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Turn Off the Light

A Novel

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Turn Off the Light

By: Jacquie Walters
Narrated by: Jacquie Walters
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About this listen

Two women living centuries apart are bound by the same dark secret in this haunting novel that "upends everything you think you know about ghost stories" (Jennifer McMahon, author of The Winter People).

"A delightful twist on both the haunted-house and beach-read genres." —Carissa Orlando, author of The September House

The Devil enters through doors left open…

On the isolated Eastern Shore of Virginia, Edith is a healer, a woman of knowledge—and a woman watched. Shadows move where they shouldn't. Whispers creep through the dark. Terrified she has opened her home to the Devil, Edith makes a desperate choice.

Claire doesn’t believe in ghosts—until she returns home to care for her dying father and finds her childhood house… listening. As one sleepless night bleeds into the next, she becomes convinced something is stirring beneath the floorboards. Something that has waited a long time to rise.

Is the house haunted? What compels this lurking darkness? As the danger mounts, Edith and Claire will discover they'll need each other to survive. But they are separated by four hundred years. And time is running out for them both.

Horror Suspense Thriller & Suspense Women's Fiction Haunted

Critic reviews

"A delightful twist on both the haunted house and beach-read genres, Turn Off The Light will keep you guessing, turning pages, and cheering on the heroines until the very end!"—Carissa Orlando, author of The September House
"Part thriller, part supernatural tale, Turn Off the Light upends everything you think you know about ghost stories. Jacquie Walters shows us how the past, present and future are entwined, how a house can hold memories, and how it’s possible for two women, centuries apart, to save each other. A haunting and unforgettable read!”—Jennifer McMahon, author of My Darling Girl
“A wonderfully written thriller.”—Daisy Pearce, author of Something in the Walls
“Dark, smart, and hypnotic, Walters’ sophomore novel is its own kind of enchantment. Turn Off the Light slips between centuries with the assurance of a writer in full command, from a contemporary haunting to a 1600s witchy fever dream. A spiritual successor to The Haunting of Hill House, it delivers that same slow-creeping dread that nestles right under your skin. If garbage disposals didn’t scare you before, they’re about to.”—Stephanie Wrobel, author of The Hitchcock Hotel
“After her phenomenal debut Dearest, Walters delivers a visceral horror that weaves two timelines four hundred years apart into one stunning, unexpected collision. The scares hit hard, but it's the threads of humor, womanhood, and fierce female friendship that make this unforgettable.”—C. J. Cooke, author of The Last Witch
"Walters threads the past and present together with precision and dread. Turn Off the Light is a chilling, time-twisting story that crawls under your skin and stays there—unsettling, relentless, and impossible to forget!"—Marie Still, author of Bad Things Happened in This Room
Praise for Dearest
All stars
Most relevant
I feel bad giving this such a low score as it was technically well written and narrated, but it was SO slow and dull that I wish I’d not bothered with it.

The storyline was very similar to The Winter People, which I loved, but in my opinion this one lacks atmosphere, creepiness, interesting characters or scary scenes. I would definitely not describe this as a horror, more a slightly spooky story.

This is a story of haunting of a house with a dual timeline, one being in the times of early European settlers in Virginia (1600s I think) and one in present day. The modern protagonist has a sister who went missing around 20 years ago, and the historical storyline is a woman who may or may not be involved with witchcraft. The dual timeline concept has been done to death now, and nothing particularly interesting happened right until the end of the book.

Nothing was a surprise, the revelations were all obvious and so there was no suspense at all for me. The main issue was that I felt like I knew so little about most of the characters beyond their present circumstances, that I didn’t really care what happened and was just continuing listening to finish the book. The main good thing I can say is that the ending was wrapped up neatly.

Slow and uninteresting characters

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