The sacrifice by Rin Chupeco

When a gung-ho Hollywood film crew storm the reputedly haunted Philippine island of Kisapmata and come across the enigmatically aloof local youth Alon and his dog Askal, they quickly realise they need his help to evade the island’s ghosts.

A history of unexplained deaths and disappearances plagues the island but this does not deter the film crew. They have to decode a sacrifice-related riddle and avoid a multigenerational curse, to avoid following the fate of a gold-plundering adventurer and a cult-leader, and becoming the next victims. It becomes evident that the curse has been laid on those who are not kind-hearted and fair, and the Hollywood crew, which includes amongst others, an alcoholic, an accused abuser and a selfie-obsessed influencer, must ask themselves whether they fit this bill.

The characters must try to evade a vengeful sleeping god, dangerous sinkholes, murderous trees and enigmatic ghosts and spectres from their own pasts. All these plot devices seem to require blow-by-blow descriptions of supernatural confrontations and fight scenes and so The Sacrifice never lets up the fast-paced action as various crew-members are condemned to their gory deaths.

Add in a faltering gay teen romance and some inter-cultural and inter-generational exchanges and misunderstandings, and you have a sure-fire page-turner with a final twist that in retrospect, seems inevitable, if sad.

This is not high-brow literature; there are a number of inconsistencies in the plot, some issues with the unauthentic use of Philippine and teen language, and most disappointingly, no strong female characters. However if you don't take it too seriously, The Sacrifice is overall an engaging read from an author of five series that all draw heavily on Asian folk tales of vampires, witches and ghosts.

Themes: Mystery, Paranormal, Asian legends.

Margaret Crohn