"Kari took out his knife and pressed its blunt edge against my neck. "Don't be afraid of me," he whispered. I swallowed my fear and listened to the thinning hiss as Kari drew the knife along my skin. He cured me the way the ancient Lapps have done for centuries. He didn't tear the skin." This striking novel tells the story of a girl growing up in a small town in the north of Lapland. With vivid description, insight and humour, the author describes the onset of puberty, Ristiina's first kiss and her relationship with Kari who lives on the 'wrong side of the tracks'. This is a universal tale of a girl's coming of age, set against the life of an extraordinary and remote community from which she longs to escape.