Sally Magnusson – författare

***A BBC RADIO 2 BOOK CLUB PICK 2025******LONGLISTED FOR THE 2025 HIGHLAND BOOK PRIZE***'Perfect to read whilst curled up by the fire demanding people bring you hot tea and biscuits to dunk' Sara Cox, Radio 2 Book Club'One of the most imaginative and ambitious books I have read all year' Scotsman'Magical in every sense' Saga Magazine'A heart-rending opus on love, death and change' HeraldNothing, on earth or below it, freezes faster than the worthless heart.Before she was a hideous monster, the queen of the underworld was simply Hel. But cast as a girl out of lofty Asgard, realm of the gods, by Odin the Allfather, Hel's fate as the terrible goddess of death is sealed. Half beauty, half crone, she has reigned for aeons in the starless darkness of Niflheim, grimly welcoming the most pitiful of death's travellers to her ice-locked prison. Until one day a memory shifts, and she is forced to seek out the sun in Midgard, where humans have made their home.Faced with a terminal cancer diagnosis, Helen Firth makes the impulsive decision to return to Orkney after forty years to make peace with her past. Under the wintering solstice sun, she reconnects with the ungainly but affable Thorfinn Coffin, who helps her address the real reason she has returned to the islands: to die.As Helen draws closer to death and ever closer to Thorfinn, Hel in turn is intrigued by Helen. She, too, has a past to confront and a lesson to learn: that perhaps who she believes herself to be isn't who she really is.A powerful reimagining of the Norse myth of Hel, The Shapeshifter's Daughter celebrates the joy of reclaiming our stories.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE HWA DEBUT CROWN | THE BEST FIRST NOVEL AWARD | THE MCKITTERICK PRIZE | THE PAUL TORDAY MEMORIAL PRIZE | THE WAVERTON GOOD READ AWARD | A ZOE BALL ITV BOOK CLUB PICK'REMARKABLE' Sarah Perry'EXTRAORDINARILY IMMERSIVE' Guardian'A REALLY, REALLY GOOD READ' BBC R2 Book Club''LYRICAL' Stylist'POETIC' Daily Mail1627. In a notorious historical event, pirates raided the coast of Iceland and abducted 400 people into slavery in Algiers. Among them a pastor, his wife, and their children.In her acclaimed debut novel Sally Magnusson imagines what history does not record: the experience of Asta, the pastor's wife, as she faces her losses with the one thing left to her - the stories from home - and forges an ambiguous bond with the man who bought her. Uplifting, moving, and sharply witty, The Sealwoman's Gift speaks across centuries and oceans about loss, love, resilience and redemption.'Sally Magnusson has taken an amazing true event and created a brilliant first novel. It's an epic journey in every sense: although it's historical, it's incredibly relevant to our world today. We had to pick it' Zoe Ball Book Club'Richly imagined and energetically told' Sunday Times 'The best sort of historical novel' Scotsman 'Compelling ' Good Housekeeping'An accomplished and intelligent novel' Yrsa Sigurðardóttir, author of Why Did You Lie?'Vivid and compelling' Adam Nichols, co-translator of The Travels of Reverend Ólafur Egilsson

An enchanting portrait of the trials and triumphs of family life, which any parent of any age will recognise with a wry smile.Sally Magnusson lives with her husband and five children in Scotland. This book begins soon after the birth of the fifth child, with a scene to which we can all relate with feeling: that night when you slept through for the first time and without any small body in your bed either. Life continues through holidays (and the baggage required for the family and British weather conditions), school Christmas plays (and the parental competition for best parts for their offpsring), pets (and how they multiply), children and cars (and how long it takes for a quarrel to start), going out (and the organization required to arrange children, animals and house), and all the many facets of family life. Family Life is written with verve and humour, as well as pithy accuracy.

Eric Liddell is famous for being the man who would not compromise his religious principles and refused to compete in the Olympics on a Sunday - despite the fact that he was the red hot favourite for the gold. Instead he entered a different event that was not being competed on the Sabbath... and won a gold anyway. One of Scotland's finest athletes, Liddell was feted throughout the United Kingdom. At the height of his fame, however, he slipped quietly out of the limelight to become a missionary in China, where he later came to an unpleasant end in a Japanese internment camp.

Nothing, on earth or below it, in the skies or under the seas, freezes faster than the worthless heart.Before she was a hideous monster, the Queen of the Underworld was simply Hel. But cast as a young girl from lofty Asgard, the realm of the gods, by Odin the Allfather, Hel's fate as the terrible goddess of death is sealed. Half beauty, half crone, she has reigned for centuries over the starless darkness of Niflheim, welcoming the most pitiful amongst death's travellers to her icy prison. Until, one day, a memory shifts, and she is forced to seek out the sun in Midgard, where humans have made their home. Faced with a terminal cancer diagnosis, Helen Firth makes the impulsive decision to return to Orkney after forty years to make peace with her past and ultimately die. Under the wintering solstice sun, she reconnects with the ungainly but affable Thorfinn Coffin, who helps her address the real reason she has chosen to return to the island. As Helen nears ever closer to death, and ever closer to Thorfinn, Hel in turn finds herself drawn to Helen. She, too, has a past to confront and a lesson to learn - that perhaps who she thinks she is isn't who she's really meant to be...

Nothing, on earth or below it, freezes faster than the worthless heart.Before she was a hideous monster, the queen of the underworld was simply Hel. But cast as a girl out of lofty Asgard, realm of the gods, by Odin the Allfather, Hel's fate as the terrible goddess of death is sealed. Half beauty, half crone, she has reigned for aeons in the starless darkness of Niflheim, grimly welcoming the most pitiful of death's travellers to her ice-locked prison. Until one day a memory shifts, and she is forced to seek out the sun in Midgard, where humans have made their home.Faced with a terminal cancer diagnosis, Helen Firth makes the impulsive decision to return to Orkney after forty years to make peace with her past. Under the wintering solstice sun, she reconnects with the ungainly but affable Thorfinn Coffin, who helps her address the real reason she has returned to the islands: to die.As Helen draws closer to death and ever closer to Thorfinn, Hel in turn is intrigued by Helen. She, too, has a past to confront and a lesson to learn: that perhaps who she thinks she is isn't who she is really meant to be.A powerful reimagining of the Norse myth of Hel, The Shapeshifter's Daughter celebrates the joy of reclaiming our stories.

SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER (2014) AND RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK'A fine book' The Sunday Times'Powerful' Guardian'Wonderful' The Telegraph'Moving, funny, warm' Mail on Sunday'Brave, compassionate, tender and honest' Metro'This book began as an attempt to hold on to my witty, storytelling mother with the one thing I had to hand. Words. Then, as the enormity of the social crisis my family was part of began to dawn, I wrote with the thought that other forgotten lives might be nudged into the light along with hers. Dementia is one of the greatest social, medical, economic, scientific, philosophical and moral challenges of our times.' Sally MagnussonSad and funny, wise and honest, Where Memories Go is a deeply intimate account of insidious losses and unexpected joys in the terrible face of dementia, and a call to arms that challenges us all to think differently about how we care for our loved ones when they need us most.Regarded as one of the finest journalists of her generation, Mamie Baird Magnusson's whole life was a celebration of words - words that she fought to retain in the grip of a disease which is fast becoming the scourge of the 21st century. Married to writer and broadcaster Magnus Magnusson, they had five children of whom Sally is the eldest.As well as chronicling the anguish, the frustrations and the unexpected laughs and joys that she and her sisters experienced while accompanying their beloved mother on the long dementia road for eight years until her death in 2012, Sally Magnusson seeks understanding from a range of experts and asks penetrating questions about how we treat older people, how we can face one of the greatest social, medical, economic and moral challenges of our times, and what it means to be human.

'WONDERFUL. ONE NEVER MESSES WITH THE FAERIES' Melanie Reid, The Times'AN ABSOLUTE TRIUMPH' Sarah Haywood, author of The Cactus'EXTRAORDINARILY VIVD' Michelle Gallen, author of Big Girl Small TownA spellbinding novel combining Scottish folklore with hidden history, by the Sunday Times bestselling author Sally Magnusson.Loch Katrine waterworks, 1856. A Highland wilderness fast becoming an industrial wasteland. No place for a lady.Isabel Aird is aghast when her husband is appointed doctor to an extraordinary waterworks being built miles from the city. But Isabel, denied the motherhood role that is expected of her by a succession of miscarriages, finds unexpected consolations in a place where she can feel the presence of her unborn children and begin to work out what her life in Victorian society is for.The hills echo with the gunpowder blasts of hundreds of navvies tunnelling day and night to bring clean water to diseased Glasgow thirty miles away - digging so deep that there are those who worry they are disturbing the land of faery itself. Here, just inside the Highland line, the membrane between the modern world and the ancient unseen places is very thin.With new life quickening within her again, Isabel can only wait. But a darker presence has also emerged from the gunpowder smoke. And he is waiting too.Inspired by the mysterious death of the seventeenth-century minister Robert Kirke and set in a pivotal era two centuries later when engineering innovation flourished but women did not, The Ninth Child blends folklore with historical realism in a spellbinding narrative.*PRAISE FOR THE SEALWOMAN'S GIFT*'I enjoyed and admired it in equal measure' Sarah Perry'An extraordinarily immersive read' Guardian 'Richly imagined and energetically told' Sunday Times'An epic journey' Zoe Ball Book Club

'WONDERFUL. ONE NEVER MESSES WITH THE FAERIES' Melanie Reid, The Times'AN ABSOLUTE TRIUMPH' Sarah Haywood, author of The Cactus'EXTRAORDINARILY VIVID' Michelle Gallen, author of Big Girl Small TownLoch Katrine waterworks, 1856. A Highland wilderness fast becoming an industrial wasteland. No place for a lady.Isabel Aird is aghast when her husband is appointed doctor to an extraordinary waterworks being built miles from the city. But Isabel, denied the motherhood role that is expected of her by a succession of miscarriages, finds unexpected consolations in a place where she can feel the presence of her unborn children and begin to work out what her life in Victorian society is for.The hills echo with the gunpowder blasts of hundreds of navvies tunnelling day and night to bring clean water to diseased Glasgow thirty miles away - digging so deep that there are those who worry they are disturbing the land of faery itself. Here, just inside the Highland line, the membrane between the modern world and the ancient unseen places is very thin.With new life quickening within her again, Isabel can only wait. But a darker presence has also emerged from the gunpowder smoke. And he is waiting too.Inspired by the mysterious death of the seventeenth-century minister Robert Kirke and set in a pivotal era two centuries later when engineering innovation flourished but women did not, The Ninth Child blends folklore with historical realism in a spellbinding narrative.*PRAISE FOR THE SEALWOMAN'S GIFT*'I enjoyed and admired it in equal measure' Sarah Perry'An extraordinarily immersive read' Guardian 'Richly imagined and energetically told' Sunday Times'A brilliant tour-de-fource' Alistair Moffat'An epic journey' Zoe Ball Book Club

'A wonderful and moving story, beautifully told . . . an episode of history brought vividly to life' Clare Chambers, author of Small PleasuresJamesina Ross is long finished with men. But one night a stranger seeking lodgings knocks on the door of her tenement flat. He doesn't recognise her, but she remembers him at once. Not that she plans to mention it. She has no intention of trusting anyone enough to let herself be vulnerable again. A lifetime ago Jamesina Ross was bent on becoming a writer. She had a facility with words. She made up songs about the Highland glen where she lived and the kin who had worked that land for generations. When her community was threatened with eviction, she gave voice to that too. The women stood together, defiant and determined, but Jamesina's music was no match for one of the most brutal confrontations of the Highland Clearances. Jamesina has borne the disfigurements of that day ever since, on her face and inside her head. It marked the end of a life of promise and the beginning of a very different one. Her lodger thinks that if she would only dare to open the past, she might have the chance of a future. A beautiful exploration of unlooked-for love in later life, its contrariness and its awkward, surprising joys, this is a story about resilience, memory, resurrection - and those parts of who we are that nobody can take away.

'Wonderful and moving' Clare Chambers'Utterly absorbing' Sunday PostSHORTLISTED FOR THE WINSTON GRAHAM HISTORICAL PRIZELONGLISTED FOR THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZEJamesina Ross is long finished with men. But one night a stranger seeking lodgings knocks on the door of her tenement flat. He doesn't recognise her, but she remembers him at once. Not that she plans to mention it. She has no intention of trusting anyone enough to let herself be vulnerable again.A lifetime ago, growing up in a Highland glen, Jamesina Ross wrote songs about the land and the kin who had worked it for generations. But her music was no match for the violence her community faced in the Highland Clearances. Jamesina has borne the disfigurements of that day ever since, on her face and inside her head. Her lodger thinks that if she would only dare to open the past, she might have the chance of a future.This is a story about resilience, memory, resurrection - and those parts of who we are that nobody can take away. A beautiful exploration of unlooked-for love in later life, its contrariness and its awkward, surprising joys, this is a story about resilience, memory, resurrection - and those parts of who we are that nobody can take away.

Sally Magnusson brings together thirty well-known names together to discuss their most sacred spots.Including James Cosmo, Judy Murray, Anna Campbell-Jones, Val McDermid, Kieron Achara, Chris Hoy, Linda Bauld, Rhona Cameron, Eddi Reader, Clive Russell, Gordon Campbell Gray, John Colquhoun, Nati Dreddd, Kezia Dugdale, Janice Kirkpatrick, Sue Lawrence, Gemma Lumsdaine, Shauna MacDonald, Catriona Matthew, Danni Menzies, Gordon & Vanessa Quinn, Roza Salih, Richard Scott, Tony Singh, Victoria Stapleton, Alexander Stoddart, Grant Stott and Laura Young.Through in-depth interviews we delve into the minds of each personality as they explore the joyful, treasured, painful and inspirational moments we all share throughout life. Alongside stunning photography by Susie Lowe, My Perfect Place in Scotland is a captivating collection which highlights the importance of supporting mental health and wellbeing and reveals the special places where we choose to spend our time, which mean so much more than just a pretty view.A royalty of 5% of net receipts from the sale of every copy of My Perfect Place in Scotland sold will be made to SAMH (Scottish Association for Mental Health, Scottish Charity No. SC-008897)

Horace the Haggis, homeless and hunted, finds refuge among the animals of Acre Valley.