The Lighthouse Witches by C J Cooke
I would like to thank Anne from Random Things for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review
Publisher – Harpercollins
Published – Out Now
Price - £14.99 Hardback £5.99 Kindle eBook
Upon the cliffs of a remote Scottish island, Lòn Haven, stands a lighthouse.
A lighthouse that has weathered more than storms.
Mysterious and terrible events have happened on this island. It started with a witch hunt. Now, centuries later, islanders are vanishing without explanation.
Coincidence? Or curse?
Liv Stay flees to the island with her three daughters, in search of a home. She doesn’t believe in witches, or dark omens, or hauntings. But within months, her daughter Luna will be the only one of them left.
Twenty years later, Luna is drawn back to the place her family vanished. As the last sister left, it’s up to her to find out the truth . . .
But what really happened at the lighthouse all those years ago?
Have you ever been to a place where you just feel things are not quite normal? Perhaps you feel cut off from the normal world in a wilderness or that you are aware that dark acts made in that place have left a lingering stain. In the UK there are many places where it is said you could cross paths with ghosts, devils or fae. In C J Cooke’s very impressive The Lighthouse Witches we get a tale of a strange Scottish Isle where over the centuries strange and harrowing events have happened and one young family find they will never be the same again.
In 1998 artist Liv arrives after a frantic trip across the UK to Lon Haven on The Black Isle in Scotland. Liv has been hired to paint a mural in a deserted lighthouse for an eccentric rich owner. Liv needs a distraction from her life but her three children; disgruntled 15 year old Sapphire and her younger sisters Clover and Luna arrive with few possessions and have to quickly learn to island life. But Lon Haven has a reputation for strange goings on. It was cursed in 1662 by one of several women burnt at the stake on the island after being judged to be witches. Ever since then there have been mysterious deaths and more worrying a long trail of disappearences especially for children. Over a few days Sapphire, Liv and Clover all vanish and are never seen again. The very young Luna is found walking alone has little memory of the place and what happened to her family.
In 2021 Luna is now heavily pregnant and at a crossroads in her own relationship when she gets a call from the police. It appears her sister has been found at last alive. But when Luna arrives at the hospital she gets a shock. The police appear to have found a little girl who could not possibly be her sister nearly 22 years later? The two try to bond but Clover is not quite the girl Luna remembers carrying strange marks on her skin and breaking out into erratic violent behaviour. Lon Haven starts to call to them and the island’s mysteries may finally be answered.
This is a wonderfully impressive piece of a thriller mixed in with dark folklore. It works so well because Cooke has a very skilled approach to character, setting and plot. At the heart is our modern day family. From the start of the tale in 1998 we get understand Liv and her family and it very easy for us to get our sympathies for Liv a hassled single mother facing huge change in her life and also Sapphire who is the standard 1990s grunge rocker but underneath the armour we find a young teenager battling the grief of her stepfather’s death and struggling with all the stresses of teenage life now in a very distinctly non-urban life. They come off the page as real individuals and we feel their pain, sadness and inability to quite talk to one another. So when stranger things start to happen we feel very much that we don’t want things to go wrong. In 2021 we then get adult Luna who is that young mother to be who also isn’t sure what exactly life has to hold. Struggling with her memory gaps her character has to solve the mystery and she becomes the bridge character across the time periods the story touches on.
The central mystery of what has happened is a really good one. Cooke mixes the real Witchcraft Trials of Scotland where hundreds died with the myth of wildings who can replace people with their own kind who have their own agendas. Cooke creates world of secrets, rumour and magic that feels throughout that it getting stronger. From strange diaries recounting the Island’s own trial and cruelty to the supposed witches to superstitious traditions and strange children who vanish as soon as they come it creates a dark gothic atmosphere and when we meet Clover in 2021 and her strange appearance and behaviour it all starts to point to these legends becoming true. My only issue is the final chapters explaining it all did feel a little rushed
The last piece of the puzzle as to why this is such a successful read though is the world of Lon Haven. Isolated and full of natural beauty it also has wild forests, hidden caves and even a sea that glows at night. It carries an air of ancient mystery that combined with local legends mean this is a wonderfully atmospheric story of strange events that the unsuspecting family have walked in and on top of that the locals are both very inquisitive and hiding their own secrets and beliefs that start to make us wonder can we trust anyone? Crossing decades and seeing what happened next also gives the story some depth and a sense that these revelations are finally going to come out.
The Lighthouse Witches was a very impressive gothic thriller combining supernatural mysteries and secrets with a perfect mix of strange landscape and innocent characters thrust into the middle of it. I loved unpeeling it’s secrets and think perfect for a windy autumnal night as a storm rages outside. Highly recommended.
