Holmström was born in Sipoo and lives in Helsinki. Her first publication was the short-story collection Inlåst och andra noveller (2003), from which the short story "Inlåst" ('Locked Up') was nominated for the Swedish Radio Short-story Prize in 2004. This was followed by the short story collection Tvåsamhet (‘Twosomeness’, 2005). Holmström's first novel was published in September 2007: Ur din längtan ('Out of your Longing'). In 2009 she won the Svenska Dagbladet Literature Prize for her third short-story collection Camera Obscura, a connected series of stories focused on young eco-terrorists in Helsinki. Since then, she has published Asfaltsänglar ('Asphalt Angels', 2013), Hush Baby (2015) and Själarnas ö (Island of Souls, 2017). Själarnas ö tells the stories of three of the inmates of a women-only mental hospital on the island of Själö near Turku.
