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C. J. Cooke’s The Lighthouse Witches will be published by Berkley Publishing Group on October 5, 2021.
Cooke’s “The Lighthouse Witches” | by A Review of C. J. Cooke’s “The Lighthouse Witches” | by
Darkly atmospheric this reminded me of a Stephen King novel. At no point did I feel like I knew how it all would end, which kept me looking forward to reading on. Warning that this does bounce around a lot between people and years, but I felt invested enough in the story to let it play out. The ending was well done and I thought everything wrapped up satisfyingly. 4 stars. The plot is fairly twisted and quite convoluted. There are some loopholes in the flow but nothing too major that will take away from your enjoyment. I enjoyed the constant surprises that the author kept throwing time and again. There are many creepy moments too. At the same time, some parts were very farfetched and there were too many coincidences towards the end. Liv dives into her work and actually ends up befriending a few village women, who fill her in on the history and lore of the island itself. Some of the things they tell her are quite disturbing, most notably a witch's curse that summons wildlings, supernatural beings who mimic human children.
Me: It nearly is. My only slight hesitation is that a major part of the storyline comes a bit too close to the Netflix series “Dark.” Maybe it’s true what they say that there aren’t any wholly original ideas anymore. But no matter. Buy the book for your shelves (the UK cover is gorgeous!) or listen to the fantastic multi-narrator 10-hour audiobook. Either way, you’ll love it. The Lighthouse Witches tells an intense, spooky tale through the eyes of mama Liv in 1998, sister Luna in 2021, and the words of a grimoire from 1620. I thought the different perspectives brought such an exciting pace to the novels, allowing the reader to try to connect the dots as they go. I found it so easy to become attached to Liv and her girls - I still ache to give Saffy a hug. 🥲 I've always been interested on witches, especially on the "trials" held against thousands of women in Europe, acussing them of practicing witchcraft, torturing them and killing them in awful ways. While not exactly a hair-raising read for me, (few are) I did find some scenes in the book pretty scary, less, maybe, for the magical terror involved, than for the willingness of people to do terrible things in the name of insane beliefs, a terror we live with every day, and the fear any parent might feel when their child is in danger. Twenty-two years later, Luna has been searching for her missing sisters and mother. When she receives a call about her youngest sister, Clover, she’s initially ecstatic. Clover is the sister she remembers–except she’s still seven years old, the age she was when she vanished. Luna is worried Clover is a wildling. Luna has few memories of her time on the island, but she’ll have to return to find the truth of what happened to her family. But she doesn’t realize just how much the truth will change her.
The Lighthouse Witches by C.J. Cooke | Waterstones
From the first word, the story throws you into the fray of long ago women being accused of witchcraft, with no chance of them being judged anything but guilty. So be it, as the aggressors, and all that come after them, are cursed, the curses to be carried out by wildlings. There seems to be no escape from this curse as those cursed do the unthinkable. The sense of foreboding and danger is constant and it seems impossible that things can ever change for the better.The atmosphere is freaking fantastic. Everything about the island, the lighthouse, the local history and lore, it is perfect Spooky Season reading! Thank you Random Thing Tours for inviting me to this tour and providing an advanced copy for me to review and give my honest and unbiased opinion. A light house, missing children, a land cursed by witches and wildlings make for a riveting, gripping and oh so enjoyable book! Thank you so much to the publisher, Berkley Books, for providing me with a copy to read and review.
Book Review: The Lighthouse Witches by C.J. Cooke Book Review: The Lighthouse Witches by C.J. Cooke
A taut, scary thriller that winds the suspense so tightly you can barely breathe. I was rooting for the heroine all the way to the terrifying conclusion. This one will definitely keep you up at night.”—Simone St. James, New York Times bestselling author of The Sun Down Motel The Lighthouse Witches is told from varying viewpoints in the years 1998 and 2021, with a subplot set in the 1600s. The story is about a single mother, Liv, who is contracted to paint a rather strange, and possibly Satanic, mural on the inside walls of a lighthouse called The Longing on an island off the eastern shores of Scotland at the end of the 20th century. Tagging along are her three children, teenaged Sapphire (or Saffy for short), and Luna and Clover, who are just little girls. Flash forward to the future, and a thirty-something (and pregnant) Luna is looking for her mother and two sisters who vanished off the island in 1998. When Clover is found, she is still seven years old. She has marks on her that take the form of a date, 2021, and the legend of the island is that this means that the child is a wildling or an imposter who looks like Clover but is a fairy in disguise. In any event, Luna takes Clover to the island to find out the true reason for the events of 1998 and why Clover hasn’t aged. In the 1998 timeline, Saffy reads from a grimoire that is left in the home near the lighthouse where the family is staying, and it is partially a diary written in the 1600s that details witch burnings on the island.
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Cooke fuses mystery with horror in this atmospheric thriller….[B]reathless pacing, evocative prose, and a hopeful denouement leave readers feeling gratified. Supernatural suspense fans will be well pleased.”– Publishers Weekly The story braids the four narratives, alternating Liv, Luna, Saffy, and the grimoire’s Mr Roberts reporting of their experiences, and the times in which they are in the spotlight, offering nice chapter-ending cliff-hangers to sustain our interest from one strand to the next.
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