100 Years Ago... Jussi's Mother

We're now into that part of 2018 that marks the 100th anniversary of events in the Finnish Civil War.

One hundred years ago, Mannerheim had been made Supreme Commander of the White Guards.

In SILENCES: A NOVEL OF THE 1918 FINNISH CIVIL WAR, 100 years ago yesterday, Jussi Mantere's mother was shot by armed men on horseback wearing red armbands.

Was the war itself inevitable 100 years ago? Possibly--probably--maybe. Certainly something changed for Jussi that day, regardless of the force that was ultimately responsible for his mother's death.

Maybe that's what war really is--choices made by individual people, day by day by day. Like waves crashing onto a beach.

Local Review of Silences

Local writer and reviewer Michael Sobota spent time this holiday season with SILENCES: A NOVEL OF THE 1918 FINNISH CIVIL WAR, and wrote a review for the Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal.

An excerpt: "One of the gifts in his writing is a wry, dry sense of humour. Another is his ability to capture the voice of differently aged characters, both in how they speak and how they listen, which accurately differentiates their emotional ages. Above all other themes, Blomstrom explores the changing nature of families and their internal relationships. He shows us that families are more than our blood relations but also our logical ones. He writes with both confidence and insight about their lives and the periods they lived in. This is a splendid, engaging historical novel. Highly recommended."

Thank you, Michael! Find the full review here: