Book Review #468 - As Red as Blood (Lumikki Andersson #1) by Salla Simukka

In the midst of the freezing Arctic winter, seventeen-year-old Lumikki Andersson walks into her school’s dark room and finds a stash of wet, crimson-colored money. Thousands of Euros left to dry—splattered with someone’s blood.

Lumikki lives alone in a studio apartment far from her parents and the past she left behind. She transferred into a prestigious art school, and she’s singularly focused on studying and graduating. Lumikki ignores the cliques, the gossip, and the parties held by the school’s most popular and beautiful boys and girls.

But finding the blood-stained money changes everything. Suddenly, Lumikki is swept into a whirlpool of events as she finds herself helping to trace the origins of the money. Events turn even more deadly when evidence points to dirty cops and a notorious drug kingpin best known for the brutality with which he runs his business.

As Lumikki loses control of her carefully constructed world, she discovers that she’s been blind to the forces swirling around her—and she’s running out of time to set them right. When she sees the stark red of blood on snow, it may be too late to save her friends or herself.

My Rating: 3.5/5

I received this book for review from Five Mile Press.

I am actually really surprised by how well this book translated into English. I have read numerous translations that have seemed to have lost something in the translation, but this book didn't seem to have that problem.

The only negative thing I can say about this book was that I found the foreign names confusing and hard to distinguish them from one another at times.

The plot was my favourite part of the book. It was very intriguing, fast paced, action packed and rather intense.

Lumikki was a very strong, mature and independent protagonist.

I found this book rather slow paced until the last 70 or so pages where it sped up significantly.

Book Review #98 - Markus and the Girls by Klaus Hagerup

The return of Markus, who's fallen in love again. Today Markus is in love with Ellen Christine; yesterday it was Therese, but that was after Elisabeth; in short, he's been in love with all the girls in his class in just two months of his first year at junior high. His best friend, Sigmund, is always there to help in his humorous pursuits of each girl, but sometimes he gets in the way. Markus's father isn't any help at all; he has only ever been in love with Markus's mother, who died when Markus was very young. With affection and charm, Klaus Hagerup depicts the daily ups and downs, joys and fears of a completely unusual, completely normal teenager and his first steps into the unpredictable world of love. This is the second book in the warm, humorous series about thirteen-year-old Markus.

My Rating: 3/5

This book has been translated to English from Norwegian by Tara Chase.  


This is not the first Markus book, but it is the first one I have read. I had no trouble understanding anything without having read the others.

I really liked the characters in this book especially the protagonist Markus, his friend Sigmund and Markus's father.

The only thing I didn't like about this book was that I felt like something was missing, like something was lost in translating it.