How Orkney inspired Sally Magnusson’s latest novel

Orkney has always been a place that sparks imagination. Whether through its living traditions, fascinating history or spectacular scenery, the islands continue to encourage creativity from local artists and musicians to celebrated writers who find a special kind of inspiration here.

I had been to Orkney several times over the years, often for work and always in summer. I love these islands in any weather. But for the purposes of the book I travelled there twice in the depths of winter, coorying in to look and think and write for a couple of weeks at a time.

One such writer is Sally Magnusson. Best known for her career in broadcasting and journalism, as well as her award-winning fiction, Sally’s fourth novel The Shapeshifter’s Daughter is due to be released in November 2025. Rooted in Norse mythology yet based in Orkney’s modern-day setting, the book is a powerful reimagining of the Norse story of Hel – Queen of the Underworld – while following protagonist Helen on her return home to Orkney after forty years.

We spoke with Sally about the inspirations and themes behind her new novel, her personal connections to the islands, and what readers can look forward too from her latest work…

Q. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
A. I’m a journalist who started out in newspapers and then spent most of my career presenting TV news programmes, from BBC Breakfast to Panorama to Reporting Scotland. Alongside my presenting career and family commitments, I always tried to make time over the years for writing. At first it was non-fiction and biography, and more recently fiction.

Q. After 27 years presenting Reporting Scotland, you stepped away earlier this year and now you’re publishing your fourth novel. What do you enjoy most about writing fiction compared to your work in journalism and broadcasting?
A. When I moved into fiction with The Sealwoman’s Gift in 2018 (a historical novel about the abduction of Icelanders by Algerian pirates in the seventeenth century), I had to wean myself away from reportage and learn how to let myself go and ‘make things up’, which is the great joy and freedom of fiction. That remains what I enjoy most.

Yes, to create an authentic fictional world I generally have to research time and place rigorously, but at core the job is to make invented characters live and breathe and speak and feel as you and I do. I have to respond to these characters and where they take me. If this is done well, it can create a different kind of truth, although one that’s a million miles from the kind of factual journalism I was devoted to for so long.

Q. What sparked your initial idea to write The Shapeshifter’s Daughter?
A. My father, Magnus Magnusson, a historian and writer as well as the first host of the BBC television quiz show Mastermind, was an Icelander by birth and an enthusiastic expert on the Norse myths (which were written down in Iceland in the Middle Ages) and the Icelandic sagas.

I grew up hearing his tales of Odin, Thor, Loki, Hel, Fenriswolf and the rest. These characters still reach a part of my own being (maybe it’s in the DNA) that responds deeply to stories from the north. So I think it was just a matter of time before I felt my fictional imagination being drawn to a mythic retelling of my own.

Looking for a female character in the Norse pantheon, I found myself drawn to the fascinating Hel of the underworld, half youthful beauty, half crone. I wondered what her story would look like if told from her own point of view, rather than that of Odin, who banished her to the realm of the dead and whose malign view of Hel, the shapeshifter’s daughter, has until now been the one that later writers have reflected.

Q. The Shapeshifter’s Daughter is based in Orkney. What drew you to set this book here and do you have any connections to the islands?
A. Orkney (along with Shetland), for many centuries part of Scandinavia rather than Scotland, has always reminded me of Iceland, that other northerly outpost. My father felt very at home in Orkney, as do I. It’s less about the landscape, which is different in many ways, than the cultural heritage which you can feel everywhere: whether in the language and names; or the history as told in Orkneyinga Saga of the times when Norse earls invaded and farmed and fought over these islands; or the astonishing relics such as the Viking graffiti in Maeshowe; or in the folk tales and the street names.

To reimagine the Norse myth of Hel by placing her (and her pursuers) in modern Orkney felt very natural – and quite exciting, once I began to see all the parallels I could exploit.

Q. Did you spend any time in Orkney while writing the book? Are there any particular places or elements of Orkney’s culture or heritage that inspired any scenes or characters?
A. I had been to Orkney several times over the years, often for work and always in summer. I love these islands in any weather. But for the purposes of the book I travelled there twice in the depths of winter, coorying in to look and think and write for a couple of weeks at a time. It was important to observe at least once the solstice sun creeping into Maeshowe, and that became an important element of the novel, both narratively and metaphorically. Being there also enabled me to observe the work of the Maeshowe tour guides (or stewards as I believe they’re called now), and, sure enough, that became the job of my male protagonist Thorfinn Coffin.

One of the times I was in Orkney, I stayed in a lovely little Airbnb rental outside Kirkwall, which with some modifications became the home of my main Orkney character, Helen Firth. And Stromness Library, both past and present, is absolutely critical to the plot. So this is an Orcadian book through and through, and I’m so grateful to Stromness storyteller Tom Muir for keeping me as factually correct as possible along the way.

Q. Norse mythology plays a significant part in this story. What do you think it is about these ancient tales that continues to resonate with modern readers and with you personally?
A. I think that like all the great mythic stories from different cultures, the Norse ones resonate with the human condition and reflect who we know deep down that we are. The foibles and weaknesses and cruelties and fears of the gods of Asgards are ours. They help us to understand ourselves. As my character Thorfinn muses, ‘What if there were to be a meeting of worlds in this thin island of ours? What if myth could be made manifest? It would look like this, wouldn’t it? The gods would look like us.’ Wise and tragic one minute, boisterous and silly the next, the Norse myths have a different flavour to the Greek ones, and this also appeals to me. All human life is there.

Q. If readers could take away one message from The Shapeshifter’s Daughter after finishing the book, what would you hope it might be?
A. I’ve never been one for wanting to leave readers with any single ‘message’. In all my novels it’s complexity, nuance and the elusiveness of easy answers to the things we find hardest in life that I’m exploring. But I hope that in a book that doesn’t flinch from what it means to die, the image of the Maeshowe sun might leave readers with a sense of warmth and optimism.

The strapline of the novel is ‘Two worlds. One golden winter.’ There are no sentimental answers to the fate that overcomes everyone at the end, but I’d like to think this is a hopeful, even joyous exploration of human possibility to the end and beyond.

The Shapeshifter’s Daughter by Sally Magnusson is due to be published on the 6^th November 2025, and is available to buy from:
https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-shapeshifters-daughter/sally-magnusson

By Amy Leith
Born and raised in Aberdeen with an admiration for Orkney and Shetland, loves to travel and visit new places, enjoys cooking, always listening to music, spends a little too much time on TikTok.

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