The Shetland Witch: Or, Atropos Wants Her Shears Back by Kate Macdonald

Publisher - The Peachfield Press

Published - Out now

Price - £12.99 paperback £3.99 Kindle eBook

Hazel is an archaeologist, working in Unst, on the most northerly coast of the Shetland Isles.
She’s digging on Ishabel’s land. Ishabel is a retired professor of botany, and one of the remaining three Shetland witches, along with Maggie the artist who is getting too casual about shape-changing in public, and Avril the wildlife warden with too many birds to guard.
Maggie discovers that Hazel is also magical, and she becomes a Shetland witch.
Then Atropos arrives, to look for her shears that she sent into hiding to the ends of the earth thousands of years ago. She has to protect them from Zeus.
How will the witches protect the islands from a Fate and Zeus?
How will Hazel learn how to do magic again?
How will she cope with Tornost, a malignant trow with a penchant for eighteenth-century manners?
The Shetland Witch is a novel about living in the north, about sisterhood and belonging, and the power that women wield when they work together. As past and present collide, we are reminded that history, however old and mythical, is always with us.

There is an idea of ‘thin places’ where the borders between the heavens and the earth are a little closer than elsewhere. You go somewhere and just feel this is where magic could happen. In Kate Macdonald’s fascinating novel The Shetland Witch (with the added title Or, Atropos Wants Her Shears Back) takes us to the modern day Shetland Isles and here we find a place where magic is real; there are actual witches and all the mythologies we have heard is also are true. This creates an intriguing world of its own for us to explore and very unusual characters to meet.

The Shetland Isles are often prone to magical attack and so many many years ago the witches created a web of magic that prevents intrusion (bar the native ones like the mischievous and sometimes deadly Trow and local gods). Each witch has their own skills and long life but recently their numbers have felt low. Into this enters archeologist Hazel Warsi whose arrival on the Isles re-awakens memories of the magical things she could do as a child. She soon realised she wants to stay.

Thing though soon get more complicated as a new dig unearths an ancient stone full of endless heat and a mysterious stranger with her own magic arrives confused and yet searching. The witches discover this is Atropos, one of the Greek Fates, and a long battle with a mighty god is about to erupt on their land.

This is hugely immersive read. MacDonald has a skill for making us see The Shetland Isles as a living breathing place that is also quite magical; taking us for a time into Atropos’ head we see the Island as something quite unique. A collection of isles with ancient history of thousands of years and a meeting place already for various mythologies. We get ancient gods like Ran and Thor mentioned as well as local creators even before we get some Greek mythology thrown in. It’s a really smart idea and links to the reality that the Isles have seen many things over the millennia and you feel this place far away from the more modern mainland could be a place where anything can happen.

Cementing the story are the witches. We have Hazel the newest, trying to juggle her new duties and powers with managing a major dig. She is very much our initial entry point to understand how this world works. Then we have leading them Ishabel a skilled botany and plant academic with roots in Scotland and Kenya and has lived around for centuries and alongside her Maggie an artist and slightly less reserved. Macdonald actually has more than the usual three witches which is quite refreshing and we have an interesting community dynamic where some know witches are real and some choose to ignore it. Ishabel is very interesting warm and yet when needed incredibly ruthless which is creating a fascinating dynamic. We also have for the native Shetlanders their dialogue all in accent so the reader has to learn to lick up certain terms and this reminds us we are in a very different place. After a short while this clicks in and adds to the sense of realism we are being grounded in- the reader is a visitor here and we should lead to adapt.

Structurally we have a short section introducing Hazel and magic. Then we jump to the arrival of Atropos and the dig. This section is most of the story and I really enjoyed it we have the witches adapting to the arrival of someone from a different mythology, the mystery of what is in the dig and the arrival of Zeus who is just as horrible but impressively largely off the page as a malevolent force. The magic is here a battle of wills and strengths and Atropos having to learn to adapt to human life. Macdonald adds humour and pathos to these scenes and Atropos becomes a really interesting character in her own right. This is not a retelling of myths but simply adding characters and backstories into an even bigger mythological melting pot. Then we have at the end a final time jump and two new adversaries to face and some consequences of the previous section. It’s here Macdonald shows they can deliver not just magical but a sense of mild Horror and we start to see even more glimpses of the magical world the Shetland has - very much you could sense seeding for future stories and I have no issues with that. I also liked the consequences being felt as choices are made which really works. There a few minor pacing issues in some ways the solutions feel a little too easy but actually I felt that worked here more a modern folk tale than a story aiming for gritty realism.

The Shetland Witch is a very impressive story that is doing something different and feels like it’s tapping into a rich vein of story I would love to visit again. Macdonald is an author to watch and this is a hugely enjoyable story perfect for a dark evening read to take us away from our world. Highly recommended!