The Lighthouse is a mysterious and compulsive read, that will keep you turning the pages eager for more and to see the next strange plot twist which Alex Bell is an expert at delivering on.

This was a really good horror novel. I loved the setting and Alex Bell managed to generate a wonderful sense of unease throughout. Fast paced, and with decent characters, this kept me hooked all the way to the end, which personally I felt worked really well. I would mention some readers might find some scenes triggering (bird deaths etc.) but it is a horror story and I felt it all made for a good tale. This will definitely be popular in my libraries!

This story is creepy, claustrophobic and chilling, really nailing the horror elements. However I did find myself thinking that this book was a little overstuffed at times, adding in extra unneeded characters and red herring stories before finally revealing the true reason for Rosie's disappearance.

I wasn't sure about Will being a love interest. While Jess's family are visiting the island and lighthouse for scientific reasons, Will's family is there to... murder a couple of thousand baby birds. Which after some initial ick Jess never questions Will on.

Because of choices made in the final chapter, I did leave this story feeling like it wasn't quite finished, and it was yet another thing added to the story that felt unnecessary. I can't tell this wasn't intended for a sequel either.

I read The Lighthouse by Alex Bell on #NetGalley, part of the Red Eye series of teen horror, & it was *properly* creepy. I physically squirmed at some points & that ending was *chef's kiss*

I really enjoyed this young teen horror.
Jess and Rosie spend two weeks with their Dad every summer, which is usually a holiday in London. This time however it’s on a remote island off the Hebrides, in a run down lightkeepers cottage next to the abandoned lighthouse. With no internet and limited facilities, what makes it even worse is that Dad is working – and he’s brought his new family with him! On top of that, their visit to the uninhabited island coincides with the annual visit of hunters who kill young gannets (I didn’t know this barbaric practice existed before I read this book). If that isn’t enough for a holiday from hell, Jess and Rosie also have to contend with the creepy lighthouse, its mysterious history, the sudden fog, the accidental death of a teenager not long before, the weird behaviour of the gannets, things half-glimpsed, and the terrible nightmares which haunt their dreams. And then Rosie disappears.
This is a fast-paced exciting read. It covers a lot of horror tropes, my favourite one being Rosie’s disappearance because no one other than Jess remembers. Jess has to find Rosie before she too forgets her little sister. This is such a super plot for a horror story, and Jess’s desperate search to find out her makes this a very exciting read, and I could hardly put it down.
There’s a nice little twist at the end which I really liked but I’m not sure how it would work or how far the power of the island extends (though I’ve no reason to think the evil entity on the island is restricted to that part of Scotland at all!).
When I picked this story, I did under the impression it was for middle grade, I think it certainly is suitable for older middle grade or young teens. A warning re language – there are a couple of instances of blasphemy which surprised me, given the target age of the reader.
Overall an enjoyable atmospheric horror for teens that will keep them gripped.

Jess and Rosie don’t feel safe on the island as soon as they set foot on it. It is bad enough that it is so isolated and they have to spend it with their father and his new family, but the birds just add to the sinister atmosphere. It isn’t long before the lighthouse lives up to it’s horrific reputation.

I’ve always wanted to stay in a lighthouse, but after reading this book, I’ve completely changed my mind. 😳 This lighthouse is the stuff of nightmares. Alex Bell has created a frightening setting that makes your skin crawl. The scene with the eel had me shaking with fear.

This book is screaming with horror and gore! Enough to have you sleeping with the light on for a week.

There are lots of shocking twists as the story progresses and a huge twist at the end that I did not see coming.

I love how Alex Bell can turn her hand to any writing style. I’ve enjoyed every book I’ve read of hers so far.

Another outstanding addition to the Red Eye horror collection.

Thanks to @netgalley & @stripesbooks for the ARC.

Sisters Jess & Rosie are spending the summer with their dad staying at a lighthouse on Bird Island. Since the divorce, they have not spent much time with him & his new wife, & their half-brother, Charlie, & their dad hopes that the time spent together whilst conducting a ornithological survey will be good for them all. Jess would rather be spending the holidays with her friends, & that feeling grows deeper as they approach the island. It's fairly remote & a 4 hour boat ride from the mainland & when they reach it, they realise that they are going to be stranded there with no contact to the outside world except for a radio.

The island itself is rather sinister-looking with tall cliffs filled with the nesting seabirds that give the island its name. Added to this, the lighthouse where they are going to be staying looks less than welcoming. Soon after their arrival, they meet a group of hunters staying at the other side of the island who are permitted to stay on the island for a short time & kill hundreds of the birds each year. One of the hunters is Will, a teenage boy whose sister died at the lighthouse. Will tells Jess & Rosie that the lighthouse is haunted, & that it would be best for their family if they all left before they meet a grisly end. Jess doesn't believe him whilst Rosie is intrigued, but when strange things start to happen, they both realise that Will may have been telling the truth.

I've always thought that lighthouses are naturally eerie places & this one definitely fits the bill. The plot itself was a little choppy - it was very fast-paced, so fast in fact, that I think some of the scene-setting & character development suffered due to this. Compared to an earlier book, Frozen Charlotte, the reader doesn't get to know the main character & therefore feels less invested in the outcome. There were some things that I thought were a little odd as I reading it but these were explained in the conclusion & made more sense. The ending itself I thought was really good, it definitely wasn't happy ever after. Overall this was a mixed bag which gets a 3 star rating.

TW: If you are sensitive to animal (or in this case bird & gastropod) deaths then there are quite a few in this book - the birds killed by the hunters etc - & there is a very sad child death. There's also some scenes which may be triggering to anyone with claustrophobia.

My thanks to NetGalley & publishers, Little Tiger Group/Stripes Publishing, for the opportunity to read an ARC.

Seriously one of the scariest things I've ever read. The tension in this YA horror is gut wrenching; in a mostly delicious way! Jess is telling the story of her family's time staying on Bird Rock in a haunted lighthouse. When she visits her father and stepmother working on the island all hell breaks loose as she and her sister Rosie determine that the lighthouse is, in fact, haunted. Strange historical occurrences start creating bedlam as Will tries to uncover what happened to his sister one year before and Jess tries to make sense of what is happening now. The tension wracks up as birds attack, random eels arrive and more disappearances confuse Will and Jess. I read most of this in one sitting and at the end I was quite overcome. I suspect there's another one; at least I hope so! A rollicking good read for the slightly older reader who likes a good nail-biting horror.

It is important to note that the majority of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, therefore, touches on these topics as well. Many people might find the subject matters of the book as well as those detailed in my review overwhelming. I would suggest you steer clear of both if this is the case. Please note that from this point forward I will be writing about matters which contain reflections on the death of a child, graphic descriptions of body decomposition, suicide, abuse, child endangerment, violence, parental neglect, psychological distress, graphic descriptions of hunting practices, the death of an animal, & others.
 
On Bird Rock Island, things go missing & the minds of the owner go along with them. The land that houses a history unknown & uncharted even by the most diligent record keepers, reeks of malice & malaise. During the summer when their father decided that his girls should come to him, Jess & Rosie Oliver voyage hours by train, boat, & through hostel layovers, to arrive at the island to spend their two (2) dedicated weeks of the year with their father. The disappearance of Rosie, who is still in the recovery phase of an unnamed illness, changes the dynamics in a situation that Jess was already eager to escape. This book asks the age-old question with a twist: does a person exist if they aren’t remembered by anyone?
 
I would like to take a moment to highlight the severity of the content warning for this book. This story is categorized in the Young Adult Fiction genre however, a great deal of the subject matter is dreadful & might have a severely negative impact on the mental well-being of a variety of readers—no matter their age. Within this story, repeated instances of parental neglect are depicted. Some of these instances result in the very graphic & violent death of the child in question whereas others lead to children being abandoned; their mental stability utilized against them in a power play. Please be kind to yourselves & heed the warning of advancing no further within this book or my review if you should not feel it appropriate to do so.
 
When the reader meets Jess she is attempting to recollect a series of events that took place over the course of two (2) weeks. Our narrator is 15 years old & is at a place where she wants to focus on the things in life that bring her a sense of fulfillment & joy. Her family situation leaves much to be desired & many of her monologues revolve around the frustration she feels at having to adapt to a new familial situation. I truly appreciated this aspect of the story because this is a facet of life many people have to deal with. Nathan, Jess & Rosie’s father, has married Kate & they’ve had a child together. Neither Jess nor Rosie has ever met their 6-year-old younger brother. Therefore it is not a mystery to any reader why there is a level of disconnect between the narrator & her parent.
 
Though I appreciated that this situation between characters was explored in with an honest approach, the parenting style in this story emulates the ones we see in stories taking place in the 80s & 90s where parental figures express a level of apathy towards the occurrences that take place & have an overall disconnect between their title as a parent & their acted responsibilities. This approach can work well within a plot but I found it bizarre to see such a lack of care within a story published in 2022. That is not to say that I do not acknowledge that this style of parenting is alive & prominent in the world—I do.

What I mean to say is that there were multiple instances wherein Nathan was seemingly written as attempting to approach the relationship with Jess & Rosie in as healthy a way as possible even though he only saw them for two weeks out of the year. He then turns around & ignores signs they are emitting that things aren’t okay. These instances can surely be intended plot devices; ensuring the reader develops an unclear image of the adults within the story, sometimes being frightening looming figures, other times the ignorant wanderer unsure of anything.

In my opinion, it would have been to the benefit of the story to have both Nathan & Kate developed with a bit more detail & attention to their depth as individuals. It was strange that Jess & Rosie had never met their younger brother in the six years since he was born. It was strange that neither Kate nor Nathan would be on edge knowing that Rosie had spent an elongated period of time in hospital for an illness that had everyone fearing she might not recover. This instance in particular is one that made me question the trajectory of the story.
 
On the one hand, I appreciated the ambiguity that was taken when presenting Rosie & her stint in the hospital. On the other hand, I would have appreciated it detailed clearly given the fact that every other instance of gore & terror is presented to the reader with ample adjectives & adverbs to ensure that nothing was glossed over. I truly admire a book that can set the tone for itself clearly & I enjoyed that Bell wrote such a story that went about presenting terrible things in as clear a fashion as possible. There is certainly something to be said for ambiguity & secrecy yet, this story flourished under the declaration of horror.

I link the desire for Rosie’s hospital stay to be written with more clarity alongside the graphic violence that Conall experienced because they are very similar. Both children experienced a devastating blow very early in their lives & for those readers who might be living similar situations or circumstances taking the time to present Rosie’s illness for what I suspect it to be, may very well help other such children too. Based solely on the fact that Jess fears that Rosie might relapse if her emotions start to move in a downward-facing motion, I suspect that Rosie might have been hospitalized for either/both, suicidal ideations or attempted suicide.

This deduction is made because Jess is constantly keeping an eye on Rosie’s mood & the way she is experiencing various scenarios. Even when Jess writes that she didn’t feel necessarily positive or happy about something, she wanted to make sure that she was putting forth her most enthusiastic response & behaviours so that Rosie’s mood was kept elevated & optimistic. I say this as someone who has experience within this domain; stories that present this subject matter are vital & can save the lives of children by presenting a gentle & subtle reminder that they are not alone in this life.

Certainly, this is all speculation. However, when Nathan thinks that Jess is losing her sanity after Rosie has disappeared, he expressed that he cannot stand by & tend to her mental health needs & so she will be sent back to live with her mother, cutting the holiday short. This, again, leads me to believe that Rosie was placed under medical care because of a fear for her life & well-being that was not linked to a virus but to invisible malice. It is important to remember that young people, & children, experience mental illness too—depression, anxiety, neurological conditions, consequences of abuse, etc. are not simply things that plague the psyche of the aged among us.

 

This story highlights Conall’s experiences with horrific parental neglect & shows the readers that even though the haunting that took place was a tragic consequence of Conall’s lack of emotional well-being, the repercussions of parental abuse are not imagined or fictional, they are real. During his life, Conall was sent to the Workhouse after his father could not—would not—care for him. Conall was told that his mother was dead whereas she was not & was then sentenced to death for inadvertently killing a guard after being attacked.

For those who have an acute awareness of the horrors that have taken place across the globe in institutions like the Workhouses, it is not difficult to imagine what Conall was experiencing during his sentence. His father helped him escape only to tell him that he would have to be kept in the basement section of the lighthouse so that no one would suspect he was around & therefore neither he nor his father would be sent to their deaths for evading criminal persecution. I praise Bell, once again, for the way in which she introduced this character & the ways in which she went about describing the horrors of his life.
 
When Jess & Will meet Conall in the Stranger’s Room in the Lighthouse there is no long-drawn-out sequence that sees the book stall. Bell ensured that the information that the reader was required to know was given in a seamless fashion & allowed the series of events to be felt in all their morbid entirety. I could not help but think that this story would prosper well if tweaked a bit for an older audience. The horrors explored within the narrative are stark & truly maddening in their honest portrayal.
 
There are so many aspects of this story that remind me of Classics, specifically those within the Horror genre. One can easily link the experiences of Charlie & his paralyzing fear of the kitchen to the experiences of Tommy & the cellar in David H. Keller’s “The Thing in the Cellar” (1940). Many of the themes explored within this narrative ring true for aspects of the genre that lay like maggots’ eggs inside the membrane of the reader; rotting the genteel thoughts of the mind until they are consumed & forever after changed.

I appreciated the inclusion of Scottish lore such as the Bean Nighe. The lore regarding two-way mirrors & the fear of having one’s spirit stuck behind the glass was a beautiful touch to this spooky story. I was eager for Jess to discover that the things she did not understand were not necessarily aspects of reality that are ominous. I was proud to see a young protagonist so certain of herself & her quest to save her sister. This leads me to my next point & one which I believe many readers will appreciate—the relationship between Jess & Rosie was loving & kind.
 
I am so pleased & truly grateful to have come upon a story that presents sisterhood as a relationship between people that can be kind, loving, patient, empathetic, thoughtful, & positive. Though Jess & Rosie recognize how different they are & how their own personal interpretation of events & occurrences might vary, there is never a moment when the two are paired against each other. The entire story revolves around keeping up the memory of those we love. It was wonderful to see a pair of sisters know they could rely on each other while not needing the snarky dialogue often included in fictional female relationships, to push them along.

When Charlie tells Jess that they forgot Rory on the island, she does not push him aside nor neglects his feelings. The relationship between all the siblings is one that sees them genuinely want the best for each other, even when they do not have the history to back their connection; Jess & Rosie recognize Charlie as being a younger sibling & do not subject him to torment for the sake of letting out their emotions. I appreciated the connection that all the young people drew between each other & how their trust in one another helped them solve the mystery of the forgotten.
 
In all, this was a wonderfully haunted story of mirrors, phantoms, & lore. The premise sequestered itself between tiles of black mould & darkness to present the reader with a terrible tale that the washerwoman in the fog could not make clean. I am grateful to have read a story that had my pupils dilate like the eel’s before he snacked on the skin of the forgotten child in the basement.
 
Thank you to NetGalley, Little Tiger Group, Stripes Publishing, & Alex Bell for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Set on a remote island called Bird Rock, we follow Jess and her sister Rosie as they spend time with their dad and step family.
Whilst dad and step mum research the birds on the island Jess and Rosie have to keep themselves amused….but with nothing and no one around they can’t do much…until they start to explore the lighthouse. Things go from bad to worse and when Rosie goes missing no one remembers but Jess!
The author is very good at keeping the reader on edge and wanting to read more! And the ending is the icing on the cake!!!
I really enjoyed reading The Lighthouse and I’d recommend it for readers 11+.

Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

“Don’t go near the lighthouse.”

There’s not much to do on Bird Rock. The island has no shops, locals or phone reception. What it does have are thousands of gannets, some stone bothies, a lighthouse and an abundance of guano.

Fifteen year old Jess Oliver is definitely not keen on spending two weeks of her summer vacation there. Rosie, her twelve year old sister, is more positive about the trip and hopes to take an award winning photo while she’s there.

Their father and his new wife, Kate, both ornithologists, are working on the island. The sisters will be meeting Charlie, their stepbrother, for the first time.

“The lighthouse is haunted. Cursed. It’s a dangerous place. Something will happen if you stay here. Something bad-“

Because this is an Alex Bell book, and a Red Eye one at that, it’s not long before strange things begin to happen. This was a compulsive read, with a centuries old mystery at its heart, some great creepy moments and a dose of sadness.

I enjoyed the gradual reveal of the history of the lighthouse and absolutely loved that I wasn’t able to figure out what was behind the mystery ahead of time.

Knowing what I now know, I want to return to Bird Rock and experience it all over again.

“I know you’re there.”

Content warnings include mention of death by suicide and mental health. Readers with emetophobia may have trouble with some scenes.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Stripes Publishing, an imprint of Little Tiger Group, for the opportunity to read this book. I’m rounding up from 4.5 stars.

Bird Rock is a dumping ground for gannets – literally, as you can smell their guano for miles. A seabird haven and not much else, there are some primitive and ancient stone bothies, and the lighthouse, which throughout its tempestuous history never managed to keep a keeper for long, as they all got carted off in a coffin, or a straightjacket, or begged to be replaced ASAP. Trying to stay there are our narrator’s family – her father and sister, and step-mum and step-brother. But their open air hobbies and bird-surveying and so on are at threat from a specially-arranged historical set of bird hunters, and might of course be threatened more by any real, as opposed to superstitious, nastiness in the lighthouse. And as you might be able to guess, the nastiness there is very real…

This seemed a really successful young teen horror, to me. Not having read anything in this imprint before it was the quite the eye-opener. The slow building start is a little too slow at times, perhaps, and when it comes some of the darkness might seem to be over-egged, with too many nasty elements at play. But when it all comes together to reveal its full creepiness, it manages to thrust a lot of inventive gruesomeness at us, and proves that it was able to convey some really strong and surprising subjects in a very fine light. Proper adult horror books often put their characters and readers through what they put them through with much less justification and conviction. This on the other hand was surprisingly intelligent, and nothing like a pure genre, throwaway piece. A strong four stars.

Absolutely fantastic and atmospheric tale of a creepy lighthouse and how it affects the families who live there.
There's a mystery to solve, ghostly apparitions and moody locals with vague warnings to stay away!
The ending is just what I wanted :-) total creep fest.

I haven't read Alex Bell before, but I read Point Horror and Christopher Pike when they were cool, I read Charlie Higson's zombie series and Micheal Grant's Gone, I read Stephen King now. This'll be fine, right? Nothing can be as bad as those!

Oh, how I envy two days ago me's innocence.

To be fair, it starts out merely creepy, with a spooky setting and strange birds. That's like a lot of books. Then Alex starts to pile on the tension. And then...I don't want to spoil it, but it is up there in the blurb...Rosie vanishes, not just physically but from everyone's memories as well. Jess's panic and horror are painful to read, especially as she realises she's starting to forget her sister too.

When I was reading the scene in the cellar, I had to sit up and turn on some extra lights.

And it doesn't even end there! Alex drops a huge sequel hook right near the end, and I very much hope it gets picked up. Although some of the mysteries have been solved, there's still plenty left to find out about the lighthouse and its strange inhabitants.

Alex has a gift for capturing emotions both good and bad, and I felt everything her characters did. I'll be going to look for some more of her writing. But...maybe in the sunshine?

Thank you to Little Tiger Group and to NetGalley for the eARC of this book.

I have a strange adoration for lighthouses. There's something about their remoteness and resilence that I find deeply beautiful in a lonely, wistful sort of way. Whenever near the seaside, I visit them; when they crop up in books, I smile. It was therefore only natural for me to leap at the chance to read a book that centers around a lighthouse, especially a haunted, creepy one at that! What a lucky find for little ol' me.

The Lighthouse is a YA horror/mystery about teenaged sisters, Jess and Rosie, who are summoned by their father to the tiny remote island Bird Rock off the coast of Scotland. Their father is there with his new wife, Kate, and their six-year-old son, Charlie, studying the local gannets who call the island their home. On this island are a cluster of bothies (small stone houses) that turn out to be in use by local guga hunters, and the lighthouse.

The story is told in first person from Jess's point of view, and it goes at a break-neck speed. I was quickly gripped by, obviously, the lighthouse, and also the utter detachment from the rest of the world that faces this family as soon as they step foot onto Bird Rock. You get a real sense of "oh no this doesn't feel good" straight away, helped along massively by that hair-raising prologue!

The story is wonderfully chock full of twists and turns and snippets of past horrors dating back through the decades, complete with misdirections, an unreliable narrator, and shadows creeping in through the fog. The hands and shadows throughout the story genuinely unsettled me, and the scene in the fog was so visceral. When I got to the big reveal near the end, it was midnight and I was reading in the dark - I had to turn on my light and shut my bedroom door, because the descriptions and the pressing dark of the setting were just too much for me; I felt I was being watched, and that isn't something that happens regularly when I read horror. The excellent final twist on the very last page was one I hadn't guessed at at all, yet all the clues were there in hindsight (ah, what a beautiful thing!).

This is a YA horror done right: it has all the unsettling vibes you could ever want, the perfect location, and just the right amount of emotion.

That being said, I did have some minor gripes with this book:

1) Jess and Rosie's dad was rather unbelievable in places. There was a scene where he reacted in such an angry manner so immediately that I had to check I hadn't skipped a page by mistake. Without giving too much away, this was before his temperment became a plot point. I also found it quite unbelievable that he and Kate slept through someone breaking into the lighthouse and cutting through an iron chain - as they're parents to a bouncy six-year-old, I don't believe for a second that they wouldn't wake even at the sound of footsteps.

2) The pace of the story is a little too fast in some places. However, I appreciate that this is a book with quite a complex set of events happening in a relatively small number of pages. I think that allowing for another 100 pages would have fixed this.

I enjoyed this book a lot (I read it in one day), and if there is ever a sequel then I will eagerly await it with grabby hands! As with all ARCs I receive, I have pre-ordered a copy of this book and am looking forward to having the hard copy in my hands.

Instead of two weeks Summer holidays in London, this year Jess and her sister Rosie are going to join their ornithologist father and his new family (his wife Kate and his son Charlie) on a remote island in the Outer Hebrides. Rosie is delighted. She loves everything spooky and is looking for a photo opportunity for a competition - and it just so happens that they're staying in an old lighthouse with plenty of ghost stories attached to it.
Jess is not quite as happy. She would have preferred staying with their father alone rather than with the family reminding her the only part she and Rosie play in their father's life is reduced to a couple of weeks a year. Unlike Rosie she doesn't believe in ghosts and the lighthouse doesn't hold any attraction for her - it's damp, smelly, like the rest of the island called Bird Rock, and has no WiFi.
Jess and her family are not the only ones on the island. As every Summer, a group of bird hunters - or guga hunters - has come to kill the younger gannets. Weary at first, Jess is going to find and ally and a friend amongst them.
The Lighthouse is one of Stripes' chilling Red Eye collection, so of course Jess's opinion that The Lighthouse is just an old building is going to be proved wrong. The Lighthouse is indeed haunted, and dangerous. As much as Jess tries to deny what's happening and find rational explanations, things get more and more unsettling until she's very close to losing what's most precious to her. The haunting is powerful and plays with people's minds and emotions, making the right very difficult indeed. Can Jess keep her friends and family safe?

I raced through the Lighthouse, going from spooky to gruesome surprises, guided by Jess's retelling in her own voice. There are plenty of startling twists and scares in the story, up to the very end... The Lighthouse is a delightful and masterful piece of horror writing. If you're looking for a read to chill you to the bone, look no further!

The Lighthouse is a seriously spooky and immensely atmospheric tale that keeps drawing you in right from the beginning. The story begins with three teenagers playing truth or dare near the infamous Bird Rock lighthouse; a lighthouse that houses secrets of a tragic past and one that the teenagers have been warned never to enter. The sense of foreboding oozes from the pages. What follows is a 'true account' of Bird Rock told from the viewpoint of Jess, who has had to visit Bird Rock with her sister so they can spend time with their father and his new family. This page turner is chillingly haunted and is perfectly written. Reminiscent in its style of Michelle Paver's Dark Matter, the plot teases and tantalises.
Thank you to Little Tiger and NetGalley for this e-ARC to review.
A hauntingly  5 star read.

The Lighthouse is eerie, suspenseful and utterly horrifying. I loved it.

I loved it opening with a different group of people to the main characters. I think that always works so well in horror, having something nasty happen to one group and then cut to another group just starting out on a journey. I also loved how nothing was really made clear in that prologue. Something bad happened in the lighthouse. Something we'll only find out about later.

One thing The Lighthouse does incredibly well is to build up suspense. From that prologue we know that it's a very dangerous building to go into. Then we see a family with several children going to stay there. This instantly raises alarms for the reader, and it doesn't take long at all until strange things begin to happen to Jess and Rosie. Nothing too terrible, not yet, but enough to put them and the reader on edge. Then there's that steady build up as things get worse and worse, building up to an incredibly dramatic and haunting climax.

The reveals are done cleverly too. Nothing is rushed, though this was a fairly quick read. Mysteries are slowly revealed through old journals, through letters, through folk tale accounts from locals, and through some incredibly grim discoveries.

Throughout all of this, there are other, subtle mysteries. Little things felt off and it was very hard to put my finger on just what it was but it left me feeling uneasy and unsettled. The truth of it left me feeling harrowed.

I also loved the references to Celtic mythology. This may be a classic haunted house ghost story, but it is also firmly rooted in Scotland, lending it an extra dimension of spooky creepiness.

The Lighthouse left me feeling disturbed and haunted, one of the best horror stories I've read in ages!

I cannot believe I’m saying this but….I’ve never read a book by this author before. I know, I know, I’m totally ashamed of myself.
This book is awesome! I absolutely loved the way it was written, such a great storyline and was easy to follow. The characters were so well thought out and well rounded.
There was enough going on in the book to keep my interest and I really did enjoy it.
The bonus now is, I have so many other books by Alex Bell to go back and read!
Highly recommend this to everyone.
5 out of 5 stars

I’m a massive fan of Alex Bell, and this book was amazing. It’s fast paced, it keep you guessing the whole way through, I always want more horror however the twists and turns were great. The writing easy to follow and great for when your inbetween longer books of feel yourself going into a reading slump. The ending of this book was incredible!!!! Never saw it coming. Amazing read!