On The Shoulders of Otava by Laura Mauro

Publisher – Absinthe Books via PS Publishing

Published – Out Now

Price - £15 hardback £2.97 Kindle eBook

Siiri Tuokkola takes up arms for the Women s Guard during Finland s 1918 Civil War along with her comrades. Stationed in a remote village outpost, rumours of strange things in the woods come to a head when Siiri s comrade Mirva goes missing in a blizzard. Determined to find her, Siiri braves the deep forest, where mysterious lights weave through the trees, and those who look upon them for too long may find themselves afflicted by a strange madness. But there are worse things in the forest than lights, and Siiri must face them if she is to find Mirva before it s too late.

As the glow of Christmas fades, we all can feel in our bones the need to face up the joys of a Northern Hemisphere winter. The days may be getting longer but the nights are colder and just perhaps this awakens a human memory of the things that we hid from in our smaller villages and towns of the past. Something is watching us in the dark and if we are not wary it will find us. In Laura Mauro’s excellent novella On the Shoulders of Otava we are taken to a cold, snowy land where the silent nights are less bewitched and more damn scary.

The story takes place in 1919 when Finland was in the grip of a civil war between the middle/upper class Whites and the soviet backed Reds both vying for power. The violence is escalating as the battle rages fiercer and mercy is lacking on both sides. For the Reds the Women’s Guard has been assembled a unique squadron of trained women that some think is for propaganda, some for fighting and other’s a great idea because it pays and offers a rare chance for violence. While awaiting to hear where they are to go next, they see a seemingly good man turn overnight into a raving beast attacking his superior officer. Ultimately a small group of the Guard decide to head to where the action is. But they are about to find that the ancient forests around them are filled with many things they won’t want to be found by.

This is an absolutely perfect book for exploring how atmosphere is so important to a story. It’s got the greatest feeling of being trapped in the cold since I read The Terror many years ago. Although there are some internal scenes a lot of the story takes place in the remote countryside filled with cold and desolation. This echoes the wider war’s impact on the land – hopeless and empty. Mauro’s use of language and scarcity of words makes the world seem vast and the humans in it despite all the violence and bloodshed they are causing still fairly insignificant and fair game for what lurks out there.

To build up the tension we also get two very different main characters in near conflict with each other. Esther is a sharp-tongued, erratic fighter yet deadly with a gun. Very keen to fight and not give in. Siiri by contrast is doing things more for duty but has doubts having seen how remorseless her own side has been. United by being on the squadron the two’s temperaments get rubbing against each other as they find themselves deeper and deeper in the strange territory where they sense the Whites may be nearing closer while their superior officer has gone missing after seeing a strange light. Mauro gives the reader an early sense that these two will end up on opposite sides and that violence which in this novel is ever=present will soon appear once more.

The spectral dimension of the novel is the other main attraction. By location Mauro is able to firstly explore some Finnish folklore about various creatures, entities, and their habit of trapping the unwary. Added to the sense of isolation there is a strong feeling that we are outside of humanity’s lands as the two Guards get deeper and deeper into the forest. A war story that is turning into a horror tale is an impressive feat and it’s skilfully done as we realise the influence of these unseen forces is alien in the sense of just not being human and yet extremely invasive on people’s characters. The tale has that feeling of humans being trapped within something the reader can just glimpse but never fully understand which is both awe-inspiring and unnerving particularly as we watch behaviours alter over the course of the tale.

This is a wonderful ice-cold power-keg of a story that combines history, folklore, atmosphere and horror into a wonderful mix that is perfect for a winter night’s read. Very much a story you can down in one sitting and to be honest you will not want to let go until it is over. Please seek this story out you will not be disappointed.