Philippa Laakso was many things to many people. Caring and selfish. Kind to some, cruel to others. And now, she was dead. When seventeen-year-old Philippa's body is found in the yard outside her home, the police launch an investigation. Everyone close to Philippa is questioned. The elderly neighbour who discovered her body, who kept confusing Philippa with his late wife. The best friend, who hoards a secret stash of objects she'd stolen from Philippa over the years. The ex-boyfriend, still reeling from their sudden break-up months before. The woman who features, enraged, in some of the strange videos Philippa filmed on her beloved PEN Olympus camera. The older men she'd been meeting via a dating app. Each tells a different story: she was a confidant, a fantasy, a temptation, a problem, a mystery, a mirror. But did any of them truly know her? Enchantment is a spellbinding literary mystery that explores the uneasy terrain of girlhood, where one is always being watched, shaped, and judged by others. In it, Riikka Pulkkinen weaves a complex story of power, identity, and the fragile boundary between truth and fiction. 'An intricate tapestry of a novel by a masterful writer. Enchantment's real triumph is its investigation into what we mean to one another as imperfect people. I wanted to savour every sentence of this structurally impressive novel.' -Catherine Airey, author of Confessions 'Riikka Pulkkinen is a Finnish Joyce Carol Oates.' -Livres Hebdo Praise for The Limit: 'A quiet. mature novel ... Pulkkinen explores the limits of people's control over their own actions and circumstances' -Kerryn Goldsworthy, Sydney Morning Herald

Details

ISBN13: 9781915590770
Format: Paperback / softback
Number of Pages: 368
Edition:
Publication Date: 04 Aug 2026
Publisher: Scribe Publications
Publication City, Country: London, United Kingdom
Dimensions (cm): 19.8(H)x12.9(L)x2.1(W)
Weight (gm):

Author Biography

Riikka Pulkkinen (Author) Riikka Pulkkinen was born in 1980 and studied literature and philosophy at the University of Helsinki. She is the author of True, which was published in seventeen countries and shortlisted for the 2010 Finlandia Prize for Fiction. The Limit, her debut novel, was a bestseller in Finland and the Netherlands, and won the Kaarle and Laila Hirvisaari prizes. Tabatha Leggett (Translator) Tabatha Leggett is a writer and literary translator based in Brooklyn. She is an incoming Iowa Arts Fellow at the University of Iowa's Literary Translation MFA program and a graduate of New York University's Fiction MFA program, where she was an Axinn Fellow. She has received fellowships from Bread Loaf and the Community of Writers. Enchantment is her debut translation.

Reviews

‘An intricate tapestry of a novel by a masterful writer. Enchantment’s real triumph is its investigation into what we mean to one another as imperfect people. I wanted to savour every sentence of this structurally impressive novel.’

-- Catherine Airey, author of Confessions

‘This unsettling mystery by one of Finland’s leading novelists follows the investigation into the death of a 17-year-old girl, a protean figure who held a wide variety of people in thrall while alive and continues to do so posthumously. It’s a vivid, searing study of teenagerdom and Finnish society alike, with a bracing philosophical undertow.’

* The Telegraph *

‘Riikka Pulkkinen is a Finnish Joyce Carol Oates.’

* Livres Hebdo *

‘Riikka Pulkkinen (True) challenges readers to form their own impressions with Enchantment, a striking novel about girlhood, perception, and death.’

* Shelf Awareness *

‘Pulkkinen (True) offers up a gripping literary mystery centred on the death of an enigmatic 17-year-old girl … [A] beautiful meditation on the brevity of youth and the thin boundary between truth and lies. This will stay with readers.’

-- Publishers Weekly

Praise for The Limit:

‘One of the most intelligent philosophical novels in recent years’.

* De Morgen *

Praise for The Limit:

'A quiet, mature novel ... Pulkkinen explores the limits of people’s control over their own actions and circumstances.'

-- Kerryn Goldsworthy * Sydney Morning Herald *

Praise for True:

‘Pulkkinen spins variations of [the] theme of transformative identity, having characters periodically relate to one another as if they were improv artists.’

* New York Times Book Review *

Praise for True:

‘A beautiful, sensuous novel.’

* Library Journal *