Hmm, creepy bookish mystery, yes please.
The Rabbit Back Literature Society by Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen
Only nine people have ever been chosen by renowned children’s author Laura White to join “The Rabbit Back Literature Society,” an elite group of writers in the small town of Rabbit Back. Now a tenth member has been selected: Ella, a young literature teacher. Soon Ella discovers that the Society is not what it seems. What is its mysterious ritual known as “The Game”? What explains the strange disappearance that occurs at Laura White’s winter party? Why are the words inside books starting to rearrange themselves? Was there once another tenth member, before her? Slowly, as Ella explores the Society and its history, disturbing secrets that had been buried start to come to light… In Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen’s chilling, witty novel, The Rabbit Back Literature Society, the uncanny brushes up against the everyday in the most beguiling and unexpected of ways.
Originally published in Finnish in 2006, then in English in 2014 by Pushkin Press, The Rabbit Back Literature Society will now be published by Thomas Dunne Books on 20 January 2015.
Links
Author and Book website
Twitter
Facebook
Thomas Dunne Books
Violin in a Void 
See? I stopped reading mysteries because they became so repetitive. But just as I have learned in Fantasy, if one doesn’t like a genre book and they are starting to look the same then said person probably isn’t looking hard enough to expand. This looks unique. And pretty cool.
Yeah, with mysteries it reaches a point where you’ve read/watched so many that it becomes too easy to figure it out yourself. But there are still good ones that take a fresh approach or change the game with genre mash-ups.
I always look for the unusual stuff, although I have to say I’ve been guilty of avoiding certain genres because the books look too similar from the outside (epic fantasy being a prime example).
I do like the sound of this. I look forward to your review to see what you made of it.
Lynn 😀
It sounds fun, doesn’t it? Hope I’ll have a good review to post, lol.
This is really funny. I live in Finland and I found out about this book from an African book blog 🙂 Added to TBR list, sounds like my kind of thing. I am not too familiar with the Finnish speculative fiction, need to really fix that!
Lol, it’s a funny ol’ globalised world, innit?
I remember looking for Finnish spec fic for a reading challenge once, although at the time I didn’t have a chance to actually read any. But a good place to start might be the Finnish spec fic anthology, It Came From the North: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19500770-it-came-from-the-north
The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi was also faily popular when it came out: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7562764-the-quantum-thief
Wow, thanks Lauren, I added them to my Goodreads TBR stack. I am always on the look for fantasy fiction from non-Anglosphere authors. Are you reviewing African spec fic authors too? I’d very much like to discover those.
I do! I try to read lots of South African spec fic, as that’s where I’m from, and my most recent review was of Devilskein and Dearlove by Alex Smith (also one of my favourite books this year). You can also search my blog for reviews of books by Lauren Beukes, Charlie Human, Sarah Lotz, Louis Greeenberg, Lily Herne, S.L. Grey, Nerine Dorman, Dave-Brendon de Burgh… or use a relevant tag (South African fiction). There are a couple still on my tbr pile, like Cat Hellisen, Henriette Rose-Innes and Rachel Zadok. I haven’t read much spec fic from the rest of the continent, but I do have reviews of books by Nigerian-American author Nnedi Okorafor.
Grea, noted the names, I will pick the books from those authors. I have heard good things about Nnedi Okorafor, should check out her work too.