Amanda Jayatissa Books in Order

Amanda Jayatissa grew up in Sri Lanka, and she has described herself as a reader first. Mystery stories and books with a sharp turn in the plot caught her attention early. That pull toward unsettling stories stayed with her, even as her path to publishing took a few detours.

She attended college in Northern California and later lived in the United Kingdom as well as Sri Lanka. Away from fiction, she has worked as a corporate trainer in communication skills and co-owned cookie shops with her husband. Writing had to fit around work, business, and ordinary life.

It kept calling her back. An early novel, The Other One, won the English-language Fairway National Literary Award in 2017, giving her the confidence to take her writing more seriously.

Then an infuriating bank customer-service encounter helped her find a new character voice.

That spark grew into My Sweet Girl, her first traditionally published novel, in 2021. The psychological thriller follows Paloma Evans, a Sri Lankan adoptee in San Francisco whose financial trouble, missing roommate, and buried childhood memories leave her unsure whom to trust. It moves between Sri Lanka and California, combining a tense mystery with questions about identity, privilege, guilt, and what it means to be made to feel grateful. The book won the International Thriller Writers Award for Best First Novel in 2022.

Her next novel, You're Invited, arrived in 2022 and returned to Sri Lanka for a wedding with very bad energy. Amaya receives an invitation from Kaavi, her estranged former best friend, only to learn that Kaavi is marrying Amaya's ex-boyfriend. When the bride disappears, old resentments, social pressure, class, and private grudges all come into play.

With Island Witch in 2024, Jayatissa shifted into historical horror. Set in nineteenth-century Sri Lanka and shaped by local folklore, it centers on Amara, the daughter of a village Capuwa, or demon-priest. As frightening attacks leave men wounded in the jungle, Amara's father is blamed and she begins investigating, while her own dreams become harder to dismiss. The story brings together fear, colonial pressure, superstition, and a young woman's anger at a world determined to label her dangerous.

The settings change, but the pressure keeps building.

Across these books, Jayatissa writes women who are cornered, underestimated, or carrying secrets that refuse to stay buried. Her stories use Sri Lankan settings and cultural details as part of the action, not just background scenery. For readers who enjoy tense, twist-led fiction with messy relationships and uneasy questions about belonging, her work offers several very different ways in.