The Book of Witching by C.J. Cooke

Book Review

Stephen Frame

Though the title might suggest a narrative which leans heavily into low fantasy, the stories inside are more akin to magical realism. Stories, not story, feels right with The Book of Witching, for it is very much a book with two stories that are at once very different and very similar. 

The first of these is Clem’s story, set in the present day. Clem is mother to Freya, who, at the opening of the story, is found badly burned on a beach in Orkney, in what at first appears to be a tragic accident, but as details emerge, it soon becomes a more sinister happening. With one of Freya’s friends, who were with her on Orkney, found dead and another missing. The police become involved, and Freya becomes a suspect. A distraught Clem struggles to cope with the tragedy, a situation not helped by the appearance of Feya’s father, her ex-husband. Relationships between mother, father and daughter are all fraught in different ways. Driven to the brink of despair, Clem sets out to find the truth about what happened to Freya on Orkney.

The second story in the book is that of Alison, a resident of Orkney in the year 1594. Alison too, has a family, and although it has its tensions, it is far more settled than that of Clem’s. At the outset, life is going well for Alison, until she becomes unwittingly caught up in a plot against the Earl of Orkney and is subsequently arrested and accused of using witchcraft to take the Earl’s life. Alison’s tale then becomes that of her imprisonment and trial. The two women are linked through Freya and her contact with an ancient magical book called The Book of Witching. But the fantasy element is light, which is absolutely right, for it allows more space to open up the lives of Clem and Alison. These two women, and their families, are on very different arcs. Clem’s family is broken, and she is trying desperately to put gather up the scattered parts. Alison’s family is whole but is about to be broken on the anvil of her trial. Both are packed with emotive moments, sometimes tender, sometimes heart-rending, sometimes brutal. It’s one of the great strengths of this book. There are also healthy offerings of intrigue, suspense, mystery and drama. The writing is taut and economic, the story simply flows along, no mean achievement given the switching past and present and the narrative point of view between chapters. The Book of Witching is well-deserving of a place at the top of anyone’s ‘To Be Read’ pile.