Single mother and artist Liv and her three daughters arrive on the dreary but beautiful island of Lon Haven after Liv accepts a commission to paint a mural inside of the local lighthouse known as The Longing. Sure, it's a weird gig, but she needs the money and hopefully it will be a nice change of pace for the girls. Her eldest is 15 year old Sapphire, who goes by Saffy, and she's a typical teenager, wanting nothing to do with her family. Saffy is livid that she's been ripped from her life in England, especially her boyfriend Jack, and she makes no attempt to conceal her contempt. Luna and Clover, 11 and 9 respectively, are much more hopeful of this adventurous move, but it's clear that Liv is running from something, even if her own daughters don't realize it.
When she visits the decrepit lighthouse to scope out the job site, she finds that The Longing is in desperate need of repair, with the floor having been flooded by the seawater that is just steps away. It reeks of dead fish and needs some plastering repair before she can even get started. Finn is a local handyman who comes out to do the repairs and Liv finds him charming, in a rugged sort of way, and she grows to enjoy his company as they work in tandem, especially since she gets the creeps every time she visits the lighthouse.
The locals are friendly enough, including Isla, who manages the bothy (small cottage) where Liv and her girls will live for the duration of her work; her daughter Rowan, who is Saffy's age; and a collection of girlfriends that Isla introduces to Liv. It seems Isla keeps tabs on everyone and everything in town, and since her husband, Bram, is the local police chief, it's probably pretty easy. Liv soon discovers that this bunch of ladies, as well as many others on the island, firmly believe in the local old wives' tale of wildlings, fae creatures who kidnap a local child, then return as their doppelganger and destroy the bloodline, killing the whole family. They tell her of many old cases of this happening and even much more recent ones where the only hope of survival is to kill the wildling in the woods. They say you can identify a wildling by the short series of carved numbers on their body and if you see that, trouble is coming. In times past, when a wildling has shown up, disease has scourged the island or destructive weather, failed crops and just about anything devastating that you can imagine has befallen Lon Haven.
Back in the 1600's, 12 women were executed as witches in Lon Haven and before their trial, they were held in a dungeon on which The Longing was built. The tale goes that these witches cursed the island and all of its inhabitants and the wildlings are the result. Liv thinks it is ridiculous, that is, until Saffy goes missing, followed the next day by Clover. When Liv thinks she can't take anymore, Luna shows up at her door, bruised and covered in mud, with numbers on the back of her knee. Only Luna just came out of her bedroom to see who was at the door... What the hell does Liv do now?
Fast-forward some 22 years and Luna has had a depressing life, having lost both of her sisters and her mother in a span of two days, since none of them returned to her and she spent her youth in foster care. She is currently pregnant with her first child and dealing with issues in her relationship when she gets a call out of the blue from the police saying Clover has been found. Only when she goes to see her, Clover still looks like a little girl. Ummm, what?
The Lighthouse Witches plays out by bouncing back and forth between the events of 1998 and the present in 2021, with plenty of jaunts back to the 1600's when the women were burned at the stake at The Longing. That's about all I can say without revealing too much, but The Lighthouse Witches is a dark and moody book, perfect for this spooky season. It contains some genuine scares and truly horrific moments, but it's also a really interesting story about family dynamics. Honestly, it took me a little while to get into this book, but once I did, I tore through it and loved the ending.
