Tor.com Publishing is proud to announce that Senior Editor Claire Eddy has acquired two novels from debut author Leena Likitalo. The duology, which begins with The Five Daughters of the Moon, magically reimagines the fall of the Romanov dynasty from the perspective of five sisters in mortal peril.
Leena Likitalo is a writer from Finland, the land of thousands of lakes and at least as many untold tales. She breaks computer games for living and plays polocrosse for fun. She enjoys embarking on new adventures, be it participating in a surfer sauna ritual or getting lost on her way back from a volcano and having to hitchhike home aboard a garbage truck. Likitalo is also a Clarion San Diego graduate and Writers of the Future 2014 winner. Her short fiction has appeared in several international venues, including Clarkesworld, Weird Tales, and Galaxy’s Edge.
Senior Editor Claire Eddy had this to say about the deal:
Wonder comes in many forms…and great fiction can be found if one is lucky.
I recently attended a writer’s conference and met Leena Likitalo, who pitched me a project that sounded intriguing. Leena sent it to me and while the book had some merit I felt it wasn’t quite right for the house. I sent her a polite rejection and thought no more of it.
But sometimes the writer’s voice will call to you well after you think you’re done. There were scenes that wouldn’t leave my head months after I’d read the thing. After 30 years of doing this I knew that Leena had that special “it” that we find so elusive and I asked to see anything else she was working on. I am so pleased to say that when I read The Five Daughters of the Moon I knew that my instincts were right and that this is going to be the start of a wonderful career for this immensely talented writer.
And just what has me so jazzed? The Five Daughters of the Moon is a beautifully crafted historical fantasy inspired by the 1917 Russian revolution and has as its heroines the five Romanov sisters. It is a lush and complicated tale, full of technology fuelled by evil magic. There is wonder and heroism and a story that will captivate the young…or the young at heart. I am so pleased to have found this diamond in the rough…
Leena Likitalo had this to say:
I’m incredibly excited about Tor.com acquiring The Five Daughters of the Moon duology and getting to work together with editor Claire Eddy. Growing up next to Russia, I’ve always been fascinated about its history, especially the tragic fate of the Romanovs. One fine autumn day, a story came to me, demanding to be told as is the habit of stories of the most compelling kind. And that’s how I wound up writing about five sisters, the frail and brave, the foolish, determined, and deceived, and how they fare amidst a revolution that tears the world as they know it apart.I’m also hugely interested in science and machines, the bigger the better. Perhaps it’s thus only natural that the story features prominently a Great Thinking Machine that devours human souls for fuel.
