The Book of Witching

August 9, 2024

Cooke's (A Haunting in the Arctic) newest features a dual timeline, alternating between the modern day and the late 1500s. In the present day, Clem gets a call that her 19-year-old daughter, Erin, was grievously injured in a fire while on a camping trip in the Orkney Islands with her boyfriend and her best friend. In the 1500s, Alison is accused of witchcraft by a high-ranking official who is seeking to make himself more powerful and needs a scapegoat. The two tie together when Erin finally wakes up at the hospital and declares herself to be someone named Nyx. She doesn't know anything about what happened, but the accident occurred on the island where Alison was arrested in the past and legends of a curse still linger. Alison's story is compelling, and Cooke makes it easy to see how women were manipulated into confessing during unjust hearings. VERDICT A good pick for readers interested in witch trials throughout history, as Cooke melds elements of horror, historical fiction, family drama, and a police procedural into this witchy novel.--Tegan Beese

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Starred review from November 11, 2024
This riveting slow-burn thriller from Cooke (A Haunting in the Arctic) connects the sins of the past with the horrors of the present in modern-day Scotland. When Clem gets word that her 19-year-old daughter Erin is unconscious in the burn ward after a trip to the Orkney Islands goes awry, she rushes to Erin’s bedside with granddaughter Freya in tow. When Erin wakes and begins speaking in vague but horrifying terms about an incident involving a fire; the death of her boyfriend, Arlo; and the disappearance of her best friend, Senna, the police suspect that Erin might not have simply been a bystander in those events. Clem ventures to the island to investigate along with her estranged ex-husband, Quinn. They uncover a grisly truth connected to something called the Book of Witching and an execution centuries prior that may still be claiming the lives of innocents. Cooke does a nimble job of jumping between the present and 16th-century Scotland, providing lush description and snappy dialogue that brings the story to vivid, brutal life on the way to an ending that masterfully ties the many threads together. The result is certain to satisfy fans of supernatural thrillers.