Sally Magnusson – författare

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.

''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. I am a reporter. It became the biggest story of my life.'' Sally Magnusson

Sad 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.

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

''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 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

Tracing Your Roots explores one of the UK''s most popular pastimes: researching family history. Bestselling author Sally Magnusson follows the genealogy trail back in time, uncovering facets of social history through personal stories and giving you the information you need to add branches to your own family tree. With the right tools, you can not only find lost ancestors, but discover what they did for a living, what their lives were like, and maybe even what kind of people they were...Accompanied by resident genealogist Nick Barratt, who offers insider tips and ideas, she talks to professional and amateur researchers, revealing the wealth of resources available and how to make the most of them. In these six series, the duo determine what clues can be gleaned from photographs, diaries and DNA analysis, learn about unravelling wartime secrets, investigate how stories handed down through generations can offer a new slant on history and hear how the manner of an ancestor''s death can offer clues to the life they led. They also explain why shady characters are good news for family history hunters, tackle the issues of illegitimacy and immigration, track down relatives who vanished without trace and probe mysteries surrounding name changes and adoption.Fascinating family stories are unearthed, as they talk to families including one woman who believes her grandmother may have been the illegitimate daughter of Louis XVI, another whose ancestor was locked away indefinitely on the Queen''s orders, and two correspondents with Caribbean roots who suspect there is slavery on their family tree. Two follow-up episodes see Sally and Nick revisiting their favourite Tracing Your Roots tales, finding out what families did next and unveiling new information and lasting repercussions...In addition, a themed show, tied in with the British Library''s ''History of the World in 100 Objects'' project, investigates family heirlooms, and four special episodes mark events including the 90th anniversary of World War One, Scotland''s Homecoming Year and the 2011 Census.Production creditsPresented by Sally Magnusson, with resident genealogist Nick BarrattProduced by Anne McNaught (Series 1-2), Moira Hickey (Series 3, 5), Claire White (Series 4) and Lucy Lloyd (Series 6)First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 12 March-16 April 2007 (Series 1), 24 October-28 November 2007 (Series 2), 11 May 2008 (Family History Special), 20 August-24 September 2008 (Series 3), 7 November 2008 (90th Anniversary of World War 1 Special), 2 August 2009 (Homecoming Scotland Special), 31 August-28 September 2009 (Series 4), 14 September-12 October 2010 (Series 5), 20 March 2011 (Census Special), 13 September-11 October 2011 (Series 6)

''Wonderful and moving'' Clare Chambers''Utterly absorbing'' Sunday Post

SHORTLISTED 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.