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Johanna Sinisalo is apparently well-known in Finland. It's too bad the only pieces of hers that we have in English are this book and a short story in the Dedalus Book of Finnish Fantasy (which I have yet to read). But if Troll is representative of her writing, I have high, high hopes for more of her work.

Troll plays with several kinds of eroticism and desire as we see the central story unfold: Angel, a gay photographer, rescues a young, injured troll from a band of teenage tormenters and takes it home to nurse it. The situation is complicated by a series of encounters and a maze of desire and lust. Who desires whom and why becomes very important as the story reaches its climax. Throughout, Sinisalo has inserted bits of Finnish troll lore—partly authentic, partly invented—that lend a confident air of realism to the novel. Above all, this is less a fantasy than a novel of an alternate Finland where trolls (Felipithecus trollius) really do exist.