The Isle in the Silver Sea
Buy Now
By using these links, you support READO. We receive an affiliate commission without any additional costs to you.
Description
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?
'Fiercely tender, wildly imaginative, and deeply smart, The Isle in the Silver Sea is an ode to the power of stories themselves--both to shackle us to our destinies, and to free us from them. One of my new all-time favourites' Alix E. Harrow
Book Information
Posts
Awesome!!!
Different than I anticipated but awesome none the less! The queerness, the tales, the general idea of the isle and do not forget the characters! I just adore Vina, Hari and Galath in Part 2!!! How cute is that?! And because all of them were written so good I didn't hate any...well okay Apollonius was a d*** and I pity Meera and Mathias, but all in all great characters. I still don't know who the Queen represents tho? And let's not forget the role of racism and fighting the cultural erasure in this book. I can't begin to imagine how it must be for all the people of Elsewhere and of course all real life people ... But yeah go read it if you like a different take on reincarnation, queerness and finding freedom, that a story for you!
Es gefiel mir leider nicht gut. Die Idee ist soo toll, aber die Ausführung hat nicht meinen Geschmack getroffen. Das Tempo ist unfassbar langsam, die Handlung teilweise wirr und die Figuren bleiben blass. Der Fokus liegt mehr auf Plot und Stimmung, auch wenn ersteres für mich nicht klar erkennbar war. So schade!
Aw man, I wanted to like this book so much, and there is a lot I did like, the queerness, the found family, the diverse types and uses of magic and most of all the whole concept of questioning who gets to tell storys, who is listened to, how tales and oral traditions are a way of writing history and society and how we can escape them. But man was it a slow and tough read. I don't know whether it was my mood, I'm firmly convinced this is a me-problem, but I continuously had to force myself to pick this book up and not another, I found the two perspectives not really distinct, I couldn't form a deep connection with the main characters and many of the relationships just felt off. Still I would recommend everyone to pick up this book and give it a try yourselves - especially if you like queer fantasy and would like the take of a woman of colour on narration and storytelling and how it shapes us.
2025 features Lady Knight autumn, and I'm here for it! I'm excited for all the different aspects these stories can entail. This one is a story about how we are bound to the tales passed down for generations - or if we can overcome them and change our fates. Of which stories should be protected and what should be burned down to the ground. It's also a story about what love is, and what it is not. And it's a powerful story about how people in power try to shape the world, and thus erasing what is different, diverse, and does not feed their sense of what is "right". Our Lady Knight and Lady Witch are destined to carry out a tale time and time again - ending with the death of their incarnate selves for the sake of stabilizing the land they live in. The book is divided in two parts - and I admit I had trouble getting back into the story after the break, to get invested all over again. However, it's a crucial and very well executed part of the whole. The magic system and overall concept were so intriguing: a land fueled by stories, the archives where the 'proper' tales are stored, the incarnates that preserve the land. However, I would have liked to get a better grasp on the world and how the magic works. To me it seemed a bit shrouded (and got my head spinning I admit!). I am not sure if this was intentional or not, but at least while reading I would have wished for clarity at times. As mentioned, the social commentary is powerful and multi-layered, and it will live in my head for a very long time. To be honest, I'm not sure if I'm doing this story justice with my review - it's so complex and shows so many facettes. But these are my thoughts. And if you need one more thing to convince you to read: adorable cat familiar! 4,5/5 stars Thank you @netgalley and @LittleBrownBookGroup_UK for the eARC #TheIsleInTheSilverSea #LadyKnight #Netgalley #Bookstagram
3,75 ⭐️ Die Prämisse des Buches mit den sich wiederholenden Märchen, denen die Wiedergeborenen nicht entkommen konnten, hat mich zunächst sehr fasziniert. Die Geschichte konnte mich jedoch nicht wirklich fesseln. Ab der Hälfte wurde es besser, und es gab einige angenehme Überraschungen, die ich nicht erwartet hatte, aber einige Passagen zogen sich für mich in die Länge. Insgesamt hätte ich mir angesichts ihrer Geschichte mehr Sehnsucht von unseren beiden FMCs gewünscht, und die Nebenfiguren haben mir mehr am Herzen gelegen. Der Aspekt der found Family gefiel mir sehr gut, und ich mochte das Setting in London mit den Erwähnungen existierender Orte, die aber in einem magischen Reich angesiedelt sind. Die Geschichte hatte einige schöne unterschwelligen Botschaften, die auch auf unsere eigene Welt anwendbar sind, und zum Nachdenken anregen z.B., dass Zuwanderung notwendig ist, um ein Land zu erhalten. Was die Erzählweise angeht, fühlte es sich jedoch manchmal so an, als wären die Regeln der Magie und Märchen aus einer Laune heraus erfunden worden und wirkten nicht stimmig. Insgesamt war es eine solide Lektüre, der eine leichte Kürzung/ Komprimierung gut getan hätte.
Genau Meins!
Es geht um Vina und Simran welche vom Schicksal bestimmt wurden sich immer wieder ineinander zuverlieben und dann dem todgeweiht sind. Ich bin ein richter fan von romancen die sich jahrhunderte und jahrhunderte wiederholen. Und mochte das es in diesem Buch mit Märchen verbunden wurde. liebe das es keine Rückblicke gab (bis aufs original), da ich davon nicht immer so ein fan bin.
I really wanted to love this book since I loved the idea of it but I just couldn’t. The idea of always repeating stories in every life was intriguing and at the start I was absolutely into it. I wanted to learn more about the reincarnations, the way people followed their life’s and so on. And there was my problem: nothing I expected of this book was happening. Instead the story was repetitive, the pacing was really off and either too fast or too slow. And then the random time change that kinda solved everything in an instant also didn’t help. Additionally I really didn’t feel any tension between the two protagonists and therefore didn’t feel their love story at all. A lot more and better thought about worldbuilding and a better pacing and I think this idea could have been a highlight. Instead I needed to think about my rating for more then 2 days because I just couldn’t decide how many stars this was for me in the end. It was just neither horrible nor good- it’s the kind of book I’ll for sure not remember for long. Thanks to Netgalley for the eARC!
Description
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?
'Fiercely tender, wildly imaginative, and deeply smart, The Isle in the Silver Sea is an ode to the power of stories themselves--both to shackle us to our destinies, and to free us from them. One of my new all-time favourites' Alix E. Harrow
Book Information
Posts
Awesome!!!
Different than I anticipated but awesome none the less! The queerness, the tales, the general idea of the isle and do not forget the characters! I just adore Vina, Hari and Galath in Part 2!!! How cute is that?! And because all of them were written so good I didn't hate any...well okay Apollonius was a d*** and I pity Meera and Mathias, but all in all great characters. I still don't know who the Queen represents tho? And let's not forget the role of racism and fighting the cultural erasure in this book. I can't begin to imagine how it must be for all the people of Elsewhere and of course all real life people ... But yeah go read it if you like a different take on reincarnation, queerness and finding freedom, that a story for you!
Es gefiel mir leider nicht gut. Die Idee ist soo toll, aber die Ausführung hat nicht meinen Geschmack getroffen. Das Tempo ist unfassbar langsam, die Handlung teilweise wirr und die Figuren bleiben blass. Der Fokus liegt mehr auf Plot und Stimmung, auch wenn ersteres für mich nicht klar erkennbar war. So schade!
Aw man, I wanted to like this book so much, and there is a lot I did like, the queerness, the found family, the diverse types and uses of magic and most of all the whole concept of questioning who gets to tell storys, who is listened to, how tales and oral traditions are a way of writing history and society and how we can escape them. But man was it a slow and tough read. I don't know whether it was my mood, I'm firmly convinced this is a me-problem, but I continuously had to force myself to pick this book up and not another, I found the two perspectives not really distinct, I couldn't form a deep connection with the main characters and many of the relationships just felt off. Still I would recommend everyone to pick up this book and give it a try yourselves - especially if you like queer fantasy and would like the take of a woman of colour on narration and storytelling and how it shapes us.
2025 features Lady Knight autumn, and I'm here for it! I'm excited for all the different aspects these stories can entail. This one is a story about how we are bound to the tales passed down for generations - or if we can overcome them and change our fates. Of which stories should be protected and what should be burned down to the ground. It's also a story about what love is, and what it is not. And it's a powerful story about how people in power try to shape the world, and thus erasing what is different, diverse, and does not feed their sense of what is "right". Our Lady Knight and Lady Witch are destined to carry out a tale time and time again - ending with the death of their incarnate selves for the sake of stabilizing the land they live in. The book is divided in two parts - and I admit I had trouble getting back into the story after the break, to get invested all over again. However, it's a crucial and very well executed part of the whole. The magic system and overall concept were so intriguing: a land fueled by stories, the archives where the 'proper' tales are stored, the incarnates that preserve the land. However, I would have liked to get a better grasp on the world and how the magic works. To me it seemed a bit shrouded (and got my head spinning I admit!). I am not sure if this was intentional or not, but at least while reading I would have wished for clarity at times. As mentioned, the social commentary is powerful and multi-layered, and it will live in my head for a very long time. To be honest, I'm not sure if I'm doing this story justice with my review - it's so complex and shows so many facettes. But these are my thoughts. And if you need one more thing to convince you to read: adorable cat familiar! 4,5/5 stars Thank you @netgalley and @LittleBrownBookGroup_UK for the eARC #TheIsleInTheSilverSea #LadyKnight #Netgalley #Bookstagram
3,75 ⭐️ Die Prämisse des Buches mit den sich wiederholenden Märchen, denen die Wiedergeborenen nicht entkommen konnten, hat mich zunächst sehr fasziniert. Die Geschichte konnte mich jedoch nicht wirklich fesseln. Ab der Hälfte wurde es besser, und es gab einige angenehme Überraschungen, die ich nicht erwartet hatte, aber einige Passagen zogen sich für mich in die Länge. Insgesamt hätte ich mir angesichts ihrer Geschichte mehr Sehnsucht von unseren beiden FMCs gewünscht, und die Nebenfiguren haben mir mehr am Herzen gelegen. Der Aspekt der found Family gefiel mir sehr gut, und ich mochte das Setting in London mit den Erwähnungen existierender Orte, die aber in einem magischen Reich angesiedelt sind. Die Geschichte hatte einige schöne unterschwelligen Botschaften, die auch auf unsere eigene Welt anwendbar sind, und zum Nachdenken anregen z.B., dass Zuwanderung notwendig ist, um ein Land zu erhalten. Was die Erzählweise angeht, fühlte es sich jedoch manchmal so an, als wären die Regeln der Magie und Märchen aus einer Laune heraus erfunden worden und wirkten nicht stimmig. Insgesamt war es eine solide Lektüre, der eine leichte Kürzung/ Komprimierung gut getan hätte.
Genau Meins!
Es geht um Vina und Simran welche vom Schicksal bestimmt wurden sich immer wieder ineinander zuverlieben und dann dem todgeweiht sind. Ich bin ein richter fan von romancen die sich jahrhunderte und jahrhunderte wiederholen. Und mochte das es in diesem Buch mit Märchen verbunden wurde. liebe das es keine Rückblicke gab (bis aufs original), da ich davon nicht immer so ein fan bin.
I really wanted to love this book since I loved the idea of it but I just couldn’t. The idea of always repeating stories in every life was intriguing and at the start I was absolutely into it. I wanted to learn more about the reincarnations, the way people followed their life’s and so on. And there was my problem: nothing I expected of this book was happening. Instead the story was repetitive, the pacing was really off and either too fast or too slow. And then the random time change that kinda solved everything in an instant also didn’t help. Additionally I really didn’t feel any tension between the two protagonists and therefore didn’t feel their love story at all. A lot more and better thought about worldbuilding and a better pacing and I think this idea could have been a highlight. Instead I needed to think about my rating for more then 2 days because I just couldn’t decide how many stars this was for me in the end. It was just neither horrible nor good- it’s the kind of book I’ll for sure not remember for long. Thanks to Netgalley for the eARC!