【 THE ISLE IN THE SILVER SEA 】

Genre: Fantasy
Audience: Adult
Author: Tasha Suri
Published: October 2025
Publisher: Orbit
Pages: 484 (paperback)

This was an absolutely epic tale that had all the great vibes of an Arthurian legend retelling. I found the broad concept to be super unique – a land sustained on the belief of tales, but very specifically in that each tale is connected to a piece of land on the Isle, and if that tale was forgotten, so too would the land connected to it disappear.

There were so many elements of this that Suri has done very well. From the sapphic retelling of the tale that the two main characters are in, to the racial politics and discrimination, this covered a lot of bases.

So, apart from the fact that the lore of the world is really cool, the crux of this story is that the two main characters, Vina and Simran, are incarnates. I loved this concept; in order for the tales to continue their existence and to be woven into the fabric of the Isle, people are born again and again, generation after generation, as incarnations of the main characters of their tale. Simran is the Witch, and Vina the Knight.

The way this plays out, and plays with, each character’s story arc was very fun. They’re aware of their fate (which is to kill each other) and do their best not to think too much about that. But the way they are pushed and pulled by the whim of their tale, and the way they either embrace it or fight against it, made everything beautifully complex.

I don’t want to go into too much detail about all the exceptional parts of this story to avoid spoiling anyone, so all I will say is that if you like sweeping epics, love stories, tragedies and Arthurian legends, this is very much so for you.

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Title: The Isle in the Silver Sea
Author: Tasha Suri
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From World Fantasy Award-winning author Tasha Suri comes The Isle in the Silver Sea, a heart-shattering romantasy of sapphic longing, medieval folklore and a love that spans the centuries.

In a Britain fuelled by stories, the knight and the witch are fated to fall in love and doom each other over and over, the same tale retold over hundreds of lifetimes.

Simran is a witch of the woods. Vina is a knight of the Queen’s court. When the two women begin to fall for each other, how can they surrender to their desires, when to give in is to destroy each other?

As they seek a way to break the cycle, a mysterious assassin begins targeting tales like theirs. To survive, the two will need to write a story stronger than the one that fate has given to them.

But what tale is stronger than The Knight and the Witch?