Storm Pegs: A Life Made in Shetland

by Jen Hadfield

What if the answer to ‘Where am I?’ is ‘heaven’?

In her late twenties, celebrated poet Jen Hadfield moved to the Shetland archipelago to make her life anew. A scattering of islands at the northernmost point of the United Kingdom, frequently cut off from the mainland by storms, Shetland is a place of Vikings and myths, of ancient languages and old customs, of breathtaking landscapes and violent weather. It has long fascinated travellers seeking the edge of the world.

On these islands known for their isolation and drama, Hadfield found something a place teeming with life, where rare seabirds blow in on Atlantic gales, seals and dolphins visit its beaches, and wild folk festivals carry the residents through long, dark winters. She found a close-knit community, too, of neighbours always willing to lend a boat or build a creel, of women wild-swimming together in the star-spangled winter seas. Over seventeen years, as bright summer nights gave way to storm-lashed winters, she learned new ways to live.

In prose as rich and magical as Shetland itself, Hadfield transports us to the islands as a local; introducing us to the remote and beautiful archipelago where she has made her home, and shows us new ways of living at the edge.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Scotland, Nature, Travel, Audiobook, Biography

369 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 11, 2024

Reviews

[Alwynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Artist and award-winning poet Jen Hadfield has lived on Shetland for 17 years, the Scottish archipelago located to the far, far north of the UK. After renting from a friend, Hadfield finally settled in Burra where she built a small house designed to blend with its surroundings. Although a sooth-moother (incomer) Hadfield soon became part of the local community, welcomed with bowls of soup and gifts of freshly-caught fish. Her account of her life in Shetland is episodic, she wanted to capture the essence of the place and the people in:

“…a series of micro-essays without a connecting narrative structure. [It] would just be moments of presentness, in place, and I wanted them to be as intense as I could possibly make them, almost a wee bit trippy in their intensity sometimes.”

I’m not sure if her book’s quite “trippy” but it’s certainly lyrical, although it’s also refreshingly grounded and unsentimental. She links the landscapes to the language, the ways in which Shetlaen – its origins close to old Norse – shapes an understanding of the earth, the sky, the wild things, and the passing of the seasons. The loose structure follows these seasons, although in Shetland the seasons are punctuated by events like the harvests, the rise of the mackerel, and the appearance of newborn lambs.

Hadfield quickly adapts to the Shetland way of life. She forages, grows artichokes and garlic which she trades with neighbours for their crops. She walks the land, paying attention to its sights, sounds, colours and textures – which she renders so well I could almost feel what it was like to be there. She learns the language, makes friends, and adopts two cats. Her musings on her existence are threaded through with snippets of local folklore, details of the wildlife on shore and sea, and Shetland's rich history: a visit to the small island Foula yields stories of the ropes made from women’s hair, passed down from generation to generation, used to descend steep cliffs in search of limpets or birds’ eggs to supplement frugal diets. Hadfield charts too the less idyllic aspects of island living: the harsh winds and the cold that leave her riddled with chilblains; the fogs that can suddenly halt the ferry and cut her off from the shops; and the relentless flood of garbage that washes up from passing ships and often chokes small animals and birds. Overall, Hadfield’s writing constructs a haunting celebration of place and of community, of land where ancient and modern intertwine, and sometimes clash.

Thanks to Netgalley and to publisher Picador for an ARC

[Sophy H · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well this felt like it took an age to read and not in a good way. I'm gonna split this review into positives and negatives.

The positives:

* There were some great descriptions of the Shetland Isles, I really got a sense of place from them.
* There were good explanations of some Shetland folklore.
* It was great to hear about the different wildlife including the varied and copious bird life.

The negatives:

* The use of Shetland language was frustrating because the glossary of terms was at the back of the book. Every time the author threw in a random word, you had to keep turning to the back and trawl through the word list to see what it meant. It would have worked better with the meaning of the word in brackets or as a simple footnote at the bottom of that page.

*The prose was overly flowery in parts. I know Hadfield is a poet first and foremost but there were some descriptions that seemed to go on for an entire paragraph which just seemed unnecessary.

* There was a lot of repetition in here. Walking in the wind, rain, walking along the shore, rain, beachcombing, rain, eating cake, rain, storms, rain, boat journeys!

* The book was overly lengthy at 368 pages. With the repetition, good editing could have cut out at least one hundred pages without losing anything from the structure.

I was buzzing to get this book initially as I thought it would be right up my street and I was hoping there might be some mention of Fair Isle knitting in there too as I'm quite interested in that. Overall the book was a little disappointing. It felt a little self-indulgent with too much superfluous information.

A 2 star read for me sadly.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is going to be my book of the year for 2024. A stunning account of life on Shetland. How did the author manage to transport me there using mere words? I feel very much like I did when I’d finished Wolf Hall - as though I had been living in the 1500s, in that case. Here, I felt as though I had lived on Shetland myself, enduring stormy nights in a caravan lashed down with shipping container straps, and the endless light of the summer.
The book made me feel so ambivalent about the onshore wind farm, too. “Endure it for one generation,” said Jen’s friend. But I understand why she weeps when she walks along the road to the wind farm site.
This is a book I shall treasure like I treasure Thin Places, and H is for Hawk, and Vesper Flights.
Thank you Jen Hadfield for taking me to Shetland. I hope all goes well with your family.

[Victoria (Eve's Alexandria) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel embarrassed writing about how beautiful this book is - Jen Hadfield writes about Shetland, language, time, nature, climate and community with so much grace and attention. Highly recommended for anyone who likes islands, birds, the ocean, or, you know, words. Definitely a best book of 2025.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

(4.5) This is not so much a straightforward memoir as a set of atmospheric vignettes, each headed by a relevant word or phrase in the Shaetlan dialect. Hadfield, who is British Canadian, moved to the islands in her late twenties in 2006 and soon found her niche. “My new life quickly debunked those Edge-of-the-World myths – Shetland was too busy to feel remote, and had too strong a sense of its own identity to feel frontier-like.” It’s gently ironic, she notes, that she’s a terrible sailor and gets vertigo at height yet lives somewhere with perilous cliff edges that is often reachable only by sea. Living in a trailer waiting for her home to be built on West Burra, she feels the line between indoors and out is especially thin. It’s a life of wild swimming, beachcombing, fresh fish, folk music, seabirds, kind neighbours, and good cheer that warms long winter nights. After the isolation of the pandemic period comes the unexpected joy of a partner and a pregnancy in her mid-forties. Hadfield is a Windham-Campbell Prize-winning poet, and her lyrical prose is full of lovely observations that made me hanker to return to Shetland – it’s been 19 years since my only visit, after all. This was a slow read I savoured for its language and sense of place.

Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[Katrina Clarke · Rating 5 out of 5]

This writing is transporting. It's fresh, honest, and playful. Full of Shetland words that are (mostly) to be found in the glossary, and plenty of local dialect, you can hear this in the island's accent and the sound of this book is part of the poetry.

The chapters are short. She focuses on the natural world around her and the community (wild and human) she finds, rather than her own house building work or work life.

Bioluminescence, what it means to belong, how to change your perspective of home, the wind farm debates, miracles of sea birds, the wind oh the wind, swimming in bioluminescence, swimming with geese, swimming until the pain stops her thinking. Dating. Washing lines. Sayings and stories that have evolved. Short days and moments of light.

Being seventeen years on Shetland, Jen cares deeply to know that she knows Shetland as fully as she can. She is affronted to be asked if she is made welcome by the open armed and kind community and landscape and loves.

[Amy Lockett · Rating 4 out of 5]

more poetry than non-fiction but who really needs plot anyway? loved being immersed in the beautiful world of Shetland, only criticism is having to constantly flick back to the glossary for Shaetlan words and not having all of them listed there

[Katy Wheatley · Rating 5 out of 5]

An account of Jen Hadfield's years spent living in the Shetland Isles, this attempts to understand the people and islands through both a physical experience of creating a home there, but also an emotional connection through the language and how the people express themselves and the land they live on. This is an exploration of geography and place and where home is and what that feels like. I love that Hadfield returns again and again to the idea that most people have that Shetland is remote and how, in her own experience, it is a vital, central part of her being and that living there makes her feel like she is in the middle of everything and building connections that radiate outwards all the time. Poetry and practicality learn to sit side by side in this fascinating memoir.

[Laura (Reading is a Doing Word) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book as an ARC from Picador in exchange for an honest review.

I have been fortunate to visit Shetland a couple of times and, on one very memorable visit, to Experience Up Helly Aa. When I read the description of this book I was immediately drawn to it.

Storm Pegs is a beautiful account of Jen Hadfield finding her "home scar" in Shetland. Each chapter is themed around a Shaetlan word - the words often chosen for their depictions of natural phenomenon or feelings for which there's no direct English equivalent, thus highlighting the landscape and lifestyle's shaping of the language.

The writing is lyrical and often ethereal, perhaps unsurprising as Jen Hadfield is a poet by trade. Despite the poetic nature of the prose, she does not romanticise island life but instead discusses notions of remoteness, isolation and "the edge". What emerges is a vital and vibrant sense of community, flexibility and perpetual reinvention. Life in Shetland may well be on the "Edge" of the UK but it's by no means static and indeed forms the centre of its own sphere of influence.

She addresses the challenges of wild weather, the cycles of nature, the lack of daylight hours, the problems of transportation but all the while recognising the benefits and privileges of living in such a place.

I loved this snippet of Shetland life!

[Crazytourists_books · Rating 3 out of 5]

It started really nicely, I enjoyed the descriptions of Shetland (and the reference to another Shetland book and its author, which I read a few weeks ago, "Sea bean" by Sally Huband), I loved the start of a new life, and the adventure, it made me want to visit Shetland!
Unfortunately, it was way longer than I would have liked, It got a bit "more of the same", not bad, just not as exciting..
A good read, nevertheless!

[Rosamund Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

A luminous account of Jen Hadfield's 17 years on Shetland, the centre of the world, and her encounters with wildlife, community, and the sea, over that period. Hadfield's prose is full of life, and these descriptions of Shetland often read like prose poetry. Strange and vivid, it reminds me of Nan Shepherd's The Living Mountain.

[Kristy W · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really lovely, but also really slow (like really slow) with parts I just skimmed over

[Liz Moffat · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful poetic story of life in Shetland. It paints a story of the community, the landscape and the sea and makes me want to visit all the more.

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Started and finished this one whilst working away and staying in Shetland for a month. I felt this actually added to my overall experience and feelings around the book as I sat in the very landscape she was describing and personally thinking about it in a more poetic way.

It made me think really hard about the major developments here (especially as someone working on such projects) and the concern of reaping the use of the island to become purely a ‘remote’ industrial landscape for the mainlands own benefit.

I am always quietly championing islanders and their customs, and with my personal love of trying to keep Scottish Gaelic alive, it was interesting to hear the similarities and somewhat struggles around keeping the original Shetland language alive.

[Kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read Storm Pegs in one sitting. The story of how the young author poet lived in shetland for one year.
I felt absolutely transported to Shetland, dealing with changing climates, the varied language, the beauty of Shetland and the love pouring through the authors soul.

[Kirsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

Die Shetlands sind eine Gruppe kleiner Inseln im äußersten Nordwesten Großbritanniens. Ein Sammelplatz für Sagen, alter Sprachen und Bräuche. Aber sie sind auch abhängig vom Wetter und oft durch Stürme vom schottischen Festland abgeschnitten. Das sind die Inseln, die sich Jen Hadfield Ende ihrer Zwanziger als ihre neue Heimat aussucht.

Was macht es mit jemandem, an den Rand der Welt zu ziehen? In eine eingeschworene Gemeinschaft, in der jeder Neuzugang heraussticht? Mich hat an der Schilderung der Menschen auf Shetland überrascht, wie offen sie waren. Auch wenn sie sich auf die nötigsten Worte beschränkten: Jen beschreibt ein Miteinander, das von gegenseitigem Respekt und Aufmerksamkeit geprägt ist. Aber auch von einem gewissen Abstand, den man sich lässt. Die Komfortzone des Anderen vorsichtig ausgelotet und immer respektiert.

Die Autorin zeigt mir eine Welt, die ganz anders ist als ich erwartet habe und doch genau so. Ich habe mir die Sheltands immer karg und einsam vorgestellt und das sind sie auf den ersten Blick auch. Auf den zweiten Blick liegt es gerade in dieser Kargheit eine Schönheit und die Autorin hat mir diesen zweiten Blick gewährt. Am Anfang jedes Kapitels stehen Begriffe, wie man sie nur auf den Inseln kennt und mit jedem neuen Begriff entführt sie mich ein bisschen tiefer in ihre Welt. Ihre Worte haben Bilder in meinem Kopf entstehen lassen. Deshalb habe ich das Buch entgegen meiner sonstigen Lesegewohnheit langsam gelesen. Über die Seiten zu fliegen wäre ihnen nicht gerecht geworden.

Jen muss keine großen Worte machen, um u erzählen. Ähnlich wie die Menschen auf den Shetlands beschränkt sie sich in ihrer Sprache nur auf das Nötigste und hat es mir überlassen, meine eigenen Schlüsse zu ziehen. Für mich hat ihr Stil perfekt zu den Inseln gepasst, die sie beschreibt.

Ich muss gestehen, dass ich mit dem Titel lange nichts anfangen konnte. Aber beim Lesen habe ich gelernt, dass es ein typischer Begriff ist: Storm Pegs sind Wäscheklammern, die auch im stärksten Sturm die Wäsche an der Leine halten. Eigentlich etwas Banales, aber es macht das Leben viel einfacher. So ist es mit vielem, was Jen Hadfield in ihrem Buch beschreibt: es sind nie die großen Dinge, aber ohne sie würde etwas fehlen.

[the society of inkdrinkers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Storm Pegs A Life in Shetland by Jen Hadfield is a memoir from a poet who fell in love with the Shetland Islands and moved there. Each chapter starts with a word from The Shetland Dictionary and the author provides a story and context for the meaning. There are several dictionaries that exist for Shetland words, one of which is entirely dedicated to weather with 317 pages. This book shows how language adds depth and understanding to the feel and heart of a place. Community is important to the people of the Shetland Islands and it is a world of its own.

Hadfield describes her surroundings in great detail and with the prose that only a poet could see and write. “You can almost hold Shetland, like a poem, in your gaze at once; you can shake it like a snow globe in your mind.” With her descriptions, you definitely feel the cold wind on your face and the briny smell of the ocean. You feel like you are on the edge of the world but connected to elements and people that share the island with her. “I can feel the human light in me radiating out, like a storm lantern with the shutters opened.”

I would recommend this book for readers who want a tour of the Shetland Islands through a poet’s eyes. This book is an exploration of language, nature, and a woman’s journey to belonging.

Thank you Pan Macmillan and Netgalley for the advanced reader copy. All opinions are my own.

This book will be released July 11, 2024.

[Phil · Rating 4 out of 5]

The blurb gives the impression that this will be more of an autobiography than it is. Rather than a linear account of Hadfield's life in Shetland, it's more a series of snapshots exploring her response to the language, location, culture, community and wildlife.

Hadfield is a poet, and this comes across in her writing. She has the ability of writing in a way that makes you feel present in the scene she is describing. Each chapter is based on or around a Shetland word or phrase, and while the chapters are loosely linked to each other, most of them could be read as standalones. While I didn't agree with all her conclusions, I found her writing very thought-provoking, and this is a book I will probably reread. Although the section on the wind farm was particularly tough reading - Shetland is so incredibly beautiful and it is heart-breaking to see it being slowly munched up and destroyed by masses of concrete, metal and tarmac.

My only disappointment was in her casual use of swear words - her claim that other words "fail us" when we are in a "state of rapture" seems odd, coming from one who is so skilled with language. Later, she says that swearing is her way of praying, which seems needlessly offensive to so many different faiths. But if you don't mind, or can skip over, occasional comments like these, this book is well-worth reading for anyone with a love for Shetland.

[Haxxunne · Rating 5 out of 5]

A luminous recentring of a place that gets bigger the closer you look

Hadfield's loving and dense book, equal parts autobiography and paean to her island home, is an answer to the question 'Where am I?' but Hadfield's radical refocusing of the Edge to the Centre is intertwined with the as urgent question of 'Who am I?'

Often described as remote, Shetland comes into wild detail under Hadfield's poet eyes, getting larger and deeper the more that she and we explore the islands. It reminded me of John Crowley's similarly dense novel Little, Big, where getting closer to the landscape reveals an even larger world beyond, full of mysteries and delights.

Alongside the cast of friends, neighbours and tourists, Shetland is another visceral character, a geologic mother, a sleeping giant, harried by the other major characters that colour the narrative, the sea and the weather. They are as they should be, neither inimical nor anthropomorphised, simply a part of the world that Hadfield soothes herself into, like a limpet on a rock.

I imagine the trickle of women's narratives of life in other places is one response to the boundaries that Covid-19 imposed on us, but I'm loving seeing the world through eyes that I cannot even imagine.

Four and a half stars, rounded up to five.

[Stephen Dunstan · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a delightful book, Jen's prose is generally excellent and as someone who visits Shetland annually I found it authentic and an engaging account of living on the isles.

I haven't read other reviews and don't know if any comparisons are being made with Sally Huband's Sea Bean, but I feel I should make them even if it's not generally the done thing. They cover a lot of similar ground and are both written by women who had moved to Shetland. Both involve a visit to Foula and given they are friends I think they even describe the same beachcombing trip together at one point. The Foula chapter is a microcosm of why I prefer Storm Pegs, it's a personal reflection and doesn't just largely report what one of the residents has learned. Both books also cover the Viking wind farm in the North Mainland, and whilst Sea Bean gets bogged down in politics Storm Pegs is more readable without shirking the issues.

The use of Shetland dialect in a relatively sparing fashion works well. A very detailed point but I don't believe birders ever shake the hands of someone seeing a new bird for their list and say 'lifer', there would be hundreds of handshakes going on at the twitches Jen Hadfield refers to in the book...

[Belinda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I began this memoir with no clue to what the author was going to do, but soon realised she was going to use her muscular, oiled vocabulary mixed with a bairn's sense of magic and wonder, alongside a very adult understanding of the intricacies of life and relationships, to invite the reader into her life on Shetland, particularly Burra.

What did I get from that? True pleasure at how important all the layers of life are, a relief at how such a clever, interesting person also grapples with fear, change, the horrors of our deteriorating planet. How could those things be revelatory? Well often they're not, they simply connect someone like me to humanity at large (and at small). It's true to say I often felt less alone, more ordinary when Jen described her struggles and the difficulties of animals within such an extreme climate. Sometimes I thought she was barking mad - I also suffer from vertigo - and I would hate to swim in icy seas, but for the most part I loved her full-tilt-at-life mode.

What a wonderful book this was. I'm going to read Sea Bean next because of Jen's obsession with them.

[Marlene · Rating 5 out of 5]

I won copy of this beautiful book from a small bookshop in North Somerset. Reading it revived memories of visiting Shetland several years ago. While my trip was brief, I fell in love with It's breathtaking beauty.
Hadfield did too and she's made it her home. She's an award winning poet and in September she'll accept Yale's Windham-Campbell prize for her body of work.
Storm Pegs is a memoir of her life in Shetland. Storm pegs are heavy-duty clothes pegs designed to keep clothes from being ripped from the clothes drying line on windy days and we're a gift from a friend.
The author relates her experiences in lyrical descriptive language describing the landscape, weather, people, birds and most of all the Shaetlan language. She recounts her life in a caravan while waiting for approval to build a house. We go along on her many hikes and wild swim with her group of women in a bioluminescent sea.
Storm Pegs is part memoir, part nature essay and part language study. Together they blend into a joyous celebration of a chosen life.

[Samantha Lamb · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such a beautiful book. It is about Jen Hadfields' life in Shetland over the course of about a year.

This book made me ache to see the places Jen so eloquently describes, from cold water swimming to hiking to cliffs, I felt I was there too.

This is a journey of discovery, about place, people, and self. It is understanding what people can do when they live "at the edge."

I had always thought the Shetland was a bit remote, but this challenged me to consider what remote really is.

Jen is a poet, which comes across in the magical use of her prose. I was laughing out loud in parts and weeping in others. I wished I had a paper version of the book to underline paragraphs about swearing, descriptions of the sea, and the beautiful Shetland words.

This made me want to visit even more, to take in the stunning beauty described and also, hopefully, catch a whisper or two of the Shetland language in use.

[Marjorie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This memoir is a leisurely hovercraft ride over the bogs and rocky beaches of Shetland. Your cheeks won't be chapped by the relentless wind. You won't need to hold onto your hat, or cover your heels with bandaids inside your rubber boots.

Just listen to Jen Hadfield describe her Shetland life. Her story is bewitching. If you need a thoughtful escape, with soothing properties, Storm Pegs is it. I do not recommend multitasking if you plan to read Storm Pegs via the audiobook. Hadfield's accent and use of the Shetland dialect require concentrated listening. But her voice, accent and dialect all add so much to the mood of her story. So if you can really listen, the audiobook is great.

Lovers of nature, coastlines, wild places, dreamy sentences, language, dictionaries, birds, marine life, and memoirs will all find something to adore in this book. Don't miss it.

[✰matthew✰ · Rating 4 out of 5]

for me the writing in this book is a 6/5* situation, it is absolutely beautiful and transporting. it opened up my imagination and made me feel as if i was exploring the places being described.

the huge variety of different elements of island life that are spoken about in this book are all incredibly interesting and engagingly written about.

i loved the reading experience of this book and felt i learnt about shetland, as well as the authors extensive experiences. i also felt like i was reading a beautifully written poetic novel, the authors a poet and you can tell.

the star docked is because at times i struggled with the lack of flow in this book, i felt some chapters were abandoned or unfinished.

[Andrew Johnston · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was ok, it started out really well and I felt transported to Shetland by the lyrical writing, but this wore thin by the time i got to about halfway through. I think it takes place over the course of a year but the timeline is blurred by stories from other times and places. there are lots of wildlife, sea and landscapes and stories about living on shetland, I found the slow incorporation of the dialect of shetland into the book interesting, the further into the book you went the more there was, probably a reflection of her integration into Shetland society but i found myself reading in my head in a cod scottish accent. Worth reading if you like or want to visit shetland. Net galley ARC.

[Jen Burrows · Rating 4 out of 5]

Storm Pegs is a lyrical memoir of life in Shetland. For Hadfield, nothing about Shetland is remote: it's a place that centres on connection. Using Shaetlan as a gateway, she explores this unique local rootedness and the complexities of having a deep-seated kinship with a place which is both ancient and every-changing, familiar and unknowable. In prose brimming with emotion she unpicks all the things that make the islands so special to her.

Whatever your own connection to Shetland, it is hard not to be swept up by Hadfield's open-throated love for the place.

*Thank you to Netgalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review*

[Barb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite possibly the most beautiful book I’ve read since Annie Dillard’s Teaching a Stone to Talk. Jen’s voice is pure magic as she weaves together a multitude of memories of her life in Shetland. I began reading as I prepared for my next visit, in morsels, savoring every word, reluctant to finish before stepping foot back on the ground. The book captures the essence of Shetland: the generosity of those that bide there, the ever changing moods of the land and sea and her love of the place that is her home. I finally let myself finish it when I returned home, and look forward to reading it in print soon.

[Mezzie Elen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautiful piece of writing. I had to go listen to the audio too so that I could hear Jen’s voice when speaking the Shetlandic words.
As a poet her choice of words conjure up a stark landscape with insights of utter beauty.
I always read a book before reading reviews.
It is very intimate experience, reading a book for the first time, I hate beginning with someone else’s thoughts intruding into my enjoyment.
I LOVE this book and have bought copies for my friends. If I could give it more stars in my review I would.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A poet's attempt at describing coming to live in Shetland in a non-lienar memoir, that tries to convey a sense of place rather than a story. This took me a few weekends to get through, due to the style but also it felt like a book where I needed some space to absorb it as I went along. It re-centres Shetland - and other places - rather than casting them as 'remote' and, Hadfield says, portrays it more accurately than television media. This one is likely to be an aquired taste/your milage may vary.