An irascible octogenarian woman and a young man with questions in his past face endings and beginnings in The Secret of Snow by Tina Harnesk, a novelist of Sámi descent, and translated from the Swedish by Alice Menzies. This funny, perceptive contemporary dramedy won the reader-selected Best Book of the Year in Sweden in 2023.
Máriddja Rijá, 80-something years old and preoccupied with goats, leads a reclusive life near the small northern village of Guovddo with her husband, a Sámi man named Biera. Máriddja reacts to receiving a terminal cancer diagnosis by firmly and (mostly) politely refusing help, going so far as to burn the mail and throw away her cell phone so her husband won't find out she is dying, because "this crap was between Máriddja and her creator." Máriddja and Biera have no one but each other, so she hatches a desperate scheme to find someone who will look after Biera. Her co-conspirator comes in the form of Siri, the virtual assistant she believes is a human operator speaking through Biera's iPhone.
Meanwhile Kaj, a young doctor struggling with grief after the death of his mother, has just moved to Guovddo. His discovery of a box of Sámi-crafted items from his mother's estate reignites lifelong questions about his childhood and leads to an unexpected breakthrough.
Harnesk's quiet wit and lovable characters make this exploration of community and cultural connection sing with joy and meaning. Fans of Shelby Van Pelt's Remarkably Bright Creatures will find comfortingly familiar bones in this story of a family fractured and healed. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads