Storm Pegs cover art

Storm Pegs

A Life Made in Shetland

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Storm Pegs

By: Jen Hadfield
Narrated by: Jen Hadfield
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About this listen

This audio edition is read by the author and was recorded in a remote studio in Shetland.

'Storm Pegs
perfectly captures the knotting of language and landscape. I was transported.' - Katherine May, Sunday Times bestselling author of Wintering


From the winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Highland Book Prize

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 more: 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.

Environment Europe Great Britain Nature & Ecology Outdoors & Nature Science Winter Highlander

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Critic reviews

Storm Pegs perfectly captures the knotting of language and landscape. I was transported. (Katherine May, Sunday Times bestselling author of Wintering)
Storm Pegs is rich, attentive and beautifully written. Hadfield writes vividly about the tides, the Shaetlan language, and shows a great appreciation for the people and modern life of Shetland. This book has been my friend. I really loved it and I recommend it (Amy Liptrot, author of The Outrun)
Delightful: at once intricate and effortless, playful and deeply-felt. A heartfelt paean to a coldwater Eden. (Cal Flyn, author of Islands of Abandonment)
What a wonderful book. Jen Hadfield just has to turn her languaged gaze to the world and it fizzes to life on the page. One of the most intensely realised accounts of a place - and time in a place - I have read. (Philip Marsden, author of The Summer Isles)
Storm Pegs is a deeply thoughtful and beautifully written account of a life centred on making art in a lively island community. Hadfield writes with rare nuance about choosing and building a new life in a place that calls to many of us. (Sarah Moss, author of Summerwater)
A gorgeous portrait of a fascinating, ever-changing place, as well as very many other things: friendship, community, creation and self-creation, the cycle of the seasons and the toil and triumph of the elements. I adored it. (Sara Baume, author of A Line Made By Walking)
A book as exhilarating as a dip in wild winter waters.
This book is brim-full of love for Shetland – for its land and seascapes, for its people and language. Hadfield’s writing is fuelled by unceasing curiosity and attentiveness. It is vivid, lively and fresh (Malachy Tallack, author of Sixty Degrees North)
In this memoir, written after 17 years living in this wild, wonderful place, Hadfield reflects on her pristine but often brutal surroundings, where seals and dolphins nose up to the beaches and residents enjoy wild swimming through wintry seas. (GQ, The best books of 2024)
Storm Pegs is as much an account of the author finding new personal bearings as a series of magic lantern slides about insular life . . . This is a great, bright birl of a book – thoroughly beguiling.
Hadfield paints Shetland vividly as a place ever-changing. Storm Pegs is a powerful hymn to Shetland and to community, as well as to the awesomeness of nature. This is a bewitching book, tactile and immersive, riven with salt winds, alive with human oddities and loud with the cries of seabirds. Everything glows in the light of Hadfield’s words, from slimy sea molluscs to grand island vistas.
A sensual love letter to the beautiful island of Shetland
A book to be read slowly, while savouring the details
All stars
Most relevant
I was given the book as a gift after the title caught my eye. I read the book and then listened to it. I wanted to hear the correct pronunciation of the wide variety of Shetland words within and their origins.
Jens narration is heartfelt and gentle.
I just loved it and would definitely recommend reading and listening.

A beautiful gentle read.

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A truly beautiful book. I found this book heart warming, calming and wonderfully enchanting. One of the best books I have listened to on Audible. I hope the author adds and narrates more of her work on Audible.

Enchanting

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Jen brings Shetland to life in this perfect book, it was such a joy to hear her story about living in this special place..her descriptions and beautifully spoken words are deeply moving. Highly recommended listening.

Beautifully narrated

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A fabulous book, beautifully written,sensitive and respectful of Shetland, the landscape and the people that live there. Wonderfully evocative. l learned so much. Thank you.

Fascinating

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A magical and enchanting listen beautifully written and read thank you I loved it

magical

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