The Isle in the Silver Sea
About the book
Author: Tasha Suri
Publisher: Orbit
More info:
The StoryGraph | Goodreads
Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the review.
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Bookshop.org (print or ebook) | Libro.fm (audio)
My review
I put The Isle in the Silver Sea on my Christmas wishlist after seeing it on tons of people’s best of 2025 lists. And look at that — it’s probably going to end up on my best of 2026 list. As the very first book I read this year.
The story is set in a version of England where the island is kept alive through the magic of fairy tales. As such, real people are reincarnated as the main characters of classic stories (classic to this world, not to ours) and fated to live them out again and again…forever. The Isle in the Silver Sea focuses on two women born into the tale of the Knight and the Witch, in which they are fated to fall in love and then tragically kill one another. But you better bet that not all is as the people in power tell them it is, and that our two lovers are anything but content to play along.
Tasha Suri has intentionally and masterfully given us a book about the power of stories, for good and for ill —in particular, the ways they can be weaponized as propaganda and used to control narratives in an age of rising nationalism. I don’t think I can do justice to everything she’s criticizing (especially about England’s whitewashed history specifically), so I’ll direct you to her Instagram post here. Trust me when I say she stuck the landing.
It’s also just a damn good book with characters you’ll love and an unputdownable plot. Lady knights, sapphic romance, doomed lovers, fighting xenophobia…what more could we ask for?? Read it!
Content and trigger warnings
Death, violence, murder
Sexual content (moderate)
Xenophilia/racism
Death of a parent
