Tashan Mehta
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Tashan Mehta
@tashanmehta.bsky.social
840 followers 280 following 180 posts
Author. MAD SISTERS OF ESI (DAW Books, 2025 | HarperCollins India, 2023),THE LIAR'S WEAVE (Juggernaut, 2017)

Mostly on Instagram.

Website: https://www.tashanmehta.com/
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MAD SISTERS OF ESI is one of The Washington Post’s 10 best SFF novels of 2025. In the sheer amount of what gets published each year and what gets lost, this feels like a small, precious miracle ❤️
The cover of MAD SISTERS OF ESI with "The Washington Post" written above it and "Best SFF Novel of 2025" written below it. A picture of The Washington Post article. Title reads "10 best sci-fi and fantasy novels of 2025" and the subtitle reads "From an indigenous vampire story to the tale of two sisters living in a cosmic whale, this year's books kept us guessing." The Washington Post review of MAD SISTERS OF ESI. It reads: "Two sisters live inside a cosmic whale, visiting the innumerable worlds within its body, until one of them escapes into the universe outside. There, she uncovers the whale's origin story, which lies with another pair of sisters who lived on a shape-shifting island where everyone goes mad once a century. 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. (Book World review.)"
November 24, 2025 at 1:56 PM
tashanmehta.bsky.social
More pictures, because they wouldn’t fit in the last post:
August 20, 2025 at 4:18 PM
tashanmehta.bsky.social
Such a lovely WorldCon. I wore all black everyday, like a ninja; met my agent in the flesh; hung out with some amazing people; and got to see MAD SISTERS OF ESI out in the wild. Also, my fellow panelists were incredible; I took so many notes!
August 20, 2025 at 4:18 PM
tashanmehta.bsky.social
I’m at WorldCon! I have a table talk from 12-1pm today - come say hi?
August 14, 2025 at 1:48 PM
tashanmehta.bsky.social
MAD SISTERS OF ESI has a review in the Wall Street Journal (!) and it’s good (!!)
August 8, 2025 at 2:45 PM
tashanmehta.bsky.social
It’sss pub day! MAD SISTERS OF ESI is now out in the US and Canada.

To celebrate, Alap and I took a series of truly ridiculous photos at Brooklyn Bridge Park. My baby* is now in New York!

(*Technically an ARC of my baby. The final is a beautiful, beautiful hardcover.)
August 5, 2025 at 1:17 PM
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It is one of Amazon's Best SFF Books for August
August 1, 2025 at 8:34 PM
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It was featured on @literaryhub.bsky.social 33 Most Anticipated SFF Books for the Rest of 2025. Drew Broussand writes: “The publicity copy calls Mad Sisters of Esi a cross between Piranesi and Calvino and honestly that’s enough for me."
August 1, 2025 at 8:34 PM
tashanmehta.bsky.social
It was featured on @reactorsff.bsky.social Most Anticipated Books for the Second Half of 2025. Chrisina Orlando says Mad Sister’s “sentences are devastating, its scope and intention are breathtaking. I just know you’ll fall head over heels for it too.”
August 1, 2025 at 8:34 PM
tashanmehta.bsky.social
Five days left until Mad Sisters of Esi is out, and here’s a collection of the nice things that have happened to the sisters: 🧵
Picture of MAD SISTERS OF ESI cover on a yellow background: featuring a pink whale coming out of a cosmic coral forest
August 1, 2025 at 8:34 PM
tashanmehta.bsky.social
If you were planning to preorder MAD SISTERS OF ESI, the B&N sale is back till July 11th and it’s the last one before the sisters head out into the world. You get 25% off on all preorders (it’s free to become a rewards member) 🐋✨

We’re getting so close to publication day!
July 8, 2025 at 2:29 PM
tashanmehta.bsky.social
A picture of pink whale emerging out of a coral forest, with a reader quote above it: “It’s the fairytale we all need in adulthood to not get dragged into the mind-numbing belief of life being ordinary and us being disposable. Because as long as even one person loves and remembers us, we are stitched into the fabric of the universe.”
July 6, 2025 at 1:38 PM
tashanmehta.bsky.social
A picture of pink whale emerging out of a coral forest, with a reader quote above it: “A masterpiece of boundary-breaking fantasy. Absolutely breathtaking, stunning, utterly perfect.”
July 6, 2025 at 1:38 PM
tashanmehta.bsky.social
“...a few dozen Salvador Dali paintings splashed together with Studio Ghibli” always makes me cackle.
A picture of pink whale emerging out of a coral forest, with a reader quote above it: “If you like absurd, surrealist literature that feels like a few dozen Salvador Dali paintings splashed together with Studio Ghibli; if you are a fan of the Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern but want more of it; if you like stories of found families with generational trauma mixed in, this is for you.”
July 6, 2025 at 1:38 PM
tashanmehta.bsky.social
A picture of pink whale emerging out of a coral forest, with a reader quote above it: “Compelling, beautiful, and imaginative. This is one of those ‘I need everyone to read this right away’ books.”
July 6, 2025 at 1:38 PM
tashanmehta.bsky.social
A picture of pink whale emerging out of a coral forest, with a reader quote above it: “I read this book with a notebook by my side, to explore ideas this book introduces, or to reflect on feelings it stirs within me. The best thing a book can do is offer you new perspectives on things you spend a lot of time thinking about - and lead you to dwell in the parts of your existence you give little thought to at all.”
July 6, 2025 at 1:38 PM
tashanmehta.bsky.social
A picture of pink whale emerging out of a coral forest, with a reader quote above it: “It's always very special when you know a book is going to be one of your ultimate top three favourite novels when you're only 10 pages in. That's how I felt with Mad Sisters of Esi, and I never stopped feeling that way.”
July 6, 2025 at 1:38 PM
tashanmehta.bsky.social
A picture of pink whale emerging out of a coral forest, with a reader quote above it: “No words will suffice in explaining how much I love this book. It requires savoring: the universe is vast, the lore is deep, and the emotions are complicated.”
July 6, 2025 at 1:38 PM
tashanmehta.bsky.social
One month left for MAD SISTERS OF ESI! To celebrate, here are some of my favourite reader lines (🧵). Names redacted for privacy; all the reviews are public.
A picture of pink whale emerging out of a coral forest, with a reader quote above it: "Time stretches and leaps with the alternating violence and elegance of a wild animal, and collects into a story that I will never forget.”
July 6, 2025 at 1:38 PM
tashanmehta.bsky.social
Two notebooks, one publishing book, one book book, one sketchbook and four sketching pens. Peru and New York, here we come! 🙌📚
A collection of various books: two black notebooks, one thin notebook with a picture of building on it, an ARC of MAD SISTERS OF ESI, a pink sketchbook with a black design on it and four pens
June 3, 2025 at 4:43 PM
tashanmehta.bsky.social
The sketch is a collection of the shapes of the museum that I imagine its creator drew before settling on one (each line is a corridor, or multiple corridors linked to form a line).

MAD SISTERS OF ESI is out August 5th, and is available to preorder now. 🐋✨
Pen and ink sketch of the different floor plans of the museum of collective memory, a museum that exists in the book MAD SISTERS OF ESI.
May 30, 2025 at 8:33 AM
tashanmehta.bsky.social
This is hands-down my favourite place in #madsistersofesi and the one thing I wished we had in the real world. It’s a fluid, thorny, gnarled and inexplicable way of capturing the collective community we all live in and with. And although it’s low-key trying to kill you, it’s very, very cool.
Extract of the book, MAD SISTERS OF ESI, continued from previous post: "'Comes' of course is the wrong word. The museum is always there, invisible and waiting. *Khol* is not so much a summoning as it is a door. Think of the transition as a melting--your reality is swept away and replaced with the museum. It doesn't matter if you're sitting, standing, or perched in the belly of a ship sailing through the black sea--when you whisper 'khol,' you will find your feet on sandstone floors and when you look up, you will see you are in a corridor made for giants."
May 30, 2025 at 8:33 AM
tashanmehta.bsky.social
On a 11-hour drive to Goa, my partner and I talked about music - he adored it, and I was indifferent.

Friends, always have an artist explain their art to you. His lens on music was so beautiful, I was moved to write about a museum made of song. It would become the Museum of Collective Memory.
Extract from the book, MAD SISTERS OF ESI: "Every child knows how to enter the museum of collective memory. You tap your tragus, that triangular bump in your ear, and you say *khol*. We know this instinctively, without being told. No matter how young you are, if you tap your ear and you say the word right, the museum comes to you." Continued in the next post.
May 30, 2025 at 8:33 AM
tashanmehta.bsky.social
MAD SISTERS OF ESI comes out August 5th, and is available to preorder now.
A picture with the following text on it: WHALE OF BABEL: Of all the man- made wonders of the universe, nothing has fascinated academia more than the whale of babel. When we still believed in the dominance of logic, it was assumed this whale was mythical and that its many chambers were fairy tales. But it is now widely accepted that the whale exists, although no one can find it. We are left, then, with more questions than answers. Who is Wisa and why did she make the whale of babel? What is its origin story? And what, indeed, is the whale made of?
May 19, 2025 at 5:59 AM
tashanmehta.bsky.social
I remember being so delighted, I showed a friend the sketch. He was unimpressed 😂 Granted, my sketching skills were worse then, so the sketch looked more like a strange fish nestled on a bed of nondescript balls (which were growing outside, for some reason?!)– but hey, it’s the thought that counts.
Original sketch of the whale of babel – this one is a badly drawn fish nestled on a bed of balls of various sizes (don't ask). Drawn in 2019, when I couldn't draw.
May 19, 2025 at 5:59 AM