewhat more than the "present day" bits as I felt that Aliide and Zara were written strangely unsympathetically. It was easier to see where Aliide was coming from once you found out a bit more about her personal history and the rivalry with her sister, but why she was so fascinated by her brother-in-law, I don't know. His character was underwritten, I thought, so it was hard to see how he had inspired such crazy passion in two women! Overall, though, it was a gripping read and it reveals its story in a satisfyingly gradual way.

Released at monthly meet

not picked up at the meet...

left on the shelf...