The Lighthouse Witches shows the power of myth over the centuries

You read enough mysteries and thrillers and you think you’ve read them all. You can at least make a good guess about what the final result will be. Well, then you read The Lighthouse Witches by C.J. Cooke and you realize all your guesses are incredibly wrong.

And then you read the final chapter and sob uncontrollably. And by you, I mean me.

The Lighthouse Witches tells the story of Olivia Stay and her three daughters Sapphire, Luna, and Clover. In1998, Liv moves them all to Lòn Haven, an island off the coast of Scotland. Liv is there to paint a mural inside an old lighthouse. She was commissioned to do the work by the owner, Patrick Roberts.

Everything seems normal. If not, a little creepy. But things become weirder and weirder the longer  Liv and her girls live there. She starts seeing things inside the lighthouse. Lonely, half-alive kids. Then she learns the myth of the island.

Something takes kids from the island. And when their parents are frantically looking for them, all of sudden, the child comes back. But they seem different.

According to those on the island, it’s not the actual child that came back. It’s a wilding. A wildling looks exactly like the child but is only interested in causing havoc and spreading terror.

Cut to the present day. We learn that Luna is the only one of the family that got off that island alive. Her mother and two sisters are considered missing but presumed dead. Then she gets a phone call. The phone call. The phone call she’s always waited for. The one that tells her Clover has been found.

But when Luna arrives, she is in for the shock of her life.  Clover has not changed in 22 years. She’s still a seven-year-old girl. How can that be? Luna begins to wonder if the wilding myth is true.  If this is actually Clover.

The truth of Clover, her age, and where Sapphire and Olivia are will blow your mind. It’s not what you think. It shows the power of myths and how the fear of the past can come alive just as strong in the future.

C.J. Cooke does an amazing job weaving together the past, the events in 1998, and the present with Luna and Clover.  She mainly does this by going back and forth between 1998 and 2021. Each chapter flips between Olivia and Sapphire in the past and Luna in the present. But Cooke also tells the story by having Sapphire read a grimoire from centuries before.

The story is executed like a dream. A frightening, suspenseful, and otherworldly dream. It was very difficult to put this book down and go to bed at a reasonable time.

If you love thrillers or suspenseful, fantastical stories, you need to read The Lighthouse Witches. You will not be disappointed.

The Lighthouse Witches is available now in ebook, paperback, and audiobooks formats