The Lighthouse Witches

C. J. Cooke is an author I’ve been wanting to read for a few years now, so I’ve started with The Lighthouse Witches. Scotland, dual timelines, a theme of witches… it has all the makings of a great work of Gothic fiction.

Summary

In the 1990s, Liv has few options as a single mother of three girls. She takes her daughters to an isolated Scottish island for a job that comes with free lodging, but the new setting does little to help her fractured relationship with her eldest daughter, Sapphire. Things go from bad to worse when a mysterious little boy shows up and her girls start to go missing. Decades later, middle child Luna is trying to start a family, but has never gotten over the losses of her sisters. But when her younger sister Clover is found… and she still looks seven years old… Luna needs answers about what really happened.

Review

The Lighthouse Witches unfolds perfectly, fully of mystery and familial tension. It’s mainly split into two timelines, 1998 and 2021, with POVs from Liv, Sapphire, and Luna. However, it’s also interspersed with sections from a 17th-century Grimoire and the accusations of witchcraft that destroy a family.

This book has several themes that I’m often drawn to, including changelings, witches, and dark magic connecting different timelines. These supernatural elements bring out the Gothic nature and spooky side in full force. Is Clover, in 2021, a changeling? Was she somehow frozen in time? What happened to Sapphire? And what about the history of witches in the area?

I also loved the exploration of motherhood and sister relationships. Liv is trying her best, but as a single mom, it’s hard for her to give her girls the stability they need. That her eldest, Sapphire, is starting to lash out doesn’t help matters. But will their fractured relationship have devastating effects? In the 2021 timeline, there’s also the theme of fertility struggles and Luna’s efforts to become a mother herself.

Final Thoughts

The Lighthouse Witches is an absorbing, haunting, and mysterious novel that will appeal to anyone who likes the paranormal, multiple timelines, and themes of family within a Gothic Scottish setting. It’s engrossing and chilling, but with a little room for hope, too. I will be reading more from C. J. Cooke soon!

Get the Book

You can buy The Lighthouse Witches here – it’s available as a paperback, ebook, and audiobook.

The Lighthouse Witches by C. J. Cooke
Audiobook Narrator	Eva Feiler, Lesley Harcourt, Jess Nesling, and Joshua Manning
Audience	Adult
Genre	Historical Fiction; Gothic; Horror
Setting	Scotland
Number of Pages	368
Format I Read	Audiobook
Original Publication Date	October 5, 2021
Publisher	Berkley

Official Summary

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.