Expanding on the same logic that posits that any technology sufficiently advanced will be undistinguishable from magic, any magic sufficiently advanced can be deemed black magic. And punished accordingly.
Aha. And you thought it was just another witches story.
I requested this book immediately upon finding it on Netgalley, because I really liked Cooke’s The Nesting. It was an excellent suspense thriller that flirted with the supernatural. With this book the flirtation is over. Cooke decided she liked it and put a ring on it.
Funny thing, though, because I was kind of expecting the same thing and because I’ve been reading so many thrillers, my brain was desperately to sort out the plot with pure logic of the real world…something the book contravened at every turn.
There are some things you can rationalize, some things you can explain and that there’s finding your baby sister that’s been missing for 22 years and have her still be the same age as she was when she disappeared. Which is exactly how the novel begins, with the 31 year old Luna receiving the most welcome and yet strangest of news.
Luna is just one of the three hippieishly named babies of Liv and once upon a time liv took all her babies to a small Scottish island under the guise of an art commission, but really as more of a desperate getaway from life. The island as it turns out has had a long storied past with witches and wildlings. The kind of past that has echoed throughout the years and well into the present. And Liv steps right in the middle of it. Madness ensues.
The novel jumps timelines and narrators quite freely, but not too dizzyingly, to weave a fascinating sum total tapestry of superstition, magic and…one more thing that’s a surprise and won’t be revealed in this review.
Suffice it to say there are plenty of books about witches and there are plenty of books about wildlings/changelings. I’ve read a bunch of them. None of them have the twist this book does. And for someone to produce something so wildly fresh and original in a fairly clichéd done to death genre is no small feat. So many kudos to the author.
And it is precisely that originality that makes it easy to overlook some logistical snafus, like most things adult Luna does. From her inexplicable aversion to marrying her beloved baby daddy to her perfect acceptance of her unchanged baby sister. But then again, this is speculative fiction, so a certain suspense of disbelief is definitionally required.
I just really loved the fact that it was impossible to figure out until it was explained, for the truth of this story is much, much stranger than fiction…as it were.
Plus the writing’s excellent. Great characters and once again, much like in The Nesting, there’s a very potent place presence. There’s an unusual building (this time the old lighthouse) and there’s the unusual place, a Neolithic Scottish village that marches to the beat of its own weird drum and both are so well rendered, they in fact become characters themselves. All good, very good. Made for a very exciting, engaging read. The difficult to put down kind. A must read for fans of dark supernatural thrillers. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.

Ooh if you like gothic thrillers this the book for you! Cooke mixes a enthralling tale about a Scottish town’s history, witches, lighthouses & missing persons in a richly written book. It’s dark & eerie but still grounded in reality. I love hearing anything about the history of the town. It’s such a creative spin of a witches story. This is my first book by this author & I can honestly say I will look for future ones based on how fun it was to read it.

This novel takes place in three different time periods. The main character is Luna who is in present time. She lost two sisters and her mother when they all just disappeared. Now 29 years later, one of her sisters has been found but she is the same age as she was when she went missing. Going back to when they all went missing, the mothers story tell how she took the kids to an island off of Scotland where she has a commission to paint a mural in a lighthouse. The island is full of history of witch hunts and burnings. The third time is told from a boy who lived through the witch hunt. They are all wrapped around each other as Luna tries to figure out what happened. A bit confusing and a bit far fetched but will appeal to those who like historical places and events and time travel.

Liv is a single mom living in 1998 and raising three daughters on her own. As a painter by trade and never having much to live by, she moves her little family around from place to place, sometimes living out of a car if necessary. When Liz is offered an unexpected commission from a mysterious man to paint a mural on the walls of a lighthouse on an island just off of the Scottish coast, she takes the opportunity and moves her family once again. But the island and its lighthouse is shrouded in secrets and a sordid past. Rumors of witches, wildlings, curses, and disappearances abound.

One night, one daughter goes missing and Liv is left trying to piece the mystery together. Flash forward 23 years later, and only one daughter is left, now searching for her two sisters and their mother, Liv, who all mysteriously disappeared after that night, not a trace to be found. But unexpectedly, a little girl is suddenly discovered on a road, bruised and dirty and claiming to be the girl who had gone missing, only she's not aged a day.

What is the mystery of the lighthouse and its island, and will the lost eventually be found?

What I Loved:
- I loved the Scottish setting, folklore, and beliefs that permeated this story (runes and wildlings and so forth), as well as the tie-in to witches that were burned on the island in the 17th century.
- The story started off a little bit slow-paced and atmospheric to set up the scene but became very fast-paced as details continued to be revealed!
- The story is written with alternating viewpoints for every chapter. There is a lot of jumping back and forth in time (from the moments when Liv and her family arrived at the island through when everyone disappeared and fast-forwarded to 2021 as events in the future unfold) -- and this is a characteristic that I really love in books.
- The story also incorporated excerpts from a grimoire that added another element to how the narrative unfolds, and I really loved that aspect, too!
- There was a cool explanation revealed in the last 25% or so that was interesting and clever (though I was sad that there wasn't more time spent exploring the concept).

What I Didn’t Love:
- The 'big reveal' happens and explains the disappearances and reappearances of children/individuals around the island, and once it was revealed I found it to be a really fascinating plot point that I wish could've been explored more, but then the story likely would've turned into something entirely different that what it was set out to be. I just found it fascinating and wish there had been some more story to go along with it.
- The book didn't start out quite as fast as I was hoping -- it took a tad longer to suck me in than what I would have wanted (lots of time spent on characters and atmospheric setting upfront, which is entirely understandable!), but it was still more than interesting enough to keep me hooked.

Overall:
I really enjoyed this book overall. I found the premise to be really interesting and loved the Scottish landscape and folklore that were seamlessly incorporated. While the book started off a tad slowly, it really picked up and was able to completely hook me (I HAD to know what was ultimately going on!). I'm excited to see this one in people's hands come October and think many readers will find it to be a solid read!

Thank you to Netgalley and Berkley for an e-ARC of this book!

Ghost stories, folk lore, and fairy tales have their place and purpose, but what happens when they bleed into everyday life? The wall between real life and make believe comes crumbling down for an unsuspecting, down-on-their-luck family in C.J. Cooke’s upcoming mystery/thriller, “The Lighthouse Witches”.

Liv is a struggling artist commissioned to paint a mural on the walls of a dilapidated lighthouse on the secluded Scottish island of Lón Haven. Arriving with her three daughters, she soon learns the macabre history of the site of the lighthouse and the woman who were burned alive for witchcraft in the 17th century. Island lore tells how with their dying breaths the witches cursed the inhabitants of the island for all time with a fate worse than death, a curse that would force them to sacrifice their own children. Three hundred years later, both the curse and the fear it inspired are alive and well on Lón Haven. Not willing to fall victim to the delusional paranoia of the island, Liv and her girls chalk the stories up to local legend and superstition, but when two of Liv daughters vanish without a trace, what began as a fairy tale turns into a living nightmare. C.J. Cooke bridges the gap between classic horror and mystery/thriller with “The Lighthouse Witches”.

Author C.J. Cooke’s inspired prose are both immersive and evocative. The narrative structure of “The Lighthouse Witches” alternates between three timelines; the witch trials of the 1660s, Liv’s time painting the lighthouse in 1998, and Luna, Liv’s middle daughter, looking back on the harrowing events in 2021. Cooke makes very interesting POV choices for each timeline; a 1st person memoir details the events from the 1660s, Liv tells her story from the 1st person in 1998, and Luna’s story unfolds in the 3rd person in 2021. Supporting characters also provide 3rd person narration of events in 1998. The shifts in narrative voice and POV are initially abrupt and unsettling, but once a rhythm is established, they are used perfectly to reveal just enough to build suspense and slowly reveal the mystery shrouding the island. The same can be said about the shifts in time, at first abrupt and jarring, they eventually become instrumental is slowly doling out key pieces of information from each time period. The end result is a breath-taking and emotionally poignant triumph.

Wonderfully complex and textured characters populate “The Lighthouse Witches.” The use of multiple POV narrators allows the readers to understand and bond with several of the characters and deeply invest in joining them on their journeys. Coupled with the layered and nuanced characterization, crisp, natural sounding dialogue rings true for each character and adds a layer of authenticity to a wide range of characters, including 17th century Scots, teenagers and children. Vivid and transportive imagery of the characters, the lighthouse and keeper’s house, and the horrors encountered within elicit a visceral response that builds suspense and adds to the ominous, disquieting tone felt throughout the novel.

“The Lighthouse Witches” delivers across the board. An engaging plot, unforgettable characters, and visceral imagery result in a supernatural thriller that will take you on an emotional roller coaster that leaves you satisfied when you finish the last page. While I’m not always a fan of introducing the supernatural in the thriller genre, C.J. Cooke pulls it off perfectly. I enthusiastically recommend “The Lighthouse Witches,” you won’t be disappointed.

The Lighthouse Witches is a spellbinding tale, that had me at hello! Perfect descriptions that transport you to the Scottish Island. Perfectly developed characters, who you want to hug or slap, depending on the chapter. The storyline is a tale of magic and fear. When woven together it leads to the undoing of many. C.J. Cooke blends her own magic while yielding a pen, that brings the past into the present. The timeframe of the book goes between 1998 and the present, with glimpses into the past, told by a child who watched his own mother burned at the stake for witchcraft. It is a dark, atmospheric, eerie, and will have you flipping pages until they flyout of their binding. While you stumble through the mystery behind this enchanting island and its horrific past.

In 1998, Liv packs up her three girls, Saffy, Luna, and Clover, and head to an island off the coast of Scotland. Where she has been commissioned to paint a mural in an old lighthouse. As soon as they step out of the car, you know something sinister has taken place there. The lighthouse is in disarray, and you get an eerie, foreboding feeling. The girls are enchanted by their new surrounds, the seals, the basking shark, the forests, the power of the ocean. All this is about to change as they are visited one night by a young child. As soon as they arrive, they vanish. No one on the island knows who they are, they believe it is a wildling. It comes out that the lighthouse is cloaked in a dark past, built upon a cave where the women were held during the witch trials. These women set forth a curse upon the island. From that day on, the island has not been the same.

In 2021, Luna is pregnant and still holds out hope that her two sisters and mother will be found. They disappeared while living at the lighthouse, 20 years ago. Luna still struggles with what happened, that night, her memories coming back in flashes. She receives a call that her sister Clover has been found. But it is not the Clover, Luna is expecting. Clover is still the same shy, seven-year-old girl as the last time she saw her, twenty-two years ago. Is this even Clover, or is it a wilding? Luna needs and craves answers to what happened on that island. What are the villagers hiding, what secrets are they withholding?

Cooke takes you on an epic, mythical adventure. Interweaving witch trials, curses, family drama, folklore, and the driving force behind all of it, fear. As soon as I read the last word, I wanted to return. The setting, the story, the characters are all ones that I will miss and need to read once again. Thank you to Berkley, NetGalley, and C.J. Cooke for giving me the change to read this truly spellbinding ARC. You need to go pre-order this book, I promise you will not regret it.

Family. Accusations. Mock trials. Abused. Blood. Fire. Curses. <b>Love.</b>

If you love witches, witch trials, an atmospheric time period with a dueling timeline, and a hauntingly beautiful story, well this is the book for you.

Told between 1998 and 2020 alternating people and timelines, this witch tale brings about the whole realization that the past, plus the present is all wrapped up in the future. That forgiveness is in itself time travel.

From the opening chapter, I thought this was going to be a bloody, brutal portraying of the witch trials that so needlessly happened around the world, but was pleasantly shocked and amazed to find it was also a love story - a ballad to family, both what we are given, as well as what we make, and a story that will leave you aching to return to this tale over and over. It’s one of those novels you are both thrilled you dived into, as well as one you just wish you hadn’t cracked the magic open so you could relive that feeling all over again.

I’d definitely rate this a 4 to a 4.5 out of 5 star read for me. This is one I highly recommend you jump to pre-order, or snap up as quick as you can! Everyone needs a little magic in their life.

Thank you so much to #NetGalley, #BerkleyPublishingGroup, #Berkley, and the hauntingly talented C. J. Cooke ( @CJessCooke) for the electronic ARC in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion.

This should <b>definitely</b> be on your radar for release day October 5, 2021!

This book was so fun and spooky! I loved the dark, eerie, witchy vibe. It was very complex and well-planned, and surprisingly easy to follow! I get confused very easily with complex books, but this was not the case with this book. I loved it a lot. I especially loved the multiple POVs and multiple time lines. There were so many twists that I did not see coming. I was very surprised by how much I loved this book!

A great premise but was a little confusing and left me with too many unanswered questions. The authors style of writing was good, the scenery and characters vividly drawn, but ultimately for me fell short.

This was not what I expected, in a… surprising way. It was twisty and surprising and I honestly had no clue which way it was going to go. We’re there witches? We’re the women innocent? What strange happenings are going on here? This is probably a 3.5 stars for me since it was pretty hard to follow for the first half or so since the story is mostly told in 3 women’s viewpoints over 2 time periods. It EVENTUALLY makes sense, but at first, it is pretty confusing to follow, especially on a kindle when you have to keep flipping back to see who and when you are reading. Overall, a pretty good, unexpected book.

I received an ARC from NetGalley, but my opinions are all mine.

I think that this book has a great plot. It's what drew me in to read this book. However, I think that it felt flat for me. By the time I finished it, I had too many questions. I wish that it gave more information about its historical factors (ie the witches) and how the magical cave came to pass. I also thought that telling the story from so many different vantage points was a great idea; however, it still didn't do enough to explain how everything was possible. I think if this book had a bit more background, it would be a phenomenal read. As it stands, it's just ok. However, I'm a big fan of C.J. Cooke, so I'll always read everything she writes.

Though I enjoyed the spooky storyline of this novel very much, I felt like at the end there were too many questions left unanswered. Where did the time-traveler's numbers come from? Were the storms and tragedies that came upon the island really because the wildlings appeared? Where did Father Ross come from? Why was he different from the rest of the priests who wanted to burn Patrick and Amy?
I got really confused by the many narrators.
I think this novel could be really good with some more explanation, and removing some of the narrators.

This is a fantastic read. Like C.J. Cooke's previous book, she relies on folklore and myth to weave a contemporary tale. In this one, Olivia and her three daughters (Sapphire, Clover, and Luna) move abruptly to a small remote village so Olivia can paint a mural in an old lighthouse. The man who hired her is out to sea and has a reputation for being strange. The mural instructions are even stranger: instead of a normal piece of art it's an unusual symbol of some sorts.

Olivia soon learns that old villages like these are full of secrets and superstitions. Centuries ago, this one burned a dozen witches and is thought to be cursed now. Olivia doesn't believe in any such thing but its apparent that the villagers, most of them descendants of the people who lived there so long ago, are strong believers. And they don't care for outsiders.

Olivia and her family start to witness strange things, things that the villagers say are signs of the curse. And then two of Olivia's children go missing.....

This story is told in multiple viewpoints and through multiple timelines. It unravels in ways you don't expect and leaves you wondering what is really going on. It's a chilling tale. I read it in two days because I just couldn't put it down. There was only one detail that I caught onto quickly, and even then I didn't understand its significance. If you like ominous mysteries, historical tales, folklore, and tales of the supernatural, check this out.

So the whole telling stories back-and-forth in time thing is becoming a constant in books right about now. While I don't like when devices are used too much, it works with some stories, this being one of them. We have the story of Liv, who is commissioned to do some artwork in a lighthouse, on a Scottish island in the late 1990s. It is the site of witch burnings back in the 19th century. The alternating chapters feature one of her daughters, Luna, in the present day. We later find out that Liv and her two other daughters went missing, never to be found. That is until one daughter, Clover, returns but she has not aged in 22 years. Is she a wildling, a mythical creature that has stolen Clover's body, or is it something else?

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It reads fast, and I never lost interest at any point. I was excited to find out what was happening and once you do it is unexpected. The setting was perfect and added to the mysteriousness. Juxtaposing that with the past story of the witches killed at the site of the lighthouse was great. We learn about that through a diary discovered by one daughter, Sapphire, and that has a very creative link to the present-day situation. Overall, brilliant read, and I will certainly be checking out anything else this author has written.

Thank you to the publisher for an eARC of this book via NetGalley

Thanks Netgalley for the ARC.

In 1998, Liv takes her three daughters to an island in Scotland to work on a mural. When Liz sees what she is to paint on the interior of a lighthouse, she is confused. The image looks like the zodiac or a spell rather than a conventional mural. But the lighthouse owner who commissioned the work sounds eccentric. As Liv and her kids settle on the island, they hear strange stories of the fae and wildings. The island has a history of children appearing out of nowhere with numbers seared into their skin and the residents a terrible response to their fear of these children. The stories of Liv, her daughters, and a young man come together as the story progresses through time loops. Intriguing story. I just wish Liv's relationship with her daughters was more developed.

The Lighthouse Witches is a good part spooky mystery, historical fiction, and fantasy. When Liv gets a commission to paint a mural in a lighthouse in Scotland, she whisks her three daughters away to the middle to the remote island. Situated on a Neolithic site, the island is full of spooky history, and everyone the family meets are a little bit suspicious. Liv, Saffy, Luna, and Clover try to make a home for themselves in a dilapidated bothy and they start to uncover some of the island’s past.
Through their neighbors, friends, and a grimoire book found in the bothy, the family learns that their island has been cursed by witches. The witches were jailed in a hole within the lighthouse and put a curse on the families of the island before they were burned to death. This curse creates wildlings (children identical to their own children but with burn marks) who integrate into their families only to kill off the whole family line. Is there a way to stop the wildlings?
The Lighthouse Witches also gives a present-day account of Luna. Pregnant and over 20 years older, Luna is the only member of the family left. Saffy, Clover, and Liv all disappeared while on the island without a trace. Suddenly Luna gets a call that the police have found Clover… only this Clover is still only 7 years old.
One thing I really enjoyed about this novel is the ability of C. J. Cooke to go back and forth from multiple time periods, while also incorporating an additional time in the form of a grimoire being read by Saffy. It had very smooth transitions and I loved the level of mystery created by the multiple timelines. The characters had a great sense of depth and relatability. I highly recommend as I had a great time reading this novel and trying to uncover the mysteries!

Thank you to Girly Book Club, NetGalley, and Berkley Books for granting me a free copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

I found this book absolutely captivating and throughly enjoyed it.The story line was fascinating and intriguing and keep in suspense right till the end.This is definitely the best book I have read in 2021.

20 years ago, single mother Liv packs her three girls into the car late one night. Commissioned to paint a mural inside an old lighthouse on a remote Scottish Island, Liv thinks this is the new start she and her daughters -15-year-old Sapphire, 9-year-old Luna and 7-year-old Clover- need. The island is steeped in dark history of witchcraft and curses, but Liv thinks its tales…until Sapphire and Clover go missing. 22 years later, Luna has spent her life in foster care, determined to know what happened to her sisters and why her mother abandoned her in the woods all those years ago. When social services calls about Clover, Luna is shocked to discover her sister is alive but still 7 years old, the same age she went missing. Luna starts to recover memories of her past, but nothing is what it seems.

I’m a sucker for a book about witches and this plot (and that cover!) drew me right in. What an incredible take on the witch hunts, curses and mythology. There have been a lot of witch books and changeling/wildling books crossing my radar lately, but this particular fusion of the two and the uniqueness of the wildlings here really put it above anything I’ve read on the topic. There was a perfect amount of horror and creepiness spun into this story, too. I was simultaneously creeped out, horrified and unable to put this book down.

The way the story changed between narrators and time periods was a touch confusing at first, but it really helped move the story along at a great pace and it helped to connect the events together. It would not have been the same book without multiple perspectives. The characters were excellently written and easy to connect with, their stories and struggles laid out so bare to the reader.

C.J. Cooke is a new author to me, but I’ve already sought out more books from her to add to my must-read lists. Absolutely incredible, cannot recommend this one enough.

There was a lot to latch on to here. Honestly, I was confused by the viewpoints, and got some character names mixed up. Maybe this was no fault of the author, and that it was all on me, but it made it difficult to read this book. I liked the idea behind it, liked the plot and the premise, but I had a really hard time connecting.

On a secluded Scottish island in 1998 a mother and her three daughters are separated. 20 years later, Luna is still searching for her mom and two sisters while trying to rise above her own trauma. When Luna receives a call from the police saying one of her sisters has been found, she is ecstatic... Until she realizes Clover is seven years old - the same age she was when she disappeared. The mystery pulls Luna back to the Scottish island where she unravels her trapped memories & discovers the truth about her family.

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 we go. I found it so easy to become attached to Liv and her girls - I still ache to give Saffy a hug. 🥲

I have a major soft spot for Gaelic myths and absolutely loved Cooke's take on wildlings. I think the mixing of fae lore and witchy magic was so incredibly clever. It was also the PERFECT amount of creepy, just enough to make me nervous without forcing me to put down the book 🤣

I gave The Lighthouse Witches 5 stars on GoodReads & I am ABSOLUTELY going to be following Cooke's work from here on out! Special thanks to Netgalley for providing a digital copy in exchange for an honest review!