Island Witch is a dark, moody, and very slow burn historical horror story set in 19th century Sri Lanka.

Amara is the demon-priest’s daughter, and though her family was once respected, the villagers have distanced themselves after British Colonizers started taking over her island. She’s comfortable keeping to herself and enjoying her walks in the jungle … until the vicious attacks started.

Men are mauled one after the next, and all eyes in the village are on Amara’s family. Amara believes her father is innocent and wants to clear his name, but she’s being haunted. She knows something happened to her, but she’s not sure if the supernatural entity that stalks her dreams is real or something else is messing with her mind.

There are interesting threads here - especially around colonization and classism and imposing societal expectations that lead to moral panic. Amara’s whole village almost instantly turns on her family (while still using her father’s services), even when they’ve been considered a pivotal part of the community for so long. You can see the build up to almost mob mentality.

The other major theme here is that women are never the masters of their own fates. They’re shoved around and suppressed and bullied and manipulated by the men surrounding them. There is a little bit of female rage, but honestly it’s mostly just depressing. The ending was a weak link for me - I generally wanted Amara to claim some agency and kept waiting for her to lean into her anger, but it felt like she was a puppet in her own story from start to finish without a significant character arc. 

This is a slow-moving piece - very slow. I think the writing sometimes increased the atmospheric horror and tension very well, but it also sometimes dragged and lulled in a way that kept making me lose interest. I set this book down so many times. Maybe the prologue (which was intense, supernatural, and very action-heavy) gave the book a detached start, but the pacing overall was just very strange. I also think a lot of the elements and antagonists were very predictable, and Amara was devastatingly naive.

But what kept bringing me back was the rich jungle setting and the folklore. I love monsters & myths, and the supernatural elements here were an absolute delight. I also think the exploration of the ripples of impact that colonization has in a small community were really fascinating.

Overall - fascinating concepts and a very grounded world that were weakened by uneven pacing and a slightly lackluster conclusion.

CW: death (parent), murder, rape, sexism, incest, classism, gore, body horror, nonconsensual abortion, colonization, bullying, domestic abuse, child abuse, pregnancy, infidelity, gaslighting, vomit, pedophilia, animal cruelty/death, fire

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(I received a free copy of this book; this is my honest review.)