Tasha SuriFantasy · High Fantasy
The Isle in the Silver Sea
Synopsis
Simran is a witch and Vina is a knight. Their tale has run to the same close for centuries: love first, then mutual ruin. Both women are incarnates, born again across hundreds of lifetimes into a story that keeps repeating.
The setting is an England held together by story. In the present, Simran and Vina start to fall for each other once more, knowing where the pattern leads. They must choose between giving in to the role fate keeps assigning them and refusing it.
Then an unknown assassin appears, killing other incarnates and picking apart the old tales that bind the Isle together. What had been a private dread between two lovers becomes a fight to stay alive. Breaking their cycle means writing a story stronger than The Knight and the Witch.
The book is a sapphic romantasy with a slow-burn, star-crossed romance at its centre. Folklore and myth run through the worldbuilding, and a mystery about the assassin's purpose threatens to erase both women. Longing and dread sit side by side, with doom hanging over every tender moment.
How it reads
Prose complexity 7/10
Content warnings (1)
Violence
- I want to start off by saying that this was the first time I've ever conciously noted the prose of a book. The way the author used such flowery descriptive language was captivating. Her voice was a lazy curl of smoke, a rich woman’s voice, beautiful and thoroughly obnoxious. The emotional journey that the two FMC's go through is one that is of two-parts. Each individual has their own grief and trauma to go through by themselves and also together. A very central theme of this is tackling what it means to decide your own fate versus what's "decided" for you. I'm a very big fan of found family scenarios and a secondary enemies to lovers plotline. Her Galath, Elayne’s Galath, finally knew love and family. He knew it with her only family: Hari, her brother of choice, the only person she’d let stay close; and Vina, her Vina. Overall, this book was very sweet. I loved the way it was written. If you want a fantasy written in the UK featuring a diverse cast, I would highly recommend The Isle in the Sea.
- <div>Genre: Sapphic Romantasy 🗡️🪞 </div><div>📍 Tropes/Themes: Immigrant “Elsewhere” Witch/British-“Elsewhere” Knight; Inspired by British Folklore; Reincarnation; Fated Mates; Enemies to Lovers; Forced Proximity; Diverse Side Cast; Autumn; Set in Alternate England; Illustrated Map; Dual 3rd Person POV</div><div>⚠️CW: racism, xenophobia, death/grief, guns, blood used for magic, murder, fire/arson, burn scars</div><div>🔥: 🌶️🌶️🌶️</div><div>Format: hardcover 📖 </div><div>💭Thoughts: </div><div>✨ “This Isle is a wild, tale-wrought place — if tales can live on its shores, then I have to believe miracles can too” ✨</div><div>Tasha Suri has done it yet again! This story is full of yearning and honor, fate and love, heartache and soul warmth 🩷 I fell in love and ached right alongside our Knight and Witch. I died and was reborn again with our tales. I cannot wait to return to the Isle someday and relive it with them all again </div>
- Genre: Sapphic Romantasy 🗡️🪞 | 📍 Tropes/Themes: Immigrant “Elsewhere” Witch/British-“Elsewhere” Knight; Inspired by British Folklore; Reincarnation; Fated Mates; Enemies to Lovers; Forced Proximity; Diverse Side Cast; Autumn; Set in Alternate England; Illustrated Map; Dual 3rd Person POV | ⚠️CW: racism, xenophobia, death/grief, guns, blood used for magic, murder, fire/arson, burn scars | 🔥: 🌶️🌶️🌶️ | Format: hardcover 📖 | 💭Thoughts: | ✨ “This Isle is a wild, tale-wrought place — if tales can live on its shores, then I have to believe miracles can too” ✨ | Tasha Suri has done it yet again! This story is full of yearning and honor, fate and love, heartache and soul warmth 🩷 I fell in love and ached right alongside our Knight and Witch. I died and was reborn again with our tales. I cannot wait to return to the Isle someday and relive it with them all again