The Trident and the Pearl by Sarah K. L. Wilson
Rating: 
Nothing is perfect, and as such, the reviews in this blog are chaotic. My main aim is to share my thoughts, joy and opinions on a book, not make a publication perfect review. This blog endorses authenticity, showing up and joy over perfection.
Disclaimer: Receiving a review copy from the publisher does not affect my opinion of the book. If you think I review it highly it is due to me knowing my taste well and therefore not requesting books I won’t enjoy. And I am not obligated to review the book if I do not like it, so you may not see bad reviews due to me preferring not to hype down a particular book. I only do reviews of books I disagreed with if I think it is worth bringing a topic or warning to light.
I am not a big follower of romantasy, mostly because I do like my romance and my fantasy but I don’t always want romance to take over the fantasy part. However, this sounded pretty interesting and made me curious.
I will start by saying that the actual rating is 3.75 not 3.5 but I do not have a way to make it that number via fox rating. The reason it gets this rating is more or less because of how the book declined the closer it got to the end.
Our story starts strong. Queen Coralys says goodbye to her husband who is going to try and save people during a hurricane/storm that is about to end their island and reign. She then goes to make a deal with her god, which according to her she doesn’t actually believe in, and gets an interesting bargain. Her people will be saved, but she will have to marry the first person to touch harbor and become their profession and life, so more or less it is a “sacrifice your Crown for your people” and she’s willing to do this. Now, we find out that her husband dies during the storm and she’s grieving, which odd request from the god, but oh well. And then we learn about her customs of her island etc. Which to be fair, end up being pretty irrelevant to the story, which was a bit sad.
Somehow the first person to arrive is a fisher man who has a horrible wound, god given, that won’t close. Coralys is still grieving but she gives the impression of being a superb queen and not spoiled and not your regular main character for a fairy tale or a romantasy. Sadly this lasts about a third of the book and then we get the trope of they can’t communicate.
Her new husband is a fisher man indeed who says he is the Fisher King, and Coralys is thick as bricks and has no imagination so she doesn’t figure out who her husband really is until extremely late, after every single piece of evidence has slapped her repeatedly in the face. And this is part of the reasons the book didn’t get a high rating.
The world building is incredible, how gods work, what makes a god a god, what causes gods to war against each other, and how the people can communicate with them and all that interaction, fascinating. Oke, the fisher king and Coralys’ new husban, also incredibly awesome. He is trying to allow her to grieve, give her space so that being husband and wife is not a responsibility and a burden for Coralys. Like he is a cinnamon roll who is sparing Coralys from a lot of things. And Coralys is anything but the Queen she supposedly was. The Coralys we get has convenient grief for the plot (always incredibly convinient and never comes around if the plot doesn’t require it, and yes I know grief is funky and so forth but in this case, it is too noticeable to just accept it as grief is a beast), is thick as bricks, has no idea what communication is (despite being a Queen and having been married before and had counselors, etc), and mostly lets the plot happen to her, which felt a waste of Oke and the actual plot.
The plot is interesting if Coralys wasn’t such a puppet of it. The romance is not really there at all. Well, we can see Oke being nice to her, trying to give her space while doing his many responsibilities, making sure to make time for her too amongst everything else, etc. And then Coralys is adamant on revenge for her dead husband, but you also can’t believe she is blinded by it, because she only cares when it is needed for the plot.
Still, plot was cool. I think the book needed another pass or two on edits to make Coralys actually be more fleshed out as she’s pretty much a blank puppet who says she is something but doesn’t really make sense at all with her actions or motivations or anything. She genuinely is just there to let the plot happen.
Would I read the second book? Yes probably, since I do like the world and I am curious to see what will happen. Would I say everyone should read this book? No, but if you enjoy romantasy and want a cool world with gods and chaos, and a nice male main character, this is a good one to have.