For the people on the rugged Irish island of Winding Gale, life has always been hard. Now in the wake of the second World War, the island is dying, the young taken away by death or the appeal of better lives elsewhere, leaving behind only a handful of adults.

But on the night the men of the island disappear while fishing in uncharted waters, the women are forced into a conflict with something both new and unfathomably old.

A strange greenish mist rolls in, cutting off the island from the mainland. Spiral symbols appear in the sand, fashioned from dead fish and stones. Seductive voices lure people from their homes to walk into the sea. Ancient ships materialize in the fog. And specters of the past will rise to take their vengeance in blood.

Because this is Samhain, a time when the veil between the living and the dead is thinnest, and there is something rising from the deep that will thrust the women of Winding Gale into a war against an unspeakable evil.

‘The Widows of Winding Gale’ was an exceptionally powerful horror novella. What I liked most about it was that, while delivering a story full of menace, murder and monsters, Kealan Patrick Burke kept the focus firmly on the women of this isolated, decaying island community as they watch, worry and wait for the return of their husbands from the sea. The power of the novella came not from louring threat of supernatural violence but from the strengths, hopes, fears and regrets of five women waiting to see if they’ve been newly widowed.

I was drawn into the story by the quiet strength and sharp precision of the language, and the depth of the insight into the inner lives of the women. This wasn’t a horror story that asked me to suspend my disbelief and roll with the tropes. It felt grounded and real, like truth chiselled into stone. The portraits of the women were stark but compassionate.The slow death of the withering island community pervades the story like fog carrying the stench of rotten fish. These are woman whose hopes have faded, who are beset with grief and loss and who are focused on getting through as best they can.

I liked that this wasn’t a slasher horror story. It didn’t depend on jump scares. There was no obvious final girl. Nor was there a single source of threat. This was a story of carefully crafted, escalating dread and doom. The women are alone on an island, waiting for the return of men they all quietly believe may have been lost at sea. An uncanny fog envelops the island, cutting it off from the mainland. Then the women start to see things that cannot be real but which fill them with fear. The story draws on folklore and the age-old fear that all fishing communities have of the sea. I liked the reminder that turnips (not pumpkins in Ireland in 1941) were carved into faces and lit by candles to prevent the dead from returning to their homes. The threat from the sea was brutal, merciless, unstoppable and described with a clinical precision that made it more real and much more frightening.

The final chapter was original and unexpected. I’m still not sure why the story ended that way, but it worked well enough.

I listened to the audiobook version of ‘The Widows of Winding Gale‘. I hesitated when I saw that it was narrated by the author, especially as the author was male and most of the main characters were women. I was delighted to find that Kealan Patrick Burked has a voice that I could listen to all day, and he used it skillfully, keeping the delivery low-key and letting the text speak for itself.