The Lighthouse Witches by C.J. Cooke

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.

In 1998, with nowhere else to go and running from a secret, Olivia Stay and her three daughters arrived on a remote Scottish island where she had been commissioned to paint a mural. She is given very little instruction, just a diagram of what she is meant to paint inside the crumbling lighthouse.

 The island is rife with a dark history of murder and mayhem but Olivia is out of options and at least able to have a roof over her children's heads which is something they have lacked since her husband's death. At some point, we know not why, the eldest and youngest daughter disappear, and the middle child is abandoned in the woods before Olivia also goes missing. Now all these years later that middle child is a grown and pregnant woman who has never given up hope of finding out what happened to her family, when out of the blue she is told her baby sister has been found. Her joy at this news soon turns to shock and dread when she rushes to be reunited with her sister, and finds not the grown woman she expected, but a 7 year old child who thinks she has only been gone for days instead of decades.

 Legend, myth, and folklore bubble over into the modern day in this chilling story of witches and changelings. Multi layered complex characters weave together a terrifying narrative told on three timelines. The ever increasing suspense kept me glued to the pages. Highly recommended to all fans of horror and folklore.

5 out of 5 stars

I received an advance copy for review.

Get a copy

About the author

C. J. Cooke is an award-winning poet and novelist published in twenty-three languages. She teaches creative writing at the University of Glasgow, where she also researches the impact of motherhood on women's writing and creative writing interventions for mental health.