International bestseller Emily Rath has won over legions of fans with her spicy romance novels. She’s known for heroines who are witty and relatable, like the average Janes who populate her chart-topping Jacksonville Rays hockey romance series. This is why some fans might be surprised to learn that her new novel, North is the Night (Kensington, Dec.), is a fantasy adventure inspired by Finnish mythology.

According to Rath, North is the Night is actually a culmination of two of her deepest literary loves—fantasy and mythology. It’s the novel that has been brewing inside her since she was young, and her grandmother would recount Finnish folktales and family stories in her kitchen while making pulla bread. “Since I was a child, I’ve devoured books on mythology and folklore. I’ve always enjoyed seeing how stories echo and repeat across history and place,” says Rath, a third-generation Finnish American.

Rath first gained popularity on BookTok with the Jacksonville Rays series. After independently publishing the first two installments, Pucking Around and Pucking Wild, in March and Aug 2023, she had sold nearly 150,000 copies by the end of the year and gained more than 27 million views on TikTok. In early 2024, she partnered with Kensington, which released trade paperback editions of Pucking Around and Pucking Wild that put another quarter of a million print copies into the marketplace. Book three in the series, Pucking Sweet, was released by Kensington late last month.

“I’ve branded my creative world the ‘Emilyverse’ with the idea that, no matter where we go in this universe, you’ll get the same rich storytelling, immersive worlds, wit, and I hope at least a little kissing,” says Rath.

With that said, North is the Night still has plenty to offer Rath fans who love the way her stories explore unconventional relationships and strong female characters following their desires, regardless of social expectations. But whereas the Jacksonville Rays series and her historical romances are super-steamy, North is the Night dials down the heat level and focuses on the quest.

The story revolves around two youngwomen, Aina and Siiri, forced to walk separate paths—one in the land of the living and the other in the realm of the dead. After a death goddess drags Aina to Tuonela, the mythical underworld, she tries to understand the motivations of the gods in hopes of escaping. Meanwhile, Siiri braves a dangerous journey north to seek the greatest shaman of legend, and the only person to venture to the realm of death and return alive. In these severed worlds, Aina and Siiri must each risk everything to seize back their destinies, confronting cruel witches, alluring gods, zealous prophets, strange magic, and duplicitous strangers along the way.

Fans of Greek mythology will recognize how the novel inverts the story of Hades and Persephone. However, the novel’s most significant influence is the Kalevala, a 19th-century epic poem that tells the mythology of the Finnish people, from the origins of the world until the introduction of Christianity.

Rath credits her grandmother with instilling in her a passion for her Finnish heritage. “She shared her love of the food, culture, clothing, and customs with me. She gave me my first Finnish phrase book and my first copy of the Kalevala,” says Rath.

To match North is the Night’s rich storytelling, Kensington has created beautifully designed hardcovers. The deluxe limited-edition, available in the first printing only, is a cloth hardcover with foil stamping, a reversible dust jacket, designed chapter headers, stenciled edges, and full-color illustrated endpapers.

The collectible print editions match Rath’s feeling that writing North is the Night was, as she put it, “akin to a religious experience.” Drawing on her academic background—Rath has PhDs in Political Science and Peace Studies from the University of Notre Dame—and melding it with her love of Finnish mythology, Rath created a world that “felt like a homecoming,” she says. “I found myself relating in so many ways to my characters and longing to fall into this world I was creating.”