The Weaver

Starred review from July 18, 2016
Celebrated Finnish writer Itäranta’s second novel (following Memory of Water) is a finely crafted fantasy tale that seamlessly blends a coming-of-age story with high-stakes intrigue and danger. Eliana is a young woman who lives cloistered away in her island community’s House of Webs, where all orders pass through the head Weaver and the oligarchical Council. When Eliana comes across a wounded woman who has secrets and knows her name, they must work together to unravel the island’s history of political corruption and discrimination. Itäranta’s prose is luminous and filled with rich detail. The setting is inventive, yet one might imagine that it could have existed in our own world. Eliana has her own struggles with being an outsider, marked as undesirable by the rest of society; she is multifaceted and a sympathetic protagonist. Itäranta writes engagingly, displaying her setting and atypical characters in full color. Both seasoned readers of fantasy and newcomers to the genre will savor Itäranta’s captivating fiction. Agent: Elina Ahlback, Elina Ahlback Literary.

October 15, 2016

Eliana, a craftswoman at the House of Webs, discovers a wounded young woman and helps bring her back to the weaver compound. The woman has had her tongue cut out but has Eliana's name tattooed on her hand. As the two become close, Eliana's secrets are in danger of being exposed. She is a dreamer, and dreams are considered a disease in her world. The setting, a totalitarian island world ruled by a shadowy council, is well wrought but with a feeling more like fantasy than the author's explicitly sf The Memory of Water. The pacing is slow, however, and there are many long descriptions of dreams and visions. VERDICT Finnish author Itaranta delivers another lyrical dystopian novel. Those willing to put in the time will get a nuanced heroine, a tender love story, and lovely prose.--MM

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