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Book Summary and Reviews of Turn Off the Light by Jacquie Walters

Turn Off the Light by Jacquie Walters

Turn Off the Light

A Novel

by Jacquie Walters

  • Published:
  • Mar 2026, 336 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

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).

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.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Edith's sections are vivid and full of mystery ... [and] readers will acutely feel how well Walters captures the reality of Claire caregiving for an elderly parent while also raising a young daughter. Recommended for fans of supernatural horror." ―Booklist

"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

This information about Turn Off the Light was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Jacquie Walters

Jacquie Walters is the author of Dearest and an Emmy-nominated writer who has sold five pilots in the last three years. She is currently adapting Melissa de la Cruz's bestselling book series Blue Bloods for television and has placed projects at Apple TV+, ABC Network, Paramount Plus, iTV, CJ Entertainment, and others. In all, she has written and produced over 100 episodes of television. Walters graduated from the Novel Writing Program at Stanford University and is passionate about layered mysteries, psychological anomalies, and characters with everything to hide. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, two children, and beloved Golden Retriever.

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