Loukko by 
Original title: Tämä läpinäkyvä sydän
Author: Katja Kallio
Published: 2021
Publisher: Otava
Genres: Literary Fiction, Romance
Pages: 268
Reading material:
English sample and synopsis
A passionate novel about the forbidden love of a misfit woman and a Soviet prisoner of war
Young Beata returns home to war-torn Hanko in the winter of 1942. When she accidentally encounters a prisoner of war who sees directly into her innermost being, life changes irreversibly. Forbidden love puts Beata and Ivan at risk for their lives, but they can’t stay apart. In the moment of reckoning, Beata has to ask herself whether one can ever truly know their beloved - or even themselves.
A stirringly beautiful and intimate description of hatred and its only counterforce - the connection between people.
Review:
"AN IMPOSSIBLE LOVE"
In Katja Kallio’s beautiful novel young and wild Beata falls fervently in love with a Ukranian prisoner of war. Bellowing wartime Hanko stands as a background for marching Germans but there’s a slowly kindling spark of hope of reconstruction. The depiction of families returning to the ruined town of Hanko is touching and extremely interesting. The Russians had left the houses blue-painted, the flours were tainted with fuel oil and mines were hid in candelabras. Katja Kallio uses a language that is poetically fluid, and she has got the facts straight. After reading the book one has a burning need to start investigating the fates of Russian prisoners-of-war and the German camps. - Gloria Magazine, September 2021
Praise:
’This Transparent Heart’ is an important and interesting work. The events take place in Hanko but the depiction of people as helpless victims under the everchanging power relations during the wartime is a universal theme and very true even today in different parts of the world. The book is strongly based on facts but the dreamlike narration and the poetic language elevate it into an overwhelming love story in which the end is tragic. - Annelin lukuvinkit blog
Katja Kallio writes sensual text, playing with metaphors that rush forward. The fluency of the narrative felt like a warm bath. Using metaphors in a generous way might feel complex and exhausting but Kallio’s style is very airy. – A novel full of intriguing themes. With this novel, Kallio strengthens her position as a novelist with a unique voice. - Kirjaluotsi blog
Katja Kallio’s language is so refined and effectively emotional that one’s heart beats faster for a long time after reading. – The story is filled with delirium, lust, fierceness, and impossible dreams – and on the other hand there’s hopeful romance in the ruins, interesting portrayal of people and powerful interpretation of emotions. The intensity holds its grip – eloquently seducing the reader!
-Arja Korhonen, Kulttuuri kukoistaa blog
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Rights sold:
FINLAND: Otava (orig.)
CZECH REPUBLIC: Albatros Media a.s. – KNIHA ZLIN
