The Empty Cradle by Lisa Rookes

Amy’s so sure that her husband, Joel, is deeply invested in their future together. After all, it’s his dream of a family together that has them trying so hard to have a baby, despite a series of disappointments. It’s this certainty that leaves Amy absolutely floored when she learns of Joel’s affair with her best friend.

Heartbroken and horrified, Amy flees to a dilapidated cottage in a Yorkshire village, a place she’d bought with dreams of making it feel homey and warm. In the new village, she feels like a clear outsider, but a group of local women soon take her under their wing. They gather for a routine book club, they say. Before Amy knows it, these women are in her life, and in her home.

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Amy wakes one night to find herself outside in the fields. Strange offerings seem to be left on her doorstep. And the surveillance camera she installs shows shapes creeping around her house in the night. Strangest of all, she suddenly finds she’s pregnant. A pregnancy that feels like a cruel joke.

The book club is incredibly invested in Amy’s pregnancy. And it might just be in Amy’s mind, but the women’s interest doesn’t always seem safe. What do the women want with her? And what do they want with her baby?

My Review

This was so good. I’m not sure how a story could be scary, creepy, and really funny at the same time. I think that’s because it’s so well written it can be serious, dark and hilarious without ever being in bad taste or offensive (though there is a bit of swearing. Get over it).

Amy and Joel have the perfect life. Or so it seems. They buy houses, do them up and flip them for a nice profit. Except Joel is desperate for a family, and Amy is struggling to get pregnant. Then all at once, Amy has lost the cottage she had put in a sealed bid for, found out her pregnancy test is negative, and discovered that Joel is having an affair with her best friend.

We next see Amy in Yorkshire, having left Joel and moved into the cottage which she now mysteriously owns. It needs a lot of work, but she has enlisted the help of the enigmatic (or maybe just sullen and rude) Ethan, who seems to be a dab hand at everything practical. She met him through his cousin Sam, who Amy met at the craft market.

Now I have to admit that I don’t like Sam. She is everything I dislike – pushy, won’t take no for an answer, and organises wonderful get-togethers that you didn’t ask for, but feel you need to be grateful for. She has friends I wasn’t too sure about either – Ruby, Fran the estate agent, and pregnant Alice whose pregnancy is making her very ill and she throws up frogspawn. Maybe she’ll croak if she doesn’t get help soon. Sorry.

They are all friends, or maybe they are a coven. Ethan is obsessed with ley lines and her neighbour Pete seems to be trying to warn her of something. But he has a lovely elderly dog called Ian, so he is forgiven. I’ll even forgive him for calling the dog Ian.

I can’t pretend the book is perfect. There are a few things that don’t make sense or add up, and the ending is rather far-fetched, but I adored every page and read it in two sittings. One of my favourite books of the year so far.

Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours

About the Author

Lisa Rookes is an award-winning journalist and lecturer. She spent the start of her career as a crime reporter and news editor before moving to national newspapers and women’s magazines. She is currently head of the undergraduate Journalism programme at the University of Sheffield and has won further multiple awards for her teaching. Her debut Gothic thriller The Village published in 2025. She lives in Holmfirth in South Yorkshire with her husband, two sons, an arthritic Labrador and a disabled pug.