Book Review: The Lighthouse Witches by C.J. Cooke

 SUMMARY:

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.

TEE'S THOUGHTS

I knew the moment that I read the summary of this book that it would be one I would enjoy, and boy did I. The Lighthouse Witches was the perfect book for me to kick off my Spooky Season Reading with.

Liv and her three daughters are staying at a lighthouse on an isolated island on the east coast of Scotland. The girls and mother are separated from each other and only Luna is left. 23 years later Luna is trying to cope with the drama and loss of the events when she gets a phone call from the police saying they have found her sister Clover- but here is the kicker- Clover is 7 years old, the same age she was 23 years ago when she went missing. So Luna heads back to Scotland to find out the truth of what happened.

The story is told in three timelines… 1998- through the voice of Liv, the mother of the story…2021- through the voice of Luna, the sister that was left on her own, and from the words in a diary from 1620, which honestly was my favorite part of the entire book.

The events in the book are dark and a bit creepy. The book was well written and will grab ups instantly and keep you reading late into the night, even as a reader on the slow side, I whipped through this book. It is full of superstitions, Nordic myths, and folklore from Iceland, Oh and I can’t leave out witch trials. Could a book be more perfect? More gothic?

The entire storyline of the wildings was fascinating to me, I have read a few things in mythology-type books about them, but never have I seen the idea in a book. The imagination and creativity that the author used in the story was over and beyond.

And like any good gothic story, you have to have a location that is fitting, almost a character unto itself, and the isolated island, with the waves crashing against the old lighthouse, and the wind whipping around it was perfectly written. You felt cold as you read, and isolated. It is exactly how you should feel reading any great gothic story.

The Lighthouse Witches need to be added to your Spooky Reading list now.