The Lighthouse Witches was tense and dark mystery with sci-fi and paranormal element that revolved around Nordic folklore and mystery of missing Stay family. The story was about folklore, myth, superstitions, history of witch hunt, family drama, trauma, misplaced beliefs, guilt, regrets, and forgiveness.

Writing was amazingly vivid, engaging, dark, and intense. This was written in third person narrative from Liv, Luna, and Sapphire’s perspective; told in three timelines- 1998, 1662, and 2021. Setting of Scottish island, Lon Haven, was atmospheric and my favorite part of the book among other aspects.

Plot was original and perfectly written. That synopsis is well written but I recommend to go into book without knowing much. It started with character introduction, how Liv (Olive) Stay got commission to paint mural in hundered years old lighthouse and dragged her three daughters- Sapphire (15), Luna( 9) , Clover( 7)- over to spooky, remote island with its terrible history; twenty years later with present chapters from Luna’s perspective telling about her trauma of her missing family, not remembering what exactly happened to her and her family, and how all of sudden Luna got call from police about finding her youngest sister, Clover, that forced confront her past and revisit place she avoided all her life.

It was suspenseful from the very beginning. I was curious to know why Liv dragged her daughters to a place and job she didn’t know much about, what happened to whole family, how they went missing, were Luna’s memory of her mother trying to hurt her was true, did Liv truly abandoned her, how Clover was found suddenly, why twenty years later she was still a child of same age she went missing, and what narrative from 1662 has to do with all that. It was fascinating to get answers to all questions I had as story progressed.

All characters were flawed and so very interesting. There were many characters in book with its three timeline but it never confused me, nor I had to keep list. It was easy to remember who was who and from which timeline. Most were unlikable and still some made me feel sad for them even though they did terrible things. Luna,and Liv were my most favorite characters.

As mother, I could feel for Liv. It was easy to empathize with her throughout the book. I could see how hard it might be for her as single mother of three kids (one of whom was headstrong and literally hated her), how difficult it must be provide for her daughters with no support or permanent home. As I got to know why she dragged her daughters to a remote island, I wanted to shake her hard and at the same time hug her and could understand why she felt escape and distraction was best path. I was happy for her when she finally met someone who loved her and she could share that secret with him, but of course it has to be short lived. It was tragic, devastating and sad to see her going through missing daughters that muddled her mind and everything that happened. I admired her conscience, her gut feeling, and believing in it. She was not perfect mother, hardship of single mother made her inattentive towards her kids. she regretted sometimes having kid so early and yet I loved how much she loved them all and wouldn’t want to change any of it.

Sapphire (Saffy) wasn’t likable. She was typical teenager. She headstrong, rebellious, hated her mother, rude to her sisters, wanted to escape family. I get why she didn’t like her mother but I think the reason wasn’t enough to hate her mother. She lacked compassion, understanding, responsibility of being eldest kid. She wanted attention from her mother and others and done foolish things to get it that affected whole family. It was hard to feel sorry for her but I could see how young she was who needed a therapist for depression and grief of losing Clover and Luna’s father. It was amazing the way she realized her mistakes.

Clover was kid and just like kids are, she was unpredictable. She wasn’t much in focus in 1998 timeline but in 2021 this kid’s actions were spooky. I could see why Luna almost believed in folklore after that. She scared more than whole witch hunt timeline.

Luna was compassionate, emotionally present, and lovely kid who loved her mother and sisters, even Saffy. As adult I liked her protective nature towards her unborn child. I’m still not sure why she refused to marry Ethan even though she loved him, it must be her unconscious feeling, a wish to fill the gap in her memory, trauma her childhood left, or abandonment issue she might be still struggling. Her reaction and action to meeting Clover again but still 7 yrs old and what Clover did after meeting Luna was genuine. I could understand her fear and confusion towards things she couldn’t understand. Even with all that happened, her vulnerability, she was determined, brave and strong woman. I admired how she had courage to return to place that took away so much and confronted past to solve the mystery of her missing sister and mother and to know what happened to Clover and herself when she was kid.

Setting of Lon Haven and everything related to it was best part of the book. It was horrifying to read its tragic and terrible history, what happened in 1662, how they tortured and burned women at lighthouse, curse of witches and how it connected all timelines and folklore, Iceland mythology, Nordic Folklore of Wildling, how and why even after centuries people believed in folklore, curse, magic, and superstitions. Everything was revealed gradually keeping readers hooked till the end. It was amazing how author portrayed human being, how people react in fear specially when loved ones are involved, desperation, loneliness, trauma, paranoia, misplaced beliefs, grief, misogyny, and history of witch hunt.

Twist and turns were great. I couldn’t guess where story was going even though it was obvious from the beginning bad things happened to whole Stay family. I couldn’t guess how it all happened and how all three timelines connected. It was easy to figure about whole ‘Wildling’ thing and I was curious to see when characters would realize that. Climax was interesting. For a second, I feared for Clover and Luna. I couldn’t guess the end. Even with all horrible things happened, the end was perfect and uplifting. I liked how theory about Wildling was explained at the end.

Overall, The Lighthouse Witches was dark, intense, atmospheric, chilling and engaging mystery with Gothic vibe and sci-fi and paranormal element made it perfect for Halloween read.

I highly recommend this if you love,
witch hunt books
magic and curses
Icelandic myths and Nordic folklore
atmospheric Scottish setting
Dark and layered plot
family drama
multiple timeline and POV
flawed and interesting characters
spooky and chilling story

Thanks NetGalley for sending me a copy of The Lighthouse Witches in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this book more than I expected. I'm more of a thriller type of person when it comes to my book preferences but this story and enough suspense and plot twist to keep me hooked, even though it moved slow at times.

I appreciate the fact that it had a historical aspect to it. That made it feel less fictional and I'm sure a lot of that information was based off of facts or some sort of historical folklore.

Overall, this book was not what I expected. It was far better and I'd read something else from this author again.

This is the perfect introduction to Halloween season. The author has created a spooky mysterious world here that captures the reader Thank you to the publisher and to Net Galley.

I loved this story of a young widow with three children living out of their car. Desperate to improve their circumstances she accepts a commission to paint a mural on a old lighthouse on a abandoned island off the Scottish coast. The island has a history of hidden spirits that take children and strange happenings. When two of her children go missing she is desperate to find them. Years later told from a different timeline only one daughter remains and has given up searching for her Mother and sisters. When one sister re appears 30 years has gone by and yet she is the same age. Is it truly her sister or a sinister spirit ? Truly a spooky fun read !

I tried to get into this book but it just wouldn't keep my attention. It did sound so good but unfortunately, it just wasn't for me.

A fantastic story with all the magic and spookiness you need for October 👻

A family goes to a small island in Scotland bc mom has a job to do. Everything seems fine when they arrive but then weird things start happening and people seem a little... off.

In the end, only 1 daughter leaves the island and others went mysteriously missing 👀 20 years later the daughter gets news that one of her sisters was found.... but she is the same age as when she went missing. Creepy!!!

This book was full of creepy moments. It wasn't overly scary but was definitely creepy! I loved how the story was told from the present and the past (both the sisters past and another characters past).

It was really well written and so easy to read. I felt like after every chapter I couldn't put it down. I did decide not to read at night though 😂

The ending was so good! I'm so happy things were tied up neatly because this story had a looooot going on haha

I recommend this if you are:
👻 looking for a spooky read
☠ wanting a chilling twisty story
🪄 needing some magic in your life

I am obsessed with this author. The Nesting is a favorite thriller of all time and I was highly anticipating her next book. I love how her books take premises that we see in many mystery/thrillers but gives them her own unique spin and angle. The Lighthouse Witches was super engaging and I loved the three timelines and the pacing of all these stories. The tone and story was unsettling and the reveals I did not see coming. Such a solid thriller and I cannot wait to see what this author does next.

Perfect October Read!! I am kicking off Halloween season with a novel that includes witches, wildlings, Scottish folklore, and murder...that's the way to do it!
I loved that the author switched back and forth between years while only revealing a small piece of the puzzle at a time. I loathe having everything figured out half-way through the book! I appreciated the characters both from a Historical Fiction perspective and a Fantasy perspective. Although there were parts of this story that were a little too far-fetched and a couple chapters seemed to lag, I found it overall very entertaining! I would recommend as a fun seasonal read!

Reeling from both the sudden death of her husband and a potentially devastating medical diagnosis, Liv takes her three daughters and runs. Living out of a car is only sustainable for so long however, and Liv accepts a commission to paint a mural in a century-old abandoned lighthouse on a remote Scottish island. The land and its inhabitants are teeming with an ancient magic, stories passed down through generations about witchcraft and wildlings, tales of revenge and murder.

Twenty-two years later, only the middle daughter, Luna, is left. Both of her sisters and her mother mysteriously disappeared and all these years later Luna only has the faintest whispers of memories from that time. She never gave up searching for Saffy and Clover though – and when she receives a call she never expected would come, that Clover has been found alive, she’s ecstatic. Upon arriving at the hospital, however, she quickly realizes something isn’t right. At all. Clover should be a grown woman approaching 30. Instead, the person she greets is a 7-year-old girl. A girl who looks and sounds exactly like her little sister, but a child nonetheless. The longer Luna spends with this girl, the more she begins to wonder if those tales were true: is Clover actually a wildling? And what really happened to her family?

The moment I first heard of The Lighthouse Witches I knew it was something I wanted – no, needed – to read. Like so many other readers, the second the clock struck midnight on October 1, I began reaching for all things moody and supernatural. Give me all the witches, give me all the nightmarish beliefs and missing children that reappear two decades later the same age.

It certainly didn’t hurt that this novel bounces around in time, one of my absolute favorite methods of storytelling. The story not only follows Liv in 1998, but the reader also spends time with Saffy, the oldest daughter. Fifteen is a hard age for any girl, but to still be grieving over her stepfather while having her life upended to move to a remote island? It’s little wonder Sapphire lashes out and prefers to spend more time with a boy from school than with her family. Meanwhile, Luna’s chapters are set in the present day and there’s also a story woven throughout the book from a boy in the 1600s. Needless to say, I was in my happy place.

To solve the mystery behind whatever’s going on with Clover (and hopefully learn the truth behind Liv’s and Saffy’s disappearances), Luna has to return to the one place she never wants to visit again: the lighthouse. The spot where, centuries before, women were imprisoned and tortured until they confessed to witchcraft. The spot where one grieving daughter shouted out a curse of revenge that would last generations. The spot where a boy uncovered a hidden portal.

To say more would be to give away the entire story, but know that The Lighthouse Witches was a fantastic way to kick off spooky season. Admittedly I would have liked things to have been a bit creepier, something a little darker that would have left me sleeping with the lights on, but what I got was still immensely enjoyable. Cooke has several other novels, including last year’s highly praised The Nesting, and though The Lighthouse Witches was my first, I’m delighted to say it absolutely will not be my last and I can’t wait to see what comes next!

This book totally hit the spot for a Halloween read! Witches, magic, mystery, suspense and a heaping helping of mother-daughter drama create a compelling story that's hard to put down!

Single mother Liv, accepts a commission to paint a mysterious lighthouse and takes her three daughters along. It is soon evident that there is more to the place than meets the eye. Tales of witchcraft and trials, mysterious disappearances and dopplegangers the islanders call "wildings" and then two of her daughters go missing.

Twenty-two years later, her middle daughter Luna, is still trying to piece together what happened to her family that summer when she gets a call to say her younger sister Clover, has been found. Thrilled, she goes to the hospital to see her sister, only to find that Clover hasn't aged a day since 1998. Dun! Dun! Duuuuunnnn! Yep, I was hooked!

Told by dual narrators - Liv in 1998 and her daughter Luna in 2021 - the pieces of the mystery fall into place a little at a time and reveal the truth of not only their disappearances, but the relationships between mothers and daughters.

I loved this book. I highly recommend to lovers of suspense, thrillers, time travel, mystery and supernatural stories. Big thank you to Berkley Publishers for the chance to review this title.

This is the first novel by C.J. Cooke that I've read and I was far from disappointed. It kept me guessing well into the final chapters and delivers a satisfying end. I can't think of anything in the story that I was missing or would want to change. Add it to your TBR pile this October!

I did not love this one and I had REALLY REALLY HIGH hopes for it! This was one of my most anticipated fall reads. Set on a remote Scottish island that has a magic cave that sends people through time (think Outlander). The problem for me was that there were so many characters and the story jumped around in time I had a really difficult time keep track. I did enjoy the single motherhood aspect of the story but overall while the concept was great the execution fell a little short for me. Much thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my advance print review copy.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Berkeley Publishing for gifting me a digital ARC of this wonderfully creepy book - perfect for reading during this spooky season. 5 stars!

In 1998, Liv brings her three daughters with her to a remote Scotland island for a commission to paint a mural on the inside of an abandoned lighthouse. She discovers the lighthouse was the site of a hidden prison for witches in the 1600s. There are also legends of wildlings - creatures created by witches to replicate children. When two of Liv’s children disappear, she is frantic. In present time, one of the daughters gets a call that her younger missing sister has been found - but she hasn’t aged since he disappeared.

This book was the best mix of history, creepy atmosphere, suspense and fantasy - it all wrapped up in the best of ways as well. The timelines and different POVs weren’t confusing, they were each compelling. This book was hard to put down until you see how it all turned out!

Does anything say spooky season more than witches? 🧙‍♀️🧙‍♀️ Well, I guess maybe ghosts or zombies or headless horsemen, but for now let’s talk witches.

C.J. Cooke’s new release, The Lighthouse Witches is dark, it’s creepy, and it’s perfect for your October TBR. Set in a creepy lighthouse that has more than a few secrets of its own, I made sure to read this one with the lights on and loved every page!

Thank you so much for the opportunity to participate in the blast for The Lighthouse Witches!

Link to my Instagram post: https://www.instagram.com/p/CUxdtAzrlhb/

What I loved:
-The multiple POVs and timelines
-The whole premise was unique and I loved the elements of witches and wildlings
-Felt well researched
-Patrick’s grimoire

What I didn’t love:
-The first chapter was a slog
-I think more could have been done with the ending, it felt a little rushed and like an information dump
-I loved the parts about the wildlings and would have loved more of them!

Overall I really enjoyed this novel. I especially loved the elements of folklore, the mixed timelines, and the whole mystery of the island and the wildlings. There were parts where my attention wavered a bit, but I think the mix of narrators and timelines helped to refocus me.

The whole tone of the novel was extremely well done and created such a sense of foreboding. I totally bought into the legend of the wildlings and the mystery surrounding the disappearance of the Stay family had me completely perplexed. I was drawn to Luna’s present day story and thought it was a great compliment to the 1998 storyline.

If you enjoy modern stories laced with history and magic then I definitely recommend this one!

Thank you to Berkley and NetGalley for a copy of this novel.

"He’s tall and rakish, with greasy black hair to his jaw, a tattoo of a panther on his neck, a missing front tooth. A grin.
“You’re Luna Stay?”
She frowns, confused by the shift to a smile. “Yes?”
He steps forward and eyes her coldly. “You’re supposed to be dead.”"

2021 - Ok, so maybe not exactly a welcoming committee, with a sparkly, multi-colored sign at the local watering hole, all the residents in attendance, celebrating her return. But I guess it’ll have to do. It wasn’t Luna’s first time on the island of Lòn Haven. She had been there for a spell as a child, and, while her experience was memorable, it was relatively brief, and her exit had been fraught. Now, thirty years old, pregnant for the first time, she is not exactly eager to stick around. But she is there on a mission.

1998 - Olivia Stay has just left her home in northern England, dragged her three daughters with her, and headed north on an hours-long drive to a remote island off the east coast of Scotland. She is an artist, with a commission to paint a mural on the inside of a 149-foot-tall lighthouse, which is in less-than-stellar condition. Her mysterious employer has left drawings for her of what he wants. She and the girls will be staying on the lighthouse property, in a small house, called a bothy. The lighthouse has an intriguing name.

"“You’re staying at the Longing?” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Quite a history, that place.”
“I can see that,” I said, flicking through the leaflet, my eyes falling on an artist’s rendition of people being burned at the stake.
“Why’s it called the Longing?” Luna asked him.
“It’s named for the people who lost loved ones,” he said. “Sometimes they’d visit the site where the Longing was built and . . . pay their respects.”"

…or something. The lost loved ones tended to be women murdered by the locals, accused of witchcraft and burned alive. The Longing was built directly over the place where the women had been kept and tortured, a broch, which is a circular castle-like structure, as much as two thousand years old. While there have been five major national bouts of witch-burnings in Scotland, the only witches likely to have been about were of the herbalist, rather than spell-casting sort. The ones with the matches provided the very human-sourced evil involved. The historical burning time of note here was 1662.

Olivia (Liv) is our first-person narrator for much of the book. Other chapters offer third-person POVs from Luna and Saffy. A second first-person account is historical. That one provides interceding chapters made up of passages from a book, left in the bothy, referred to as a grimoire. But it serves less as a source for studying the dark arts than it does as a memoir. Written by someone named Roberts, presumably an ancestor of Liv’s employer, it serves mostly as a fourth perspective, offering first-person exposition of historical events the book’s author lived through, events that inform the present.

We follow Liv as she is introduced to the island, and the local oddballs. (and wonder why she suddenly dropped everything and dragged her kids north several weeks ahead of the appointed time) But when she sees a small, almost feral-seeming white-haired child on the property, and the police do not seem to take her seriously, things get more interesting. Local lore has it that condemned witches, in league with the fae realm, created wildlings, copies of island children, who would suddenly appear, intent on wiping out family lines. Locals hold that any such beings must be killed ASAP. Then two of her daughters, Saffy and Clover, disappear.

In 2021, after twenty-two years of searching for her lost family, Luna is contacted. Her sister, Clover, has been found. But instead of being twenty-nine years old, Clover is still only seven. Is this child even her sister? Or could she be one of the wildlings Luna had heard about when she was a child on Lòn Haven? Her behavior certainly gives one cause for concern.

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.

In an interview with The Nerd Daily, Cooke (who is married, with four children) was asked about her inspiration for the book.
"I think it came from a range of places – I was thinking a lot (and still am) about how different it is to parent a teenager than it is to parent a baby, and yet the speed with which a baby seems to become a teenager feels like whiplash. So the story of Liv and her 15-year-old Sapphire in the book emerged from that thinking. When we moved to Scotland in 2019, I learned about the Scottish Witch Trials. I’m very interested in women’s lives, and this slice of history is very much concerned with what happened to women – and it also bears a huge relevance to the current moment. Gradually that thinking took shape. Lastly, I was invited to teach at the University of Iceland in 2019, and while I was there – and thinking a lot about the book and how I was going to incorporate all the various ideas I had – I came across 14th century spell books, which blew my mind. As I dug deeper into the history of magic and how it impacted women in particular, the story came out of the shadows."

The fraught relationship between 15yo Saffy and Liv will feel familiar, in tone, if not necessarily in the specific content of Saffy and Liv’s interaction. Cooke relied on her own teenage daughter for much of Saffy’s voice. Add to that the fact that Liv is a single mother, struggling to get by. Many of Liv’s struggles with parenting resonated, guilt versus responsibility versus coping with external limitations. Cooke offers, through the grimoire, a first-person look at the 1661/1662 witch-trial hysteria, providing a persuasive take on its causation, at least in this instance. The Icelandic spell books notion gave Cooke the tool she needed for exploring the past.

"I wanted everything for my children. But every single day I had to confront the glaring reality that I simply wasn’t able to provide the kind of life they deserved. And it crushed me."

There is a hint of prior, off-screen abuse in Liv’s background. This is likely a manifestation of Cooke’s experiences growing up in an abusive household in a council estate in Belfast during The Troubles. The up-front abuse here is in how power is used to protect those who have it from being held responsible for their actions, at the expense of the powerless, both past and present. And in how murderous impulses, combined with ignorance, under the mantle of religion, and official sanction, present a peril to any who do not conform, in any age.

Informational payload informs the story. You will pick up a few bits of Scottish terminology, and even a bit of spice on magical symbology and local fairy lore. Cooke has some fun with triangles of various sorts. We get a you-are-there look at an actual historical time of madness. Cooke, in the interview from The Inside Flap, talks about how surprised she was when she moved to Scotland to find that there had been witch trials there, and that there were no memorials at all for the hundreds of people (not all were women) who had been killed. Perhaps it might be necessary to light a fire under some public officials to see that this is corrected.

There were parts of the book that gave me pause. I had trouble, for example, with the police releasing seven-year-old Clover to Luna, given that there was no way the two were the sisters they supposedly were in any normal time line. There seemed some contradiction in the overall take. Where does magic leave off and other factors enter into things? Could an evil-doer, for example, be stricken with an awful affliction at the hands of a spell-caster? And if so, then a scientific-ish explanation for later events seems undercut. What if that scientific-ish situation was created by magic? And round and round we go.

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.

We can feel for Liv even as we might wonder at her judgment. She is clearly stressed beyond reason. And we can feel for Luna trying to solve this intricate puzzle, while taking on parental responsibility for her now-much-younger sib. The mysteries of the book will keep you turning the pages. In this fictional realm, are witches real? And if they are, did they really curse the island? And if they did, were fairy-generated wildlings a part of the plan? And if they were, was there an intent to end family lines? And what’s the deal with Clover showing up twenty-two years after vanishing?

One of life’s great joys is to begin reading a book expecting to be directed from Point A to Point Z with the familiar stops along the way, and then finding oneself in an entirely other alphabet. The Lighthouse Witches has the magic needed to make that trip possible. It is an enchanting read.

"She turns her head from side to side, taking in the velvet expanse of the ocean on her left and the rocks and beach on her right. Ahead, surf furls into the bay. Something there catches her eye, and she wonders if it’s the basking shark, Basil, with his weird two fins. Something bobbing in the water. Seals, probably. Except it’s the wrong color. It’s pale.
She squints at the object. It’s about thirty feet away, moving on the waves. A cloud shifts from the moon and for a moment the light finds the object. It’s a face. A human face, its mouth open in a howl, someone in the water."

Review posted - October 8, 2021

Publication date – October 5, 2021

I received an eARC of The Lighthouse Witches from Berkley in return for casting one or two minor spells. Thanks to EK, and NetGalley for facilitating.

For the full review, with links and images, please come on over to my site, Coot's Reviews (https://cootsreviews.com/2021/10/08/beacon-hell/) and set a spell. It is also posted on Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4267494797)

The Lighthouse Witches has all the ingredients that produce a pivotal, exciting, and engaging novel about curses, accusations, blood, and more. A sure-fire winner, especially for those who cherish books about witches and persecution in an ideal atmospheric setting.
The story is not just about trials and trouble. Family, love, relationships are explored creatively and with great care. The Lighthouse Witches is an enduring story that holds you captive until you are ready to read it again and again.

A Most Anticipated Novel by Pop Sugar * Book Riot * Betches * Bustle * and more!

"Utterly spellbinding....Witchcraft meets thriller."--Pop Sugar

Two sisters go missing on a remote Scottish island. Twenty years later, one is found--but she's still the same age as when she disappeared. The secrets of witches have reached across the centuries in this chilling Gothic thriller from the author of the acclaimed The Nesting.

When single mother Liv is commissioned to paint a mural in a 100-year-old lighthouse on a remote Scottish island, it's an opportunity to start over with her three daughters--Luna, Sapphire, and Clover. When two of her daughters go missing, she's frantic. She learns that the cave beneath the lighthouse was once a prison for women accused of witchcraft. The locals warn her about wildlings, supernatural beings who mimic human children, created by witches for revenge. Liv is told wildlings are dangerous and must be killed.

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 is told from shifting narratives during shifting timeframes. Sometimes I find that style of storytelling incredibly frustrating, but not here. Cooke has managed to weave such a compelling narrative tapestry here that I had a really hard time putting this book down for meals, sleep, work, etc. I just wanted to sit down and figure the whole thing out in one go. But, as I’m sure you can understand – Life, she don’t cooperate. So instead it took me a few days. But that’s almost better because it gave me plenty of opportunity to soak up the ambiance of the story. And ambiance it has. The Lighthouse Witches places us at a lighthouse called The Longing on Lón Haven, a small Scottish isle. It is windy, cliffy, and moody just as one would expect a small Scottish isle bearing a lighthouse with A History to be.

Oh, did I forget to mention the History? Yeah, so The Longing is built atop a prison where accused witches were held pending “trial.” See, there was a rash of witch burnings on the island in the 1600s which led to a curse being placed by an accused woman, and a pervasive myth about wildlings infesting the area that has some of the residents in a tizzy to this very day. And admittedly there have always been strange happenings and disappearances on Lón Haven. And sometimes the missing reappear, but are a little…different…than they were before.

At The Longing in 1998 we meet our main cast of characters – single mother Liv, and her three daughters Sapphire (15), Luna (9) and Clover (7). Liv is an artist who was hired by Patrick to paint a rather interesting mural on the inside of the lighthouse. Liv and Sapphire have a troubled relationship. If you have or have ever been a teenager, I’m sure this isn’t terribly shocking to you. Then Saffy disappears, only it takes Liv a few days to notice, since she just assumed the teen was avoiding her. And just like that the family’s entire world begins to (hypothetically) unknit itself. One disappearance leads to another, and another and another. But then Luna is found wandering from the forest a few days later with no memory of how she ended up there. She only knows that her sisters went missing and her mother has abandoned her.

Cut to present day where a now very pregnant Luna receives news that Clover has been found. Impossibly, Clover is exactly as she remembers her. Right down to the fact that she is somehow still just seven years old. But the child is without a doubt Clover – that much becomes clear rather quickly. What the hell is going on here?!

The Lighthouse Witches is a fascinating story about love, revenge, magic, and the dangers of messing with people and things you don’t understand. It’s about love, tolerance, and forgiveness. Other notable themes are coping with grief, motherhood, dealing with change, and the importance of access to comprehensive healthcare. Also why you shouldn’t make a witch truly angry, or believe everything you’re told by a person with Something to Lose and/or Gain.

The Lighthouse Witches is a compulsively readable gothic mystery.

Such a unique story! The Lighthouse Witches is full of mystery, suspense, fantasy and life. A great combination that gives us a wonderful story. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

From my blog: Always With a Book:

C.J. Cooke is still a relatively new author to me, having only discovered her books last year when I read The Nesting, which I absolutely loved! As soon as I saw she had a new book out, I immediately requested it and I’m so happy to say it was another deliciously chilling gothic thriller that I cannot recommend enough!

Much like The Nesting, I once again binge-read this book in a day. It completely captivated me and I found myself totally immersed in the story. I was totally hooked and while there are some really creepy parts to this book, there are some other parts that are just totally lyrical that really lulled me into this story. It is so completely atmospheric that I felt like I was right there in the Scotland highland with the characters – I place, I might add, that I would love to visit one day!

I loved the characters and how it was told with three alternating timelines. While it may seem like it would be confusing it is not at all as they have such distinct voices, and I loved how it all came together in the end. There are elements of gothic vibes and local legend and it all combines to tell such a chilling tale, and it really is the perfect story for right now. I have always been fascinated with tales of witch trials and loved how the author wove that into this story. There is a history to the lighthouse and that combined with the witch trials and the missing girls just kept me glued to the pages.

Once again, C.J. Cooke has knocked it out of the park with her latest book…and her timing with this one could not have been more perfect time – just as we begin our fall season and are craving these dark, spooky reads. I loved this one and know that I will certainly be recommending it to all my thriller-loving friends that love dark, chilling reads.

This was a very flawed novel. Olivia and her 3 daughters move to a remote Scottish Island so Olivia can paint a mural in a lighthouse where witches were once held before burning. Good premise. There is a cave that when people go in they time travel and come out with a year tattooed on their skin. Locals think they are changelings and kill them. Dangling story threads- why did the people get numbered? How? By whom? Never explained. At one point Luna finds her missing sister, who should be 29 and is still 7, The authorities calmly accept that her birthdate must be a typo. Really? There was even newspaper coverage of her disappearance years before..I gave this book 2 stars because I did read to the end which means I was interested enough to hope it resolved itself but sadly it didn’t.