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The Lighthouse Witches: The perfect new haunting gothic thriller you won’t be able to put down

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stars from me to this engrossing story. (It might have been 3.75 had I read the book. The bonus is for the narrators.) Wow. This is a superb Gothic thriller , we have sorcery, witchcraft, magic, spells and curses which reveals a creepy world full of superstition, apparitions and the wildlings, the latter completely capturing my imagination. The premise and unfolding dark events are really creative and original and I’m spellbound caught up in the enchanting, well written storyline which mesmerises as it weaves the fantastic tale. I love the superstitious folk lore element with the earlier timeline of the Grimoire being some of my favourite sections as it tells of dangerous times of witch-finders and so on. The setting principally on the island is fantastic as it lends a haunting, threatening, fearful , malevolent presence especially in and around The Longing which feels alive. At the start when we first meet the Stay family there are some good touches of humour which contrasts starkly with later dark events. The characterisation is excellent, even peripheral characters have depth. This is a very clever story which although it centres in witchcraft it is also about love, motherhood and family. My only slight negative is that maybe the end is a bit convenient but that’s not to say I don’t like it as I do! Overall, this book enthrals from start to finish with the ideas and concepts keeping you hooked. I love the cover too. You must be careful not to take hands with your other self -(wildling) If you do-the two of you will become one …

A] hypnotic psychological thriller….Readers will keep guessing what’s really going on right up to the surprise ending. Rebecca fans won’t want to miss this one.”— Publishers Weekly (starred review) 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 form stories about our lives to create meaning out of them-without meaning, they feel shapeless and without purpose.”At the time we were still living in Whitley Bay, north-east England (we moved to Scotland a year ago) right beside a lighthouse that we often walked by and the setting certainly found its way into The Lighthouse Witches. And the more I researched folklore, the more I came upon historical information about witches. As we were preparing to move to Scotland, I happened upon the Scottish witch trials. It was stunning to learn that the beautiful place to which we were relocating hada terrifying history of witch hunts, and I saw parallels both with the current moment (particularly the #MeToo movement) and my thinking around wildness. Overall, I truly enjoyed going on this journey into another land filled with myths, folklore, and superstition. C.J. Cooke has now won me over as a fan, as this book topped the scales! Do you ever finish a book and immediately wish you could wipe your memory and read it for the first time again? 😂 I was so engrossed in watching this mystery unfold. 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.

My only issue is of personal preference where I try to avoid books where children play a large role... as I find them annoying usually.I just felt like I didn’t trust the narrator this whole book, and it made me disconnected and irritated. This writer just isn’t for me, I had a similar issue with the other one I read.

CBTB: Last but certainly not least: as we look forward to the publication of THE LIGHTHOUSE WITCHES this fall, what are you most excited about? This is dismissed as ancient folklore, mythology and legend, except that every member of the family vanishes, only Luna is left behind. More than two decades later, a haunted and traumatised Luna is pregnant, still harbouring hopes that her family will return. Then she gets a call that informs her that her sister, Clover, has been found alive, but impossibly Clover is still 7 years old, how could that be? Moreover, Clover's strange behaviour has Luna wondering if she is a wilding, all of which has her returning to the island, to her memories, and in search of the truth of the mystery of what happened to her family all those years ago. The narrative is split between three timelines, from the 17th century from a grimoire of magic, spells and diary, from the family in 1998, and in the present with Luna. Rosemary Harper doesn’t expect much when she joins the crew of the aging Wayfarer. While the patched-up ship has seen better days, it offers her a bed, a chance to explore the far-off corners of the galaxy, and most importantly, some distance from her past. An introspective young woman who learned early to keep to herself, she’s never met anyone remotely like the ship’s diverse crew, including Sissix, the exotic reptilian pilot, chatty engineers Kizzy and Jenks who keep the ship running, and Ashby, their noble captain. 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. Single mother Liv has been commissioned to paint a mural in the lighthouse of a remote Scottish island. Liv takes it as a golden opportunity to make a fresh start with her three daughters. She soon discovers that the island harbours dark secrets. But who in this modern day can believe in those old ladies tales and superstitions? Not Liv, for sure. Until things take a dark turn.CBTB: I am soin love with the creepy, intriguing cover of your new book! Tell us about your thoughts on the cover. What do you love about this cover design? I really enjoyed the way the audiobook was done as well, and each viewpoint has a different narrator so there is a full cast. The narrators are Eva Feiler, Lesley Harcourt, Jess Nesling & Joshua Manning, and I have to say I loved every single one of them for their characters. Besides the multiple viewpoints, there are also different time periods which at times was fairly confusing on audio. I'm glad I had an eBook so I could make sure I wasn't missing anything, but I would have loved a physical copy as well. Cooke is such a master at world-building and bringing different settings to life, and I loved getting a taste of this remote Scottish island The Lighthouse Witches is set on. Highly recommend it if you are looking for a moody winter read with plenty of tension!

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