The Author’s Note that opens ISLAND WITCH speaks to the history of Amanda Jayatissa’s island in Sri Lanka, which has been colonized by outside cultures like the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British. She also makes it clear that this book is not a history lesson. Rather, it is a simple story of fear, desperation and the limitless boundaries of female rage.

Jayatissa’s MY SWEET GIRL was one of the best debut novels I had read in years. In fact, it was so deliriously good and included an incredible twist that she had me hooked as a reader for life. Set in the exotic locale of Sri Lanka, her latest is a nice mix of supernatural horror and historical thriller that will seem both foreign and familiar to readers of these genres.

"ISLAND WITCH is in no way a slow burn. Jayatissa infuses the plot with constant terror, and the finale is so fiery that it called to mind the last chapters of CARRIE."

The Prologue hits on all of these notes with a horrifying scene in which a clawed, demonic creature attacks a group of men, tearing one apart in the process. We then are introduced to Amara, a teenager who lives with her parents. Her father, Thaththa, is the village Capuwa, or demon-priest. In the first chapter, we see him exorcising a demoness from the body of a young village girl. But Amara’s life is about to change dramatically.

One of the new village leaders, Aloysius, is a Christian who does not think that a demon-priest is needed and believes the rumors that Amara is a witch. As a result, the once-revered Thaththa and his family are now pariahs, and no one wants to be associated with them. Even worse, some of the attacks that have occurred in the jungle involving men from the village are being blamed on Amara’s family.

With fear that her father might end up being arrested or worse, Amara turns to Bhagya, a woman she finds living in a hut deep in the jungle. Bhagya listens to Amara’s concerns and attempts to guide her, all the while making her aware of the negative influence that men may hold over women in their society. Amara is also haunted by constant nightmares in which an ancient witch has laid claim to her soul and forces her to do violent things. These horrific dreams become more frequent and even bloodier as her life gets more stressful.

Amara finds that she has extraordinarily little control over any aspect of her current world. This is magnified when her grandparents attempt to arrange a marriage for her with a wealthy family, even though she has committed her heart to her school crush, Raam. Meanwhile, she and her family continue to be ostracized. At one point, as the tide is turning quickly against her father, Amara is accused by Aloysius of bewitching his daughter, Daphne, with a spell that has sickened her to the point of hospitalization.

ISLAND WITCH is in no way a slow burn. Jayatissa infuses the plot with constant terror, and the finale is so fiery that it called to mind the last chapters of CARRIE. Like Stephen King’s classic novel, this is a horror tale wrapped up in a feminist coming-of-age-gone-wrong narrative that will have readers gasping for breath. Jayatissa shows us what might be a fictional version of the gothic stories she was raised on in Sri Lanka, and it is a trip well worth taking.