A book of short stories

Johanna Sinisalo: Kädettömät kuninkaat ja muita häiritseviä tarinoita

Pages: 482

Where do I start? Sinisalo has been one of my favourite authors since I first read Ennen päivänlaskua ei voi (eng. Troll - a love story OR Not before sunset) in 2007 (or something). I just love the way she writes and Kädettömät kuninkaat has given me the creeps every time, no matter how many times I've read it. And now I have to admit I've actually never read this book in full, there have been two short stories I've always skipped, but last night I finally read them. I liked them, but they still couldn't beat my favourites.

Now that I mentioned my favourites... My favourite short stories are the ones that scared me the most, Etiäinen and Me vakuutamme sinut.

In the Finnish folklore Etiäinen is actually a phenomenom of knowing ahead if a guest or a family member is arriving soon and the story tells of a woman whose husband has a really strong spirit that triggers a strong etiäinen. I don't even know why I find this so scary, but it's most likely the thought of seeing shapes in the windows. An etiäinen can be a sound or something visual, and creepy things in windows are one of my fears. Ironically, whenever I read the story, I feel like I can sense those things for a few days afterwards. I swear I heard my gf's keys in the lock this morning a moment before she actually arrived.

Me vakuutamme sinut brings the Cthulhu mythos back to life. I don't know if I find this scary just because when I was first reading it, my CD player started to play the weird "moo"-sound that's in the end if Sonata Arctica's Unia or because it really was frightening, but I was still scared shitless and the memory stuck. I love books that are set in our time, but there's just something that's really wrong, so no wonder this story is just for me.