Books by Emmi Itaranta

With the lyricism of Ishiguro's NEVER LET ME GO, and the world building brilliance of Atwood, Emmi Itaranta's effortless and poignant debut novel is a coming of age story full of emotional drama and wonderment.Some secrets demand betrayal.'You're seventeen, and of age now, and therefore old enough to understand what I'm going to tell you,' my father said. 'This place doesn't exist.''I'll remember,' I told him, but didn't realise until later what kind of promise I had made.When Noria Kaitio reaches her seventeenth birthday, she is entrusted with the secret of a freshwater spring hidden deep within the caves near her small rural village. Its preservation has been the responsibility of her family for generations.Apprenticed to her father, one of the last true tea masters, when Noria takes possession of the knowledge, she become much more than the guardian of ancestral treasure; soon, she will hold the fate of everyone she loves in her hands.

A gripping sci-fi mystery wrapped in an LGBTQIA love story that bends space, time, myth and science

'Where itaranta shines is in her understated but compelling characters' Red star review (for MEMORY OF WATER), Publishers Weekly.Emmi Itaranta's prose combines the lyricism of Ishiguro's NEVER LET ME GO. This is her second novel, following the award-winning MEMORY OF WATER.The tapestry of life may be more fragile than it seems: pull one thread, and all will unravel.In the City of Woven Streets, human life has little value. You practice a craft to keep you alive, or you are an outcast, unwanted and tainted. Eliana is a young weaver in the House of Webs, but secretly knows she doesn't really belong there. She is hiding a shameful birth defect that would, if anyone knew about it, land her in the House of the Tainted, a prison for those whose very existence is considered a curse.When an unknown woman with her tongue cut off and Eliana's name tattooed on her skin arrives at the House of Webs, Eliana discovers an invisible network of power behind the city's facade. All the while, the sea is clawing the shores and the streets are slowly drowning.