As a child the author was determined to become a falconer.

She learned the arcane terminology and read all the classic books, including T H White's tortured masterpiece, The Goshawk, which describes White's struggle to train a hawk as a spiritual contest. This book offers an account of his struggle with grief.

Years later, when her father died and she was struck deeply by grief, she became obsessed with the idea of training her own goshawk. She bought Mabel for £800 on a Scottish quayside and took her home to Cambridge, ready to embark on the long, strange business of trying to train this wildest of animals. 

H is for Hawk is an unflinchingly honest account of Macdonald's struggle with grief during the difficult process of the hawk's taming and her own untaming. This is a book about memory, nature and nation, and how it might be possible to reconcile death with life and love.