The Trident and the Pearl

• Author: Sarah K.L. Wilson
• Genre: Romantasy
• Publication Date: February 24, 2026
• Publisher: Orbit
• Series: The Fisher King #1

Thank you to Orbit for sending me a copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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.

I’m always game to check out a debut author, and have found some of my favorite authors and books this way. The premise of this book sounded really cool, making this book seem like it would be right up my alley. And while there were things about it that I did like, there were some things I didn’t like about it. Let me share my thoughts.

To start with, the world-building in this was immersive and fascinating. I would have been impressed no matter who wrote a world this lush and vivid, but to have this come in a debut is even more impressive to me. Coralys is the queen of an island realm and rules with her husband Lieve, the love of her life and her best friend. The Kingdom of the Five Isles was lush and evocative to such an extent that I could put myself into the story and practically feel the salty sea air on my skin while reading. Additionally, the sea is central to everything done in this society, from birth to death and everything in between.

Part of the world-building was a complex pantheon of gods, who are introduced early on. It was tough to keep track of everyone, and I wound up having to bookmark a page where they’re all listed out so I could refer back to it. Flipping back and forth took me out of the story a little bit, though. The belief system seems to combine aspects of Greco-Roman and Arthurian mythology, creating a unique blend for the story. 

My biggest struggle with the book was because of Coralys herself. She’s portrayed as an experienced, wise ruler, but not a single action that she takes supports that portrayal. From the moment she begs the gods to save her realm from disaster, every thought and action screamed ‘impulsive,’ while she basically waits for a man to save her from problems of her own making. While having a male character who is a hero isn’t a bad thing, I really despise the damsel-in-distress trope. In a fantasy world, the author has no limit to what their imagination can conjure, so why are we still falling back on the damsel-in-distress trope? It just feels like taking the easy way out, which doesn’t fit well with the rest of the story elements.

The pacing was another issue for me. In the beginning, reading is bogged down by what amounts to info-dumps, only speeding up after dragging the reader through enough information that it had to be bookmarked for me to fully be able to follow along. Coralys felt tired to me—she’s just going along with things because the gods have intervened, but secretly she’s making her own plan to avenge the death of Lieve. 

Speaking of the poor guy, he’s killed within a page of the start, and it isn’t too long before she’s drooling over the ‘poor fisherman’ that she’s now required to wed. His disguise as a poor fisherman veils him very thinly, and it is easy to guess who he really is without knowing much about him, so it was especially disappointing to see that it took Coralys what felt like forever to figure it out. I actually liked Oke’s character more than hers, but disliked how the story relied on another trope I’m not fond of—miscommunication. Why have the characters talk and get vulnerable and be realistic, when we can have them hold back information and then get all upset with each other? Instead of getting characters actively working on themselves, they’re repeating the same issues, and it won’t come as a surprise that I don’t typically enjoy books where the MC does no growing over the course of the story, and I like it less when I feel like their character regresses, which is what this felt like.

Overall, I went into this with high hopes, and it wasn’t all bad. It was a middle of the road read for me, but I was enjoying the book until it felt like the tropes and Coralys making one bad choice after another and taking no responsibility took over the story. I was really hoping to see her grow, but it didn’t happen in this book. Not to mention that she’s been widowed for less than an hour before she’s agreeing to marry another man and only a few days before she’s busy ogling him and not thinking much about her dead husband, despite the fact that she hasn’t even processed her grief before moving on. This might seem a bit harsh, but if you’re going to have a character lose her childhood best friend and soul mate, maybe give some insight into how that makes her feel and whether it impacts her actions, because otherwise she feels cold and detached. Aside from the uneven pacing, there’s one choice that Coralys makes towards the end of the book that left me feeling so mad. Despite making impulsive decisions throughout the book, without thinking of the consequences, she’s always surprised when her plan doesn’t unfurl perfectly, and she’s left waiting for a man to save her each time. But every reader has a breaking point, and that left me frustrated and angry enough with Coralys that it felt like I had invested all of this time into reading it, only to realize her character arc was totally flat. While I thought it did a great job of creating an alluring and vivid world, the pantheon was a bit confusing and I never quite fully grasped who was who and what their role was, even by the end. Ultimately, by the time I got to the end, I didn’t even care about the vague ending or the cliffhanger, I already knew that I wouldn’t be reading the next book in this series. 

Bottom line: While this wasn’t the book for me due to lack of character growth, uneven pacing, and not connecting with the main character, this might be a good fit if you’re looking for a slow-burn romantasy where you’re not focused as much on the growth of the character as the vibes.

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