Meet the author

Saara Soderlund.

Illustrator · Finland

A Finnish illustrator whose warm, folkloric artwork brings atmospheric middle-grade fantasy to life, including Sophie Anderson's The Castle of Tangled Magic.

Saara Soderlund is a Finnish illustrator whose charming, warm-hearted artwork gives shape to atmospheric middle-grade fantasy. She provided the cover and interior illustrations for Sophie Anderson's The Castle of Tangled Magic (2020), a richly imagined, Slavic-folklore-inflected adventure about a girl who steps through a magical doorway into a land drained of hope, and her quietly whimsical, folkloric style is a natural match for its blend of the everyday and the enchanted, all house-spirits, weathered wooden castles and homely magic. Working in the tradition of storybook illustration that makes an invented world feel lived-in and believable, Soderlund brings warmth and texture to imaginative fiction for readers of nine and up.