Book Review: "The Book of Witching" by C.J Cooke

C.J Cooke never misses. Don't believe me? Read my reviews of other works by this author...

I also read and loved books like The Nesting which was intense and beautiful. It's probably my favourite book by this particular author...

So you can probably tell where we are: gothic folk horror. The Book of Witching is no different, this is going to be a straight up five out of five and, when it comes to folk horror - this author is going down as having one of the greatest bibliographies in history. Dear god, I cannot love these books enough. They are brilliant in every sense of the word. Let's take a look at how this book goes back and forth across time and place. How it induces the perfect folkish gothic atmosphere and how we are forced to confront both timelines at the same time though they are hundreds of years' apart. If you love the gothic, if you're a fan of slow-burn and atmospheric horror, you need CJ Cooke in your life immediately.

There are two storylines in this book, one in the 1500s and one in the 2020s and so, we get both of these perspectives and they are both written brilliantly. Of course they are connected but not in the way you think. CJ Cooke, as in her other books, keeps us guessing about the connection because at first, there is such an atmosphere of dread that it propels us into wanting to know more. In the 2020s storyline, we have a mother who is devastated at the fact that her daughter is in the hospital with burn injuries after taking a trip to the Orkney Islands. The 1500s storyline is about a woman whose children are initiated into an ancient group in the era of witchcraft. I am not going to lie, if you're not completely sold by now I don't know what to tell you. This is duel-storyline folk horror at its finest. It has everything. There's not only atmosphere, but there's also extreme amounts of historical brilliance, there's intonation of tone and voice between the characters and times in a way that, if you've read CJ Cooke's other novels, only this author could do to this level of perfection.

The thing that connects the two storylines is a book with black pages containing dark and magical secrets. (I'm not going to lie, I was internally screaming with excitement when I saw this book for the first time in the narrative. If I wasn't sold before, the title and artefact it mentions completely and utterly sold me). The book has a sinister energy, there are strange rituals and there are horrifying scenes in the era of 2020s unknowing and 1590s witchcraft. There's an uncovering of an old cult, an occult group who obtained this cursed book and conduct strange rituals. You know how much I loved the British Library Tales of the Weird book Circle of Stone? Well, this is like that and I can imagine that this book along with CJ Cooke's other books will be included in great modern horror and atmospheric novel lists years from now. The image of the ritual we get of the children in the near-beginning of the novel is just the beginning. There's screaming and things going on behind a mother's back - and yes, that's only the beginning. It's definitely one for the folk horror girlies and so, I say this: it's one of the best books I have read all year. I will stand by it.

From cults and rituals to cursed books and strange members of the family, there are generations and atmospheres to uncover in this book. The setting is quite something too - set on a remote island that some of you might recognise from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. You can definitely feel the isolation, the religious fervour and the way in which life has changed drastically between the two eras of the book. But one thing you can feel emanating from the book is how we should not simply discount something because it existed in a different time. Sometimes the past can come back to haunt us in ways we could not even imagine.

Join in on my writing challenge!

Winners announced on Halloween...