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Susanna Clarke's Piranesi meets Italo Calvino's If On a Winter's Night a Traveler in this stunning meta fantasy about the power of stories, belief, and sisterhood
Myung and her sister Laleh are the sole inhabitants of the whale of babel—until Myung flees, beginning an adventure that will spin her through dreams, memories, and myths
Ask for the story of the mad sisters of Esi, and you’ll get a thousand contradictory folktales. Superstitious sailors, curious children, and obsessed academics have argued over the particulars for generations. They have wondered about the mad sisters’ two greatest marvels: the museum of collective memory that sprawls underneath our universe, waiting for any who call for it, and the living, impossible, whale of babel.
Myung and her sister Laleh are the sole inhabitants of the whale of babel. They roam within its cosmic chambers, speak folktales of themselves, and pray to their creator, the Great Wisa. For Laleh, this is everything. For Myung, it is not enough.
When Myung flees the whale, she stumbles into a new universe full of people, shapeshifting islands, and argumentative ghosts. In her search for Great Wisa and her longing for her sister Laleh, Myung sets off on an adventure that will unravel the mystery that has confounded everyone for centuries: the truth about the mad sisters of Esi.
Fables, dreams and myths come together in a masterful work of fantasy full of wonder and awe, that asks: in the devastating chaos of the world, where all is in flux, and the truth is ever-changing, what will you choose to hold on to? And what stories will you choose to tell?
Book Details
Format:
Hardcover
Price:
29 USD / 39 CAD
Published: 08/05/2025
ISBN: 9780756420062
Imprint:
DAW Books
Page Count: 432
Trim Size: 5-1/2 x 8-1/4
Praise
*Winner of the Subjective Chaos Kind of Awards for Best Fantasy*
*Winner of the AutHer Award for Best Novel*
A Washington Post Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Novel
A Reactor Magazine Best Book of 2025
A Goodreads Editors' Top Genre Pick of the Past Five Years
Amazon's Best SFF Book of the Month
A Lit Hub Most Anticipated Book
A Lit Hub Most Anticipated Fantasy
A Reactor Magazine SFF Title to Look Forward to
A Locus Recommended Reading Pick
A Reddit's Feminism in Fantasy (FIF) Book Club Pick
“A great, sweeping fairy tale of a book, utterly different from most of the fantasy out now. It’s worldbuilding ambition is unmatched: The descriptions of the plants, foods, and animals of Esi are lush and memorable. So, too, is the examination of sisterly love, which is as complicated and deep as the black sea itself.”—The Wall Street Journal
“I have been exhorting all my friends to read this breathtakingly gorgeous book, but it is nearly impossible to summarize...“The Mad Sisters of Esi,” already an award winner in India, is dreamlike in the best possible way, crammed with haunting images and mind-blowing ideas on every page.”—The Washington Post (Charlie Jane Anders)
“A poetic, metaphysical epic, “Mad Sisters” feels like it’s in conversation with other recent books about people in surreal, liminal spaces questioning what everything means — and it’s my absolute favorite book of the year.”—The Washington Post, 10 Best SFF Books of 2025 (Charlie Jane Anders)
“Mehta (The Liar’s Weave) explores the bond of sisterhood in this ambitious, dreamlike epic....Mehta cleverly brings the plot full-circle in a satisfying finale. Readers are sure to be impressed.”—Publishers Weekly
“Mehta writes a beautifully unique, engulfing tale of the power of stories, desires, madness, magic, and the complexity of sisterhood.”—Booklist
“The prose is so breathtakingly beautiful, and it’s no wonder at all that this one is the talk of the town.... It feels like Piranesi through the lens of a creation myth. Its sentences are devastating, its scope and intention are breathtaking. I just know you’ll fall head over heels for it too.”—Reactor
"A bewildering stunner of a book, cheerfully unexplained and wholly unexplainable."—Reactor Magazine's Best Books of 2025
“A mad, magnificent trip through other worlds…. Mehta's ambitious, sprawling fantasy will invite comparisons to Susanna Clarke's Piranesi, not only because its settings are vast, unmapped rambles of wonder and danger but also for the author's clarity of voice and ability to evoke a precise emotional mood.”—Shelf Awareness