Over the last two years, I’ve read four books by C.J. Cooke (including this one, The Lat Witch) and if I’ve learned anything about C.J. Cooke it is that she knows her witchy history and she can weave that history into a compelling and dark story. The Last Witch tells the story of a young woman (Helena Scheuberin) falsely accused of witchcraft in 15th Century Innsbruck, Austria. Cooke is able to take something that is a known historical event and imbue a great deal of life into a fascinating narrative.
Will she be damned by flame… or cursed by magic?
Helena Scheuberin should be doing what every other young wife is keeping house, supporting her husband, bearing his children. But when her husband’s footman, Leopold, with whom she was having an affair, is found dead, Helena is accused of killing him. Worse, she is accused of being a witch.
Imprisoned with six other women, Helena is plunged from her bejewelled life of comfort into a world of terror. When a cursed witch totem is smuggled into the prison, the prisoners attempt to use it to conjure escape. But the totem is the severed hand of a murdered woman, and Helena’s life is in danger both inside and outside the dungeon.
Does Helena risk her life and the lives of others by standing up to a man determined to paint her as the most wicked of all? Or is the world beyond this one the real threat?
Women don’t have many rights in the 1400s, they barely have a voice and anything wrong in a marriage is usually attributed to the woman/wife. Helena is in what might not be considered the best marriage, she is outspoken, has a mind of her own, and doesn’t always abide by what her husband commands. Helena is an outspoken woman, strong of mind so when a “dedicated” priest makes his way to their village focused on cleansing the land of “witches,” Helena doesn’t exactly sit in a corner and smile. This same priest was involved in having Helena’s best friend and best friend’s daughter burned at the stake as a witch.
Complicating Helena’s life is the difficulty she and her husband are having trying to expand their family but they are having trouble. So, her husband (Sebastian) enlists the aid of a gardener to do what he couldn’t. Her outspoken nature and the murder of the “sperm donor” (technology in the 1400s for such things being what it was, Helena had to do things the natural way), make her a prime target for this priest and she is arrested on charges of both murder and witchcraft. This is especially difficult when women really can’t speak up for themselves.
Helena isn’t the only woman this priest has “rounded up” as a “witch,” Helena finds herself in prison with six other women. I found the scenes between Helena and her fellow prisoners to be gripping, Cooke did some really good character work in these pages. With a few descriptors and her tone, Cooke was able to put my head into the same place as these characters, I felt their desperation and the way they needed to trust each other.
Father Kramer… the witchfinder who targets Helena and the other women is a truly vile character. A frothing, sexist, sycophant, the scariest thing about this human monster is just how real he and people like him are. His vile nature was balanced – somewhat – by the priest who tried to push back against him, tried to quell the madman’s ire.
An even more rewarding and potent counterbalance to Kramer is, of course, Helena herself. She has an indomitable will and strength of character that helps to illuminate what could be a dark and dreary novel. Don’t get me wrong, the majority of this novel is dreary. It is dirty, I can only bring to comparison Robert Eggers’s masterpiece The VVitch for how dirty, grimy, and real the story is.
The Last Witch is a compelling, powerfully emotional novel. C.J. Cooke has quickly become a must read for me, her novels come alive through her characters, the feelings her characters evoke and covey, and her immersive prose. The history is hard to debunk, like her previous novels, Cooke includes a note after the novel illuminating the real-life Helena, which lends some authenticity to the tale and just how monstrous people (men, in particular) in power can be. I can’t imagine any similar parallels to the world in 2025, 600 years removed from the events depicted in the novel.
© 2025 Rob H. Bedford
Berkley | Trade Paperback
October 2025 | 384 Pages
https://carolynjesscooke.com/
Excerpt: https://thenerddaily.com/the-last-witch-by-c-j-cooke-excerpt/
Review copy courtesy of the publisher
