Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand

New York, NY : Katherine Tegen Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2018.

1st ed.

447 p. ; 22 cm. 

A mother and her two teen daughters relocate to the wrong island to move past the grief of the father's recent death. It's the wrong island because it has a history of being a place where every ten years or so a girl goes missing - and one more has just disappeared before they arrive.  And the pace of these crimes is picking up fast.

This is not a novel about any ordinary human serial killer.  The villain is a supernatural monster whose feasting on its victims is pretty gruesome stuff!  I won't give a ton of spoilers, except to note that the newly arrived family is soon right at the center of the action,  along with two other teen females who live on the island.  Though most on the island have no clue about the monster, it does have allies and enemies among humans - both on the island and back on the mainland.  

A lot of the "fun" of this novel is learning bit by bit what's happening and who's involved - and with the way the plot picks up its pace so that by the end you are turning pages to see just what's going to happen.  Along the way there are deaths, betrayals, love, romance and danger (of course).

For me, I didn't care so much for the supernatural elements of the novel - the natural world is tied up in the paranormal events in which horses, moths, the sea and even the rocks all get involved.  But there is a strong gothic-horror atmospherism to this tale, along with interesting characters, and a strong underlying feminism that keeps it all moving. So if you are into thrilling horror with a strong infusion of action and paranormal energies and monsters then this novel will keep you satisfied right to its last page.