The Book of Witching

Last winter, I enjoyed reading The Lighthouse Witches by C. J. Cooke, so I was excited to read more from her. This week she released her newest novel, The Book of Witching. Divided between two timelines, it deals with a mysterious group known as the Triskele on the Orkney Islands of Scotland. In 1594, Alison Balfour is the first person to be accused of witchcraft, going on trial for allegedly assisting in a murder attempt on the Earl. In 2024, a teenager named Erin barely survives a fire, but her boyfriend has died and her friend has gone missing. Her mother Clem is trying to work out what happened, but when Erin wakes up and says her name is Nyx, things only get more confusing and alarming. A mysterious black-paged book brings even more questions…

Tropes & Narrative Devices

• Dual timeline
• First-person POV (Alison)
• Third-person narration (Clem; Edward; Erin; etc.)

What I Liked:

• Historical inspiration. The portion of this book that’s set in 1594 was inspired by the real events in which a woman named Alison was accused of witchcraft and burned the stake, the first woman in the Orkney Islands to face such a fate. Here, we get a fictionalized version of how this came to be, what Alison’s (horrific) situation was like, and the family around her. I liked how immersive this historical setting was and how close-knit her family is, even if her story is devastating to read.
• Horror themes. From a tragic accident and a mysterious fire ceremony, to witchcraft and magic, to an evil book of the world’s terrors, The Book of Witching is the perfect read if you like things dark and eerie. I enjoyed the more folkloric horror here combined with the very real evils of ordinary people.
• Interconnected timelines. At first it’s unclear how much the 1594 storyline could connect with the 2024 one, but as the novel progresses, interesting connections start to emerge. It’s never as solid as I’d expect, and yet I enjoyed the tidbits that come to light at the end to bring it full circle.
• Orkney Islands setting. I don’t believe I’ve read any books set here, but I really enjoyed getting to know this setting. Though it’s part of Scotland, it has strong ties to Scandinavia and there is at least one mention of Vikings in the past timeline.

What Didn’t Work for Me:

• Only the amount of suffering Alison and her family endure in 1594! It’s not for the faint of heart.

Final Thoughts

The Book of Witching is utterly engrossing. It’s horrifying more due to real people than the magic and rituals, highlighting a horrible time in history when women were accused of being witches. The pacing and storytelling are excellent in both timelines, as is the buildup of family for both Alison and Clem. I loved this book and will be reading much more from C. J. Cooke.

Special thanks to the publicists at Berkley, Penguin Random House, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book!

Get the Book

You can buy The Book of Witching here – it’s available as a hardcover (Book of the Month), paperback, ebook, and audiobook.

The Book of Witching by C. J. Cooke
Audience	Adult
Genre	Historical Fiction; Gothic; Horror
Setting	Orkney Islands, Scotland
Number of Pages	384
Format I Read	Ebook (NeGalley ARC); Hardcover (Book of the Month)
Original Publication Date	October 8, 2024
Publisher	Berkley

Official Summary

A mother must fight for her daughter’s life in this fierce and haunting tale of witchcraft and revenge from the author of A Haunting in the Arctic.

Clem gets a call that is every mother’s worst nightmare. Her nineteen-year-old daughter Erin is unconscious in the hospital after a hiking trip with her friends on the remote Orkney Islands that met a horrifying end, leaving her boyfriend dead and her best friend missing. When Erin wakes, she doesn’t recognize her mother. And she doesn’t answer to her name, but insists she is someone named Nyx.

Clem travels the site of her daughter’s accident, determined to find out what happened to her. The answer may lie in a dark secret in the history of the Orkneys: a woman wrongly accused of witchcraft and murder four centuries ago. Clem begins to wonder if Erin’s strange behavior is a symptom of a broken mind, or the effects of an ancient curse?See Less