I enjoyed this book very much. I certainly was different. Well written with a very strong sense of placement.
The characters were a very interesting mix of locals and urban.
I did find that I got a bit confused with the time swaps and the end rather lost me. However this did not prevent me enjoying the whole thing.
Very good book.

Review will be placed with Waterstones.

This book was such a mixed bag for me! At first I was loving the mystery, I was intrigued by the characters and wanted to know what was going to happen. But, about halfway through, the book felt like it was moving so slowly that I lost interest.

The pacing was my biggest issue because it felt like there were no twist and turns, it just kept slowly moving to a reasonably predictable conclusion.

I did not like the diary entry/grimoire storyline - I felt like that added nothing to the story and in fact took away from the more interesting plot points.

I also felt like the plot wrapped up a little too neatly at the end for me.

This book definitely has an interesting fantasy element and could work really well for some people. It just wasn't quite right for me.

Wow I did enjoy this atmospheric and gripping gothic thriller. I was a big fan of this author’s first book but this book surpassed all of my expectations and I’d happily call it one of my books of the year.

Firstly I loved the descriptions of the island and especially the lighthouse which were really vivid helping me to picture it in my mind. I have a bit of a thing about lighthouses which always seem full of mystery and magic somehow so I loved learning more about the history of this one. The island is certainly an interesting place with some of the locals giving off some very creepy vibes. It’s a place I’d love to visit and experience for a day but only if I had an immediate way of leaving if anything happened!

The story changes between 1998 when Liv comes to live on the island and 2001 when one of Liv’s daughters comes back to the island to find out what happens. The time changes are quite abrupt at times and it did confuse me to start with, especially as it changed between first and third person too. I soon git used to this though and found I enjoyed both timelines equally which is unusual for me. There is also some flashbacks to the Scottish Witch Hunts which were interesting to learn more about.

Overall, as you can probably tell, I really enjoyed this book which I found very hard to put down. It’s a book that merges a few genres together and does so very successfully. There’s a deliciously creepy atmosphere to the book that helped draw me into the story and was perfect for snuggling up with on cold nights. There are lots of family drama, chilling moments that made my heart beat faster and a truly amazing twist at the end which I didn’t see coming.

Huge thanks to Anne Cater for inviting me onto the blog tour and to Harper for my copy of this book via netgalley. I highly recommend this book!

This was so eerie and gothic and right up my street so if you are in the mood for something to keep you up reading late into the night as Halloween draws closer, this is definitely the book for you!
The narrative is split between 1998 and the present day and we are transported to a remote Scottish island where two sisters go missing. When the third sister returns over twenty years later, things take a very mysterious turn of events. Witches, nestlings, dilapidated lighthouses, what more could we wish for?
Honestly I don't want to spoil this for anyone, as the plot really takes you on an incredibly intriguing journey but suffice it to say, you need this book. It is dark, atmospheric and had me completely hooked.

Liv Stay arrives on the remote Scottish island of Lòn Haven, with her three daughters, fifteen-year-old Saffy, nine-year-old Luna and seven-year-old Clover. She is trying to escape the chaos of their lives, and hopes that their stay here might offer some respite from the tough choices she is going to have to make very soon. The artist's commission that has drawn Liv to this island is a strange one - she has been employed to paint an arcane mural on the inside of a half-ruined lighthouse named The Longing. and their home for the duration is a bothy perched high on the clifftops beside the lighthouse.

It's an eerie, windswept place that evokes unsettling feelings, and although Liv doesn't believe in superstitious talk about fairies, ghosts and witches, the history of the site cannot be denied - for this was where local women were imprisoned under the ground on which the lighthouse now stands, while awaiting execution during James VI's witch hunts. This is a place that is said to be cursed, and whatever the truth, islanders have been going missing without explanation ever since. Within months, Liv, Saffy and Clover have disappeared too, leaving Luna all alone...

Twenty years later, Luna receives a call that leads her back to Lòn Haven for a reckoning. The time has come for her to dig deep and recall those forgotten memories, to try to get to the truth about The Longing and what happened to her family all those years ago...

The Lighthouse Witches is a fabulous immersive tale that swallows you up with its creepy Gothic vibes. The story plays out in three timelines - the history of the witch trials and what followed in their wake hundreds of years ago; the months that Liv and her daughters live on Lòn Haven; and the events that bring Luna back to the island twenty years later. All three weave together like a spell, bringing in delicious threads of folklore; witchcraft; dark tales of cursed children; and the strange otherness that clings to such remote communities, where everyone knows each other's secrets and the shadows of history linger long into the modern day.

I can't say too much about how the secrets of The Longing are uncovered, of the startling truths that are revealed, without giving away too much of the game, so you will have to discover these for yourselves - and trust me, you really, really want to. Cooke spins this story out in a way that I have not seen before, starting with a solid base of the Gothic kind and gradually transforming it into something else entirely, by combining a classic witchy yarn with modern domestic noir, and then heading off in the direction of Black Mirror country. It works superbly well and kept me enrapt from the first page to the last. The location is breath-taking perfection, right out of you nightmares, and the way Cooke uses the backdrop of a wild and remote Scottish island is a delight too.

If you are looking for one book to read this spooky season that will give you chills, thrills and unique surprises, then this, dear readers, is the novel you need. This is seriously good!

Creepy story perfect for Halloween!
Always appreciate an epilogue that details the facts around where the idea for the story originated.

Forgiveness is a kind of time travel, only better, because it sutures the wounds of the past with the wisdom of the present in the same moment as it promises a better future.

Two sisters go missing on a remote Scottish island. A third sister is left behind, grappling to come to terms with what happened. 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 and one curse still has a hold on the island.

If I can recommend one book to read this fall, this is the one. The Lighthouse Witches by C. J. Cook is bursting with atmosphere, mystery and folklore. I loved the time jumps and how you learn about the time travel and witchery along with the different POVs. The balance between the witch trials and folklore and the family aspect of the book was good, even though I would never say no to more witches and history.

trigger warnings: Gore, body horror, violence, death(children and parent), sexual abuse, child abuse, pregnancy,murder, slight sexual content. (animal) bones, immolation, bigotry.
Mentioned; leukaemia, miscarriage, drugs.

The book started just as it promised to be, giving you the eerie mysterious feel making you feel goosebumps.
1998- Liv Stay, mother of three girls: Sapphire, Luna, and clover, abruptly decides to run off to Lon haven taking the job of painting a mural. A Scottish island with a dark history involving witches and myths about the fae.
twenty years later Luna is the sole survivor of the Stay family, all she remembers is that her sisters disappeared and her mother had tried to kill her before disappearing. But now she gets a phone call that her sister clover has been found but when she meets the girl she does that she is her sister but did she never grew up??

Plot-wise I have to say it was incredible, the mix of folklore and mythology with the Witch trials conducted in Scotland. The dark and haunting aspects are perfect for the autumn spooky season. The way the author portrayed the island and its stories, the fear the inhabitants had about the Witches' hide, and stories they had formed that the wildlings are wiping out bloodlines due to a pact made by witches who burned in the history. Even though the first 50% of the book was a little bit slow-paced except for Luna's but after that, it's action after action and so many things happening at once that it becomes hard to keep the track of the events.

Also, I had hoped to read about witches a little more than their actual appearance in the book, the only time they appeared was during the diary entry by Patrick Roberts during the 17th Century and that just didn't do much for me. It was more about the impact the witches had on the island rather than activities involving them and just being around them.

As much as the plot was good, I just didn't fell in love with the characters a lot. The villain characters had more depth and personality to them as compared to the main protagonists. Isla was an interesting character, she wasn't good or the main villain of the book just a self-appointed ruler of the island who had her own bigoted rules of following the things the people had been doing over the island and hence corrupted Liv into killing her daughter(she makes out alive okay).

One of the things I loved about the book was its ending. I rarely see thriller and mystery books without one of the main characters dying. So yes at least here you will get a happier ending!!

cons:
-usually, I love reading multiple povs with timelines since it provides more depths and more mystery in the book. But here it feels muddled up and as if few questions are still unanswered and plot lines that started and had some build-up but then were suddenly left alone.

-the pov of sapphire. Okay so sapphire was the best stay sister with so much capability and her inner personality and with a rebellious streak and I did enjoy reading about through pov of different people except her own. I do understand how every teenager is different and so are their actions but Sapphire's inner monologue just felt very stereotypical.

Liv Stay is running away from her future. Uprooting her family of three daughters in the middle of the night, she has accepted a commission to paint a lighthouse – with the enigmatic name of The Longing – on the remote Scottish island of Lòn Haven. The year is 1998, but the island is still steeped in tradition, including tales of witches and wildlings…

Liv is surprised when she receives details of the mural she is to paint in the lighthouse – expecting scenes of island life, instead the image is a strange mix of runes and symbols. Not only that, the family soon begin to learn about the lighthouse’s dark past as the site where a group of the island’s women were imprisoned and later burned as witches during the seventeenth century witch trials.

Flash forward to 2021, and Luna – Liv’s middle daughter – is struggling to come to terms with her fractured childhood. Shortly after her family’s arrival on Lòn Haven, Luna was found wandering in the woods, with no sign of her mother and sisters, and no memory of what happened to them. On the brink of motherhood herself, Luna is thrilled to receive news that her younger sister Clover has finally been found. But what she finds when she travels back to Scotland is an even deeper mystery – will she be able to piece together what happened to her family, or will the dangerous forces that threatened them in the past finally catch up with her?

This a great gothic story, steeped in mystery and witchcraft! The plot moves back and forth between Liv and her daughters in 1998, and Luna in 2021 trying to piece together what happened to her when she was just 10 years old. I found this to be a very effective way to tell the story, as we learn very early on that something terrible has happened in the past, which gives a great sense of menace to the events related in the 90s. We’re also given flashbacks to the even earlier period of the witch trials themselves, by way of an account Liv’s eldest daughter Saffy discovers in the house they are staying in.

As the author discusses in their note at the end of the book, this is a story about wrongly treated and forgotten women. The plot may focus on women accused of witchcraft in the seventeenth century, but it has echoes of the many issues still facing countless women today. So although this book can be read and enjoyed as a pure gothic fantasy, I also found it thought-provoking and relevant. I’d highly recommend this book, and will definitely be checking out the author’s earlier books!

“The Lighthouse Witches” was released in the UK on 30th September 2021. Many thanks to NetGalley, the publishers HarperCollins, and of course the author for providing an ebook copy.

"I wasn't yet wise enough to be terrified."

A cold, sparsely populated Scottish Island, a deserted and decrepit lighthouse, strange goings on and tales of witches, curses and wildlings. What could be more perfect to read during October?

Bursting with atmosphere, mythology and folklore, this chilling and mysterious tale had me in it’s grasp from beginning to end. There’s a sense of foreboding that pervades the pages; a haunting aura that lingers over every carefully crafted sentence. I devoured this book, unable to put it down despite the goosebumps that pricked my skin.

"The story of her past is not like other people's, she thinks. Most people's past can be viewed like cleaved water left in the wake of a boat. Hers? It's a tangled weave of spider webs and nightmares, never to make sense."

The story is told in dual timelines: 1998 when Liv Stay has moved to the isle of Lon Haven with her children Sapphire (Saffy), Luna and Clover after being commissioned to paint a mural in the Longing, and 2021 when a now twenty-nine-year-old Luna is pregnant with her first child and still searching for her mother and sisters, who went missing all those years ago. There are also flashbacks to the witch trials of 1662 in the form of a grimoire that young Saffy finds in the bothy and begins reading. The author seamlessly shifts between the three timelines, giving each a distinctive voice and perfectly capturing the different eras. While you know each timeline must be connected, the author keeps you guessing as to how, slowly and teasingly weaving the threads together until you see the full and intricate picture she has woven. The characters are all evocative and compelling, luring you into their stories so deeply that you can’t leave until you know all the secrets they keep locked inside.

"The Longing. The name conjures such terror, such complex memories.”

Gorgeously gothic, the author makes great use of places to help create an atmosphere that sends shivers down your spine. Lon Haven is a place that conjures feelings of claustrophobia and isolation. In the middle of nowhere, it is inhabited by strange residents who tell crazy tales and there is a feeling of fear whether anyone who goes there can make it out again. And then there’s the Longing, which casts a sinister shadow over the story from the start. An eerie, haunting place that is falling apart, we soon learn that it is a place the locals avoid thanks to a history that involves women accused of witchcraft, curses and death. Liv quickly notices strange occurrences happening there and begins to wonder about the tales Isla and others have told her about the Longing. Could they be true? Could it really be cursed? And if so, what does that mean for her and her daughters?

Enthralling, immersive and filled with gothic menace, The Lighthouse Witches is the perfect read for spooky season.

What I love about C J Cooke is her knack of weaving together endearing and utterly believable characters with a sense of mystical unease and mystery. For me I think that is the heart of her books. A dusting of the magical over a story rooted in its relationships and personalities.

Liv, a single mother to three young girls, finds herself working on a mural in an old lighthouse with a dark history. We find ourselves looking at a story both divided and held together by time. Centuries old witch hunts on one side and Liv’s family disappearing on the other. At times this book reminded me quite a lot of “The House Of Hollow” by Krystal Sutherland and I worried it would follow a similar path but I was glad to see it set itself apart to provide a completely different tale. Laced throughout with mysteries, magic, history and suspense it could easily have lost its way but I shouldn’t have worried because Cooke knows exactly how to weave a story together in a way that feels less than a story written and more like a story lived.

This was a fabulous story. I loved the setting, I loved the characters and the historical aspects. Readers who like Scottish folklore will have a blast with this book. One thing that really bothered me, however, were the numerous grammatical errors and little logical inconsistencies - something that wasn’t just a problem of the ARC but those mistakes also appear in the finished printed copy. It is clear that lots of things were missed in the editing process and that‘s a real shame because the story itself is so good.

Wow what a novel! This was a beautifully written and captivating read. When single mum Liv arrives on a remote Scottish island with her three children it's clear she is fleeing a troubled past but what is waiting for her on the island will change the lives of Liv and her daughters forever. I ADORED this homage to what happened to women during the Scottish witch trials. C.J. Cooke absolutely does justice to their past by picking at the surface of how a community can turn on one another. A very clever and absorbing read. Highly recommend.

From the title, I thought this was going to be a bit whimsical, but no, this is more like gothic horror!

Our setting is a remote (fictional) Scottish island where in the 1600s a number of women were killed as part of the witch trials. One of them cursed the island and them here we are - the main body of the book jumps between 1998 and 2021. The focus is on a family - mother and three daughters who have come to the island in the 90s to create an art mural. But then weird things start happening

Children have continuously disappeared from this island over the years and when they return, they are believed to be wildings- a kind of fae changeling- and they have to be killed before they destroy the family bloodline.

This book has all the atmosphere you need for a gorhic horror - weird insular community, not sure who to trust or what to believe. Plus potentially creepy children!

The witchcraft angle to this is interesting and, without giving anything away, does make you think is something magic ir do you just not know how to explain it yet?

Two sisters go missing on a remote Scottish Island. Twenty years later, one is found but she is still the same age as when she disappeared.
Liv brings her three daughters to Lon Haven, an island off the coast of Scotland. The island is steeped in history, most notably about the Scottish witch trials. When two of her daughters vanish, Liv will stop at nothing to find them.
I loved this book. It was the perfect mix of horror and thriller and I was hooked from the very first page. Set between 1998 and present day, with throwbacks to 1662, this book is filled with amazing history, creepy ghost stories and a beautiful old love story. October is the perfect time to read this beautiful ghost story full of witches and spells. 5 stars!

I love a book about witches... this was no exception. I really enjoyed this one. It has the back and forth in timelines etc, which was ever so slightly confusing at times, but once you got to grips with it, I really enjoyed the suspense.

Firstly I would like to thank the author and publisher for my ARC.

This is an incredibly intoxicating, atmospheric and thrilling story. As the authors second novel, I was excited to have the opportunity to read this story and I was not disappointed- I got to know the characters whom I didn’t always like, I cringed, and I laughed, I had chills down my spine and at one point I was just outright scared, and all of my emotional experiences were due to the wonderful writing, how the plot was laid out, the plausibility, and the rich content.

Go read this book! Enjoy!

The Lighthouse Witches by CJ Cooke on audiobook is a wonderful story told in 3 timelines of love, fear, belief and yes, witches, but all is not as it seems. The writing was beautiful and evocative, bringing the land and the family to life. Recommended.

Many thanks to Netgalley/Publisher/Author for an advanced copy of this dreamy book!

This has me hooked from the start, the atmosphere and vibes I got from the get go were creepy and spooky, perfect for a Halloween read!

Would definitely recommend for anyone who is looking for something mysterious!

Liv flees to a remote Scottish isle with her 3 kids in tow, and delves into a mysterious world of witchcraft.. while being commissioned to paint a mural.

The book skips from 1998 and Livs point of view, to 2021 and Lunas point of view (livs daughter) as got start to uncover the mysterious of the island.

In 2021, Luna has been searching for her mother and sisters over 20 years after they went missing, when she gets a phone call that one of her sisters has been found. But her sister is still the same age as when she went missing twenty-two years earlier…

Honestly.. you have got to read this book!!

I enjoyed the narration of the story and the language.Unfortunately, I did not like the story. It wasn;t for me.