The Isle in the Silver Sea is a new stand alone romantic fantasy from award winning British fantasy author Tasha Suri. I've really enjoyed Suri's past work, as she deals with the historical colonizing of countries like India as well as themes of empire and oppression in what are generally all new fantasy worlds. Her work is not subtle, but it has always been incredibly creative with really strong (and often queer) characters who struggle with impossible choices set upon them by oppression and love. I've actually not finished her last trilogy yet despite enjoying the first two books and wouldn't have gone on to her new book...except that I kept seeing on social media advance reviewers I trust that were just utterly raving about it. And so I picked up The Isle in the Silver Sea.
And I'm super glad I did, because the Isle in the Silver Sea is utterly tremendous. The story is a romantic fantasy in a Britain that is sustained literally by the repetition of stories/tales, where incarnations of the characters in such stories are repeatedly reborn to play out the stories again and again so as to sustain the land around them. And the story follows two such incarnations - a Witch who is supposed to enchant innocents from her mountain abode and a Knight who is supposed to fall in love with her and then kill them both for honor - as they seek to find a different path and break the ties that bind them to this depressing fate. Like all Tasha Suri books, the book is remarkably unsubtle (maybe even less so than usual), as it plays with themes of power, of love, of the changing of stories and the different stories different peoples tell, and of what stories and which peoples really make up a nation like Britain. But it works so incredibly well, with the characters being tremendous and the themes being extremely strong and I suspect these themes and characters will play even stronger for readers who are not cis white Americans like myself (especially for British readers). An absolute must read.
Plot Summary:
The story of the Knight and the Witch is a great tale. In it, a Knight is charged by the Queen to kill a terrible Witch, one who has enchanted and terrified innocent villagers from her lair in the Copper Mountains. The Knight at first falls prey to the witch's enchantments...but then, after breaking them, truly falls in love with her. But knowing his duty, he would run his sword through them both.The Isle in the Silver Sea does not hold its reader's hand in crafting its setting or in explaining how the incarnates and tales work. Instead, the story is written in such a way so that readers will quickly figure out the basics of how things work and pertain to the characters. It's a style of writing that can and often does go wrong, but Suri really makes it work with excellent writing that allows her story to never be dragged down by explanations, even as the setting and how it works is fully unraveled as the plot moves on.
Simran has made a living as a Witch and Scribe, using valuable ink and scribing to perform magics for a price. She is also the latest incarnate of the Witch, seemingly chosen by the spirit of her predecessor in spite of her brown skin and Elsewhere origins. Simran has no intent in being part of the tale - who would want to fall in love and be killed by the one you love? - and has tried to stay away from it as long as possible. But when she tries to use her magic tricks to steal a bottle of ink from three of the Eternal Queen's knights, she finds herself face to face with the Knight she always wanted to avoid...a brown skinned girl named Vina.
Lavinia (Vina) is the bastard daughter of a well regarded Lord, whose status as the latest Incarnate of the Knight was confirmed when she was ten years old. Since then she has lived in the Eternal Queen's Palace, waiting for the chance to enact her tale. Not that she has any intention of dying, but she's had little else to live for. But her chance encounter with the Witch, with Simran, changes everything, especially when they both discover an assassin is targeting Incarnates like themselves and causing harm to the Isle. Soon they'll have no choice but to work together in order to stop the assassin and save not just the Isle, but the ones they care about as well.
And if Vina and Simran begin to fall for each other during their journey...well that's just how the tale should go right? But what if they don't want to follow the tale...and what if how the Isle and the tales work isn't what they were told?
This allows Suri to really focus upon Vina, Simran, and the really strong themes that we have throughout the plot. It helps of course that Suri remains excellent at writing her characters. With Simran, you have a woman from Elsewhere - what the book uses to refer to outside Britain or more usually India - who has basically hidden from her loving parents and tried to make a life on her own so as to shield them from the danger that will come from being an Incarnate. She's fiercely loyal and caring - not exactly the type of Witch who wants to actually harm people - especially to the few she has allowed to remain by her side, such as her fellow queer (trans guy) friend and roommate Hari. She wants a life for herself and for those she cares about and not merely to be the latest incarnates in an eternal story. And so when she runs into Vina, her first thought is to stay away from the Knight as much as possible and one the assassin starts targetting her friends, she acts to try to stop him for their sake. Meanwhile Vina has grown up without a life of her own, forced to be in the Palace and be displayed as the latest incarnation of the Knight. She doesn't want to go to her death, but this lifestyle has also prevented her from really knowing what she might want for herself. And so she chases after Simran and tries to help her with the assassin so as to stop the assassin from further harming the Isle...because what else is there for her to do than to do her duty and to help others?
I'm oversimplifying their characters here and of course they grow throughout the story in their own different ways, as they learn more about the truth behind the Isle and how it all works. And of course, they fall in love, and Suri writes this really well, all the while dealing with the potential pitfalls of two people falling in love because literally the in-universe story says they have to. And Suri uses their story, as well as other aspects of the setting and how tales work and the other characters and so on and so on to deal excellently with a whole bunch of themes, in an unsubtle but really strong and effective way.
And so this story tells the tale of how Britain is really strengthened and grows as a result of the tales and acts of those who come from elsewhere, despite the fact that "native" English (White) people would insist otherwise. How Britain's story and character changes and grows, despite those who would insist that it must remain frozen in the past. How those who don't fit the white British self image will never be able to satisfy those conservatives no matter how hard they try to fit in and warp their own views so as to oppress those of similar backgrounds and lineages. And how while Britain may cycle between isolationist and expansionist colonizing phases over and over, with each cycle being harmful to those who don't fit what those in power believe to be truly English or British. None of these themes are unique to England/Britain of course, which is what makes this book's themes relevant even to this American, and Suri makes them work really well throughout the story in a way that's definitely unsubtle but also is not explicitly spelled out. It's the best type of fantasy story, one that tells an incredibly satisfying story, that draws you in from the start to the finish, with characters that you'll care about, and that uses its fantasy setting to tell a truth about the world for its readers to learn.
It's a truly tremendous book, even though it does perhaps move a bit too fast in the book's second part and feature a trope in that second part that I hate to read (although that's used extremely effectively). This is a must read and one that I really hope gets as many award nominations as possible. It's just so so good.
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