DRC Review: The Trident and the Pearl by Sarah K. L. Wilson
- Story Eater
- 14 hours ago
- 4 min read
Release date: 24 February 2026
Rating: 5/5
Publisher: Orbit/Hachette
Synopsis: A desperate queen makes a deal with the gods to save her land in this spellbinding romantasy debut from Sarah K. L. Wilson.
Queen Coralys rules the Kingdom of the Five Isles, but when disaster strikes, killing her husband and destroying half her nation, she pleads with the gods for salvation. And they do save her, turning back the terrible winds and tide and snatching her islands from the brink of destruction.
But the gods have a wicked sense of justice and they demand an exchange for their help: Coralys must marry the first man to set foot on her pier. Coralys expects the fleet of a neighboring country to come to rescue her people, led by its prince, a loyal ally. What she gets instead is a fisherman so sunburnt and stinking that her court can barely keep their breakfast down.
Coralys marries the fisherman just as she promised the gods, and sets out with him in his unkempt dinghy, with nothing but hopes of revenge against the gods to keep her from despair. But what she does not know is that the fisherman is actually the god of the sea. And he stepped on her dock for a reason.
His own kingdom besieged, his body terribly wounded, and his place as a god threatened, the fisherman has plans to turn the tides set against him and finally offer a place of refuge for his people. But working the magic he needs will require the help of the one woman bent on his destruction.
Review
First: this is not a debut, as the synopsis states (incorrectly). Wilson has been writing romantasy for years and is a bestselling author. I'm not even going to go off on the tangent tirade re: indie books vs. big five books that I want to except that it's not a debut. In fact, I highly recommend many of the books in Wilson's backlist; feel free to look up her Bluebeard's Secret and Seven Swords series, along with the most recently published standalone Of Deeds Most Valiant. Anyhoo, onward.
I experienced no small amount of trepidation waiting to read this, even letting this title sit on my digital shelf, fearing to open it and find that another indie author has crossed over to the B5 market and lost the muchness from past writing. I am ecstatic and relieved to say that that the muchness was still very much there (for this particular title at least—there are still two more books left in the series) in all of its beauty and majesty and in all aspects. Wilson's appeal for me comes with well written characters pulled together by scorching sensuality and romance with the slow burn of wet det cord.
My favorite books come with character-driven stories. I haven't found many authors who can pull off one well, as the balance needs incredible fine tuning. Many times, the books ultimately turn out to be boring because the plot drags and the characters haven't really taken the spotlight, or the plot overtakes the characters ; in these, I wind up not caring so much about what happens to them. It was hard not to develop a sympathy for many of the characters here while simultaneously wanting to scream at my ereader because they were all, at one time or another, making choices I knew would mean terrible consequences. It makes for great tension and entertaining reading time. Characters are always a strength for Wilson, and they're great here.
Coralys and her ragged fisherman dance around each other, always almost either kissing or killing, playing a great game of teetering on the edge of that final contact with a painfully slow burn and aching sense of longing. Many writers opt for immediate attraction, relying on physical beauty or some kind of magical pull or draw to attract the main characters together, but Wilson shows off a wonderful ability to write great romance with an intellectual and emotional magnetism that reveals nothing explicit and still leaves the reader needing a fan.
In my entire reading experience, Wilson has probably carved one of the steepest cliffs and hung me by my fingers off it without mercy, all the while probably cackling some kind of little witchy writer cackle the entire time writing it. I'm not a huge fan of cliffhangers. I understand their purpose and the market and series and all the other publishery stuff, but I intentionally start series once they're finished because I need to be able to pick up the next book immediately. I will suffer them for certain, special authors. Wilson is one of those authors. And what a gloriously crafted cliffhanger it is. I now have to wait way too long for the next book and still have that sense of trepidation for the series as I had for this singular installment.
I'm relieved this book was not a letdown and happy to have another Wilson title on my shelf. I've preordered it and will be getting a physical copy.
My thanks to Hachette and Orbit via NetGalley for the DRC, for which I willingly give my own, honest opinion.
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