The Book of Witching

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.