The Isle in the Silver Sea: Characters, tropes, spice & review
The Isle in the Silver Sea by Tasha Suri is a beautiful love story about a lady knight and a witch forced to enact tales in which they are the lead characters, time and time again over thousands of lifetimes.
And if they fail to act out their tales, the isle may perish. What. A. Premise.
Between Tasha Suri, V. L. Bovalino, Alix E. Harrow, Rachel Gillig & Caitlin Starling, 2025 has truly been the year of the lady knights and it’s been delightful. Suri’s story is grandiose in scope and imagination with a unique magic system featuring magical tattooists (or something to that degree) plus a political undercurrent refracting the ways an imagined “white” history ignores the history of immigration, slavery and queer identity, in a place where people control stories.
It’s anti monarchy, anti colonialism, anti-nationalism, anti-white-supremacy and I’m here for it.
If that sounds like something you might be interested in, I wrote a wee little blog post and book review covering The Isle in the Silver Sea characters, synopsis, book review and FAQs.
As always, happy reading friends!
The Isle in the Silver Sea synopsis.
From World Fantasy Award-winning author Tasha Suri comes The Isle in the Silver Sea, a heart-shattering romantasy of sapphic longing, medieval folklore and a love that spans the centuries.
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?
Get The Isle in the Silver Sea here.
The Isle in the Silver Sea characters.
Character art shared by author @tashasuri via Instagram. Artist 🎨: @gildedruin
Main characters.
The Isle in the Silver Sea is told in third-person narrative from the dual perspectives of Simran and Vina.
Simran Arora.
Our lovely witch who can ink magic into skin, which is pretty wild.
Vina/Lavinia Morgan.
Vina is our lady knight, whose got it bad for Simran.
Supporting and minor characters.
Maleficium (cat)
Galath
Hari Patel
Vaughan David
Matthias
Edmund Tallisker
Lydia Chen
Ella
Archivist Sharma
Meera
Apollonius Roland
The Eternal Queen
Rowan
Ismene
Elayne
Tristram
Perrin
Isadora Delaney
Soren Aldershot-Wilkins
Laura
Bess
Tristesse
Sir Maraid
Sarah
Roslin
Percy Archer
Cora
Ophelia Dindrane
Adder
Owain
Mrs. Bell
Alder
Lady Juliet/Oliver
Lady Wren
Margaret
Laidly Wyrm
Peppermint (raven)
The Beast
Wyvern
Review: The Isle in the Silver Sea by Tasha Suri.
View my review and follow me on GoodReads here.
At a glance you may think that The Isle in the Silver Sea is a book about a knight and a witch, fated to fall in love and destroy their love across thousands of lifetimes. And you’d be right. But it’s also so much more.
It’s also anti-monarchy, anti-colonialism, anti-white supremacy and anti-bullshit. Yay! Love that for us. I really adore how distrustful it is of institutions such as the government, the crown and history. In particular, I really appreciated the way it draws attention to how the British Empire has erased languages, cultures, people and has whitewashed the Middle Ages and medieval lore and mythology to uphold an imagined ‘pure’ national history. The whole “no kings” sentiment has existed for Indigenous, Black and Brown communities and our ancestors (+other marginalised folk) for centuries and this book helps explore that theme.
Most fantasy is political and Suri knew what she was doing when she wrote this in response to the Windrush scandal amongst other things, which destroyed the lives of many Black and minority ethnic British people.
That said, if you’re allergic to politics, you could definitely read this as an escapist, lush, strange vibes read, because it’s stunning. We’ve got scribe-tattooist-witches who can ink magical gifts into your skin, eldritch creatures, sentient forests, hidden libraries and archives, reincarnated lovers, cursed mirrors, top tier sapphic yearning, all set in a queernormative world. The magical fantasy creature list is long and delightful and best discovered for yourself, but I’d like to personally thank Maleficium the cat and Peppermint the raven for their service.
Not gonna lie, I had a couple of false starts with this one and had no idea what was going on in the first 10 or 15%, but then once I started connecting the dots, I could let go and ended up really enjoying it. I'd be interested to see if others have a similar experience, but it was most likely just a subjective "me" issue.
By the end, I've gotta say that someone was definitely chopping onions near me which was rude but usually tends to happen when a book decides to reflect on life, love, mortality and the fragile business of being human.
I was so happy to be able to do an immersion read with a digital book and audio for this one. Shiromi Arserio really brought the characters to life and enhanced the experience.
A few things to be grateful for in 2025 and one of them is books about yearning lady knights.
A big thanks to the publishers for the DRC and Hachette Audio for providing the ALC of The Isle in the Silver Sea via NetGalley.
⚠️ Just a note, for fellow animal lovers, there are a couple of trigger warnings to be mindful of in terms of fantasy animal captivity and death. ⚠️
View my review and follow me on GoodReads here. I chat about books a lot.
The Isle in the Silver Sea FAQs.
SPOILER ALERT:
⚠️ Some answers may spoil The Isle in the Silver Sea if you haven’t read it already. Proceed with caution. ⚠️
Here are the answers to all your common FAQs.
Is The Isle in the Silver Sea part of a series or standalone?
The Isle in the Silver Sea is a standalone fantasy romance.
What is The Isle in the Silver Sea spice level?
Spice level: 🌶🌶
2/5, open door spice, but not explicit and not frequent.
Where are The Isle in the Silver Sea spicy chapters?
You can find The Isle in the Silver Sea spicy chapter in chapter 19.
What are the tropes?
The tropes in The Isle in the Silver Sea are:
Fated mates
Lady knight
Reincarnation knight and witch sapphic romance
Queer found family
Magical creatures galore
Animal companions
What are the content and trigger warnings?
Fantasy animal cruelty and captivity
Fantasy animal death
Murder
Violence
Confinement
Gun violence
Sexual content
Transphobia
Violence
Xenophobia
Grief
Death of parent
Fire/Fire injury
Alcohol
Colonisation
Classism
What is the age rating for The Isle in the Silver Sea?
The Isle in the Silver Sea is classified as adult. So 18+.
Enjoyed reading The Isle in the Silver Sea by Tasha Suri? You may also enjoy reading:
The Second Death of Locke by V. L. Bovalino
The Knight and the Moth by Rachel Gillig
Bury our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V. E. Schwab
The Book of Azrael by Amber Nicole
Warrior Princess Assassin by Brigid Kemmerer
Terror at the Gates by Scarlett St. Clair
In the Veins of the Drowning by Kalie Cassidy
