“What was up with Atropos back there, do you think?” Hazel asked, checking the stones that weighted the tarpaulin down.

“Weel,” Maggie said, “if I’d been flung ten thousand years intae my future and wis grappling wi the language, the temperature, an a bullying faither god wha I kent wis seriously angry, I’d be upset too. No tae mention haein tae learn aboot usin fiddlin peerie things laek forks an taps. I’m surprised it took her this lang tae crack. Once we get these things oot fae under the ston I’m sure she’ll be fine. That’s whit’s really botherin her.”

Kate Macdonald is probably best known to readers of the Fantasy Hive as the editor and mastermind behind the brilliant and much-lamented Handheld Press. However, on top of this and her academic writing she is also a writer of fiction. The Shetland Witch (2024) is Macdonald’s debut novel, which she has published herself through her imprint The Peachfield Press. And I am happy to say it’s absolutely wonderful. Avid Handheld Press readers will recognise many of Macdonald’s influences from the works she so passionately brought back into print, and other works of which Macdonald is an enthusiast. There is more than a hint of Sylvia Townsend Warner’s wonderful Lolly Willowes (1926), about an unmarried woman who decides to abandon her respectable life and become a witch in the countryside. But there are also hints of Macdonald’s love for vintage Weird fiction in her uncanny descriptions of magic and malign mythical beings, in her vivid evocation of the elemental Shetland landscapes. But The Shetland Witch is no mere pastiche. Macdonald writes beautiful and evocative prose, creating a real sense of place and mood with a few well-chosen words. And her characterisation is excellent. From Greek Fates to Shetland witches to an archaeologist who discovers she is more than she seems, Macdonald brings her characters to life and makes her readers care about them. The Shetland Witch is full of charm and warmth, a delightful story about people coming together that never sacrifices its inventiveness or intelligence. 

Hazel is an archaeologist who comes to the Shetland islands to work on a dig. However she isn’t there for long before she finds herself remembering magical incidents from her childhood. Hazel is a witch, and the Shetland witches, the women who have used their magic to protect the Shetland islands since time immemorial, are keen to meet her and help her develop her powers so she can join their dwindling ranks. For there are only three Shetland witches left. There’s Ishabel, a retired professor of botany, Maggie, an artist, and Avril, a wildlife warden. They welcome Hazel into their extended family, and Hazel learns to control her magic, to draw her power from the ground to help maintain the magical net that protects the Shetlands from magical incursions. But before she can fully get settled, the Shetland witches face a crisis. Atropos, the Greek Fate, arrives on the islands, across space and time to escape from Zeus, who wants to use her shears that end life for his own sinister and selfish purposes. Hazel and her new friends have to help Atropos find her shears before Zeus does and protect the island from his terrible wrath, before events spiral out of their control and no one is safe.

Shetland folk mythology, Greek mythology and elements of Norse mythology might not be the most obvious combination, but The Shetland Witch manages to mix them all in a way that makes sense and feels natural. Much of the novel’s distinctive flavour comes from how beautifully Macdonald captures the feel of the Shetland islands, from her evocative descriptions of its weather and landscapes to her deployment of Shetland dialect in her characters’ dialogue. The reader gets a clear sense of the Shetlands both as a real place where people live that has its own rich history, and as a cauldron for myths, legends and folk beliefs. This winds up being the perfect background for Hazel, Ishabel, Maggie and Avril’s blossoming friendships, as Hazel and the other witches learn more about each other and come to trust and care for each other. Atropos coming into the mix only makes the dynamics more interesting. Atropos has millennia of development to catch up on, but with Hazel and the others’ help she figures out how to live in the modern world as a human as opposed to an elemental force, discovering her humanity in the same way that Hazel is discovering her magic. All five of them quickly form a bond, which makes the supernatural incursions that test them all the more tense.

Macdonald makes the magic in her novel vivid and frightening, frequently by drawing on the Weird. Zeus’ attacks on our heroes is a full elemental experience, worthy of something by Algernon Blackwood or Arthur Machen. The gods and spirits that set themselves against the witches are malevolent forces from outside our world, whose presence distorts and warps reality around them. This is countered by the wonder of the witches’ magic. Each of the witches draws on something particular to them to wield their power. Ishabel draws on her knitting, Maggie uses her painting, Hazel draws from the ground, channelling the mycelial networks that connect everything beneath our feat. This allows magic to be an intensely personal thing that tells us something about the person or being using it, and allows the novel to bring different styles of magic together across different mythologies and beliefs. 

The Shetland Witch is a remarkable debut. Macdonald brings all the weight of her considerable intellect to creating this story – like her Handheld Press books, there’s a list of references in the back for those interested in the sources she used whilst writing it – but she never makes it feel like an intellectual exercise. Her beautiful prose and her deftly drawn characters make the novel immediately engaging and a joy to read. If no longer running Handheld Press means that Macdonald has more time to write books like this, then that is truly an unexpected but welcome silver lining. I look forward to reading more of Macdonald’s work.

The Shetland Witch is out now – you can order yours on Amazon