My thanks to Netgalley, Hachette Audio and Tasha Suri for the audiobook of this work in exchange for a review.
Full disclosure: I heard of this book because of V.L. Bovalino. I saw pictures of Bovalino with Tasha Suri talking about their upcoming books together and that they were touring together for their books. Since I loved The Second Death of Locke, I looked into what information was available for The Isle in the Silver Sea. It sounded interesting so I added it to my list of books I want to read. When I saw this was available to listen to, I decided to take a chance to see if I could get approved. I was so excited when I got the email and immediately started carving time out of my day to devote to listening to this book. I can say with the upmost certainty, this was a wonderful book. I'm so grateful I already pre-ordered a copy because I'm going to go through it and read over passages to relive this book again. It was engaging and unique and I enjoyed this book so much.
In the alternate Britain of The Isle in the Silver Sea, the country is literally fueled by its stories. As a result, these stories are reborn again and again, for centuries now, forcing people, known as incarnates, to relive the fates inscribed in the words of those stories. The story of the Knight and the Witch is one of those stories, about a pair that fall in love with each other and then die tragically. Simran is the new witch of this story and Vina is now the Knight. They have just met, they know the end of their story, and while Vina has more or less accepted her fate, Simran wants to fight it. As they start to trust each other, maybe even fall for each other, they meet a mysterious assassin who has been killing off off incarnates. Now Simran and Vina have to find a way to rewrite their story so that it is strong enough to change their doom and finally give them a chance to find a way to reach their future and choose each other without it being part of a story.
I loved these two women. There's no other way about it, Simran and Vina are delightful. I loved the sass from Simran and the self-deprecating humor from Vina. Both had led interesting lives up to the point that they finally meet. They understood who they were going to be and yet they were able to be their fates and that much more. Simran was devoted to the family she had created for herself and the family she left behind when she realized her fate as the Witch of the tale. It made her both devoted and tragic. Vina was raised in the castle, constantly told about the fate she was meant for, and while her childhood was not as loving as Simran's, she still managed to hold on to a sense of honor and loyalty to the friends she was raised with, Edmund and Matthias, fellow knights in the castle. After Simran and Vina meet, they're slowly forced to come together again and again, as the Eternal Queen in charge of Britain is determined to gather all the incarnates together in the palace to avoid losing any more of them to the assassin. There is also a group known as the archivists who work for the queen, trying to preserve the stories and ensure that they continue to play out again and again without any variations. It's all intricate and interesting and I wish there was more to this because I still have so many questions.
That brings me to the world building. As much as I loved the characters, I still have so MANY questions about this world. How many stories are there? How many have been lost because of the assassin? What made these stories start their never-ending cycles? How does the existence of these stories effect the land? Because when a story dies as a result of one of the incarnates being killed, the land the story fuels is apparently wiped from existence and I still have so many questions about this. Also, who created the archivists? Because at the start of every chapter, there is a piece of writing that talks about the world and the tales and each of these little inserts is given a judgement by the archivists to either be kept or destroyed and where did this group come from? Why do they have so much control? Are they loyal to the crown or just loyal to the overall story of the Isle? Where did they learn what they do and how many ways have they changed things to fit the narrative they have created for the Isle? I was hooked on all of it but I'm a stickler for details and I wanted MORE. That's why I want to read this again, so I can go chapter by chapter and make notes to be sure I understand everything that Tasha Suri put in this book.
A long time ago, let's say it was, well, never mind about the timing, moving on, I took a class in college called King Arthur Through the Ages. I studied various stories focused on the legend of King Arthur and the many knights of the round table and the stories that were linked to them. Thanks to that, I was able to parse out some of the things Suri put into this book, like the names Elaine and Morgaine, and the legends that are tied with them. There are other things I recognized but I feel that veers into spoiler territory and I try very hard not to spoil books for readers if I can help it. Still, that knowledge helped to fill in just that much more of this book and as a result, I really want to know every inspiration that Suri used to build this book. I want to be able to find all those sources and read them for myself and then I want to dig through this book and put all the pieces together. It's a puzzle, the pieces are there and it's been solved but I want to understand the process of getting to the solution and ugh, the questions, I just want to know more.
I was hooked from the synopsis. The tale of The Knight and the Witch seemed so interesting and I wanted to be able to read it. If Tasha Suri is taking suggestions, I would love to see a complete volume of all the stories that are mentioned in this book. Besides the tales, it could also give information about the various people who have been forced to relive the tale, the part of the land it fuels, maybe even the sources Suri used to build her ideas for each tale. Hand on my heart, I would ADORE having a book like that about this world. That's how many questions I still have that I want to figure out. I also kind of wish this book had footnotes, just to provide a little more for readers like me.
The complaints I have is that one, I'm still not sure about the time period for this book. It felt like it could have been set in it's own world but then the setting would change and it would feel different and I had to take a second to reset what I thought was happening and then continue. Two is that I wanted just little more time to develop the connection between Vina and Simran. They spend a lot of their time on a quest to save Simran's adopted family, Harry, from the assassin and the actual time for them to fall in love felt like it was sped up a bit to fit with the time frame of the book. And maybe three is that I'm still questioning the magic system and the way stories fuel the Isle and I want to know more, and I'm going to keep repeating that because argh, I have a NEED to know more. I'm a reader, it means that if something catches my attention, I will go and research it and find everything I can and then have that in my mind to inform everything else I read from there. It's a cycle of my own that I willingly let myself get sucked into and that is perfectly fine because expanding my knowledge is a useful endeavor.
Still, I highly recommend this book. If you love sapphic knights, legends and found family dynamics, this is the book for you. I also plan on reading everything else I can find by Tasha Suri so I thank this book for bringing Suri to my attention.
Before I forget, Shiromi Arserio is AMAZING as the narrator for this audiobook. There is a musical quality to the way she reads, which made it easy to get lost in the book. I found myself listening to lines again because she has a way of conveying the feelings of the characters so that it was easy for me to go along for the ride. I actually cheered at the reappearance of a character in part 2 because I was so swept up in how Arserio was performing the book. I'm adding Shiromi Arserio to the list of audiobook narrators I'm collecting for books to listen to because I love the performances they give. The entire production was well-made, clear and concise and the perfect audiobook to listen to whenever I could squeeze in the time to listen (and let's be honest, I even listened to this book when I was supposed to be doing anything else because I couldn't stop, this book and it's narrator had me hooked). Hachette Audio did a wonderful job with this production and I will now be looking into other audiobooks from this publisher.
Rating on my Scale: 9 Stars. I would give 10 but there are some minor quibbles and I want to be sure that people understand there might be some things in the book that could irk them. Still, this is a beautiful, unique story that I'm so grateful I got the chance to read. I can't wait for my book to arrive in the mail so I can read it all over again.
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