If you're looking for your next cozy fantasy book then you should try The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst. This story follows a junior librarian named Keila that must flee for her life with some books she rescued and her assistant Caz. Caz is my absolute favorite character in this series. He is a sentient spider plant that has my whole heart. Kiera settles and opens up a "jam" shop that is actually a spell shop in disguise. The characters, while a little bland, were still really fun to get to know. This has all the vibes I look for in a cozy fantasy. I just adore when a book feels like a warm hug.

Thank you to the publishers and netgalley for this arc in exchange for an honest review.

Cozy fantasy perfection! If you love cozy fantasy I HIGHLY recommend this book.

I loved everything about this book. The characters, the small town vibes, the 'cozy' conflict, and the book is gorgeous!

Do not come into this book expecting Sarah Beth Durst's other (higher) fantasy titles as you will be disappointed. This book, however, is the perfect palate cleanser for in-between the high fantasy novels.

I really wanted to love this. There's so much buzz online about this book, I thought it was going to be revolutionary or thought-provoking but it was a lot fluffier than I anticipated. You have to suspend your disbelief in a big way to accommodate the characters in this book, and I must not have been in the right headspace to stretch that much. I was laughing at the mer-horses with a friend, and we were trying to figure out what they would look like, and two sentient plants, one fully intelligent and articulate while the other just says "meep" for everything., was kind of the last straw. The other aspects of the story were more compelling. The silliness just didn't hit me right this time.

Rating : 3.5
Overall, I really enjoyed this book.

Things I loved:
- Cozy vibes galore! This book is described as cottagecore fantasy romance--I would 100% agree with that. I loved the setting of this book!
-Role of books and food always make for a more enjoyable experience
- Charming characters- Caz- was by far the best character ever. I was not sure at first when he was introduced as a sentient snake plant but he was the scene-stealer.
- It is very reminiscent of Legends and Lattes. So give this a whirl if you enjoyed that.

Things that I didn't love so much:
- I will say the one thing that I didn't completely love was our main character. Kiela was for the most part was fine but there were a couple chapters in the book that she was really insufferable and naïve but luckily that usually was short-lived and she redeemed herself for me. ---I will say I totally related to her introverted ways :)
- The plot is also very straightforward but it worked well for the intended purpose of low-stakes fantasy.
- The romance was definitely slow-burn but also felt a bit under-developed.



I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Do you like low-stakes fantasy? Misfit characters who find a found family in the most unexpected of places? A beautiful, supportive friendship? And the best cottage core vibes? If so, this is the book for you.

Reading this felt like a warm cup of tea on a crisp, fall evening with light rain outside. I loved reading about Kiela, her friendship with Cass and seeing her develop into a stronger and more self-assured person.

There is a dash of romance and I was afraid that the plot would fixate on that but was relieved when it wasn’t.

What I really appreciated and thought made this novel unique amongst other cozy fantasy stories was the not so subtle social commentary about book banning and the squelching of ideas that differ from our own. In today’s political climate, that’s a message that should continue to be emphasized.

As someone who doesn’t gravitate towards fantasy books, it speaks volumes for me to rate one this highly. I will definitely be reading more from this author.

Thank you to NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for the ARC and ALC!

*3.25 stars*

This was cute and fun. More cozy vibes than plot but still a fun little romance.

The world building was a little sparse and the world seemed a little less thought out than it could have been. Some of the conflict felt like a little too much miscommunication (or absence of communication).

The narrator did a great job but the audio seemed to have some sound quality issues. Nothing too huge just occasional inconsistencies in volume.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ALC of this work. All opinions in this review are my own.

This was a sweet story. I love how welcoming everyone, well almost everyone, is to Kiela when she returns home to the island. Sarah Beth Durst created such a warm and inviting island that I would love to live there as well. Who wouldn't want to live on an island with mermaids, seahorses, magical fountains, and caves with magical paintings. I will definitely read more of Sarah Beth Durst's work in the future.

Caitlin Davies did a great job narrating this novel an I look forward to listening to more of her work in the future.

“We’ll write ‘Not at all illegal magic’ on the label and hope that people believe what they read.”

Kiela Orobidan never meant to become a rogue sorcerer. Honest. In fact, she never even meant to leave her library. However, when rebels set fire to the Great Library of Alyssium, she didn’t have much of a choice. She packed up as many books as she could, grabbed her best friend (a sentient spider plant named Caz), and set sail for the island of Caltrey. Kiela was born on the island, but many things have changed while she’s been away. In an attempt to eke out a living, Kiela turns to her rescued (A.K.A. technically stolen) spell books. Surely a little magic couldn’t hurt?

This is a cozy fantasy with just a dash of romance. It was fun to see quiet, introverted Kiela slowly find her place on Caltrey. I enjoyed several of the side characters, but Caz is definitely my favorite. He’s just so sassy and has zero patience for Kiela and Larran’s slow courtship. Larran has a couple missteps at first, but I love his quiet acts of love. Even if Kiela would rather just hide in her cottage with her books.

The audiobook is narrated by Caitlin Davies. She did a great job giving voice to Kiela and her adventures.

Romance Steam Rating: Warm Cocoa [1 out of 5] (Kisses Only)

3.75 stars
Okay I genuinely did end up enjoying this book a lot but it was such a journey to get there. I was kind of hesitant on the “hallmark” movie premises because I was scared it was gonna be too corny; but luckily it was the perfect amount of corny and heart. I mention it being a journey to enjoying it because I simply could not stand how often she mentioned being a librarian or loving books or comparing things to books. Like I get it!! You like to read and are a librarian! She drilled it into my head as if she was worried I would forget. It made me feel like that was truly her only personality trait, I mean in a sense it is but she does develop more motivations as the book goes on. I loveeeeeee the lil plant guy and the world. I honestly enjoyed the light world building because I don’t really feel like it was the point of the book, I kind of just enjoyed taking the fantasy creatures and lore as law and rolling with it (if I’m being honest I literally pictured everyone as a normal human sorry !!).

What I enjoyed:
- magical baking!
- Cloud bears
- MMC was super sweet (his love language is acts of service. A man after my own heart)
- found family vibes

What I didn’t enjoy (as much):
- wish their was more romance, it felt more like a coming of age story.
- Her inner monologue about books and the library is kind of unbearable.
- Thought the 3rd act conflict was kind of silly.
- Audio book narrator’s voice for the MC felt too old, almost like an office lady or school teacher. Which I guess fits since she’s a librarian but I didn’t particularly like it.

I thoroughly enjoyed this world! So many unique and wonderful characters. I loved the female empowerment and the fun subtext the women all agreed on.
If you are looking for a romance in a unique world where the heroine learns that there is a life if she releases the tight boundaries around herself, I highly recommend you check out The Spellshop.

What an absolutely wonderful book! The Spellshop is a bit out of my normal reading, but I adored it. A cozy fantasy with cottagecore vibes. This was such a fun listen that felt like a good mix between fantasy romance and cozy fantasy.

Keila works at the Great Library with her talking plant assistant Caz. When the revolution hits and there's a fire, they grab some of the most valuable books from Keila's old house and run away. Keila just wants to stay in Caltrey, but she needs food to live, so she has to go out into town. She's not sure what to expect from these people who were just strangers to her. She decides to start a local business to get what she needs to survive, but it's tough for her to get used to kindness of the locals. Such a great little story, made me laugh and smile.

A heartwarming story, compelling characters, found family…it was all I was expecting and more.

Want to read a cozy fantasy book, with fun characters and talking plants! The story was so fun to read, and it was very easy to understand what was going on. It has a very cozy feel, even though there are some heavy topics. Really enjoyed the feel of this story and highly recommend it if you are into cozy fantasy books.

This was cozy, fun, and sweet. Exactly as advertised. I love this author and will continue to pick up their work.

The Spell Shop

When I saw the cover of this book I knew I needed to read it! It’s so pretty!
I did an immersive read with this one and it was WONDERFUL!
This was THE BEST cozy fantasy! I really enjoyed Kiela’s character and her assistant, Caz, who is a snake plant! I mean, who wouldn’t want a snake plant as a sidekick?!?!
The world building was so fun and the small town neighborhood was endearing. You also get to meet a ton of magical characters and I am still trying to figure out which are my favorite.

The narration by Caitlin Davies really brought the story to life and I just love when a story feels like a nice, big, warm hug!

In a Nutshell: A cosy fantasy with an unlikeable protagonist who redeems herself along the way. A whole load of cosy, a little less of fantasy. Interesting (but flat) humans, outstanding non-humans, decent but straightforward storyline. A nice light option for those who prefer cute fantasies and can read without overanalysing.

Plot Preview:
Kiela hates dealing with people. Thanks to her job as a librarian at the Great Library of Alyssium in the capital of the Crescent Island empire, she avoids people at all costs, with her sentient spider plant Caz being more than enough company. But when the rebellion strikes and the library is up in flames, Keila has no choice but to escape with Caz and whatever books she can carry. The only destination that seems safe is her late parents’ home in the faraway island where she had spent her childhood years. She hasn’t been to this abandoned old cottage in more than a decade, but even then, she can sense that something is not right on the island. Luckily, Kiela worked in the ‘spell books’ section of the library, so the books she carried to safety contain magical spells. Yes, it is illegal for any non-sorcerer to cast spells, but this far away from the capital, no one would know, right?
The story comes to us in Kiela’s third-person perspective.


Bookish Yays:
🌳 Caz – Kiela’s assistant and spider plant extraordinaire. He goes so much more than being a talking plant, acting as an overly anxious friend and guide. His banter with Kiela is great fun. The biggest and best reason to read this book is Caz. (Technically, I should put this as a Mixed Bag. The downside of this is that I’ll never be happy with my ordinary, boring, non-talking plants now. I want Caz! 😢)
🌳 The fantastical creatures in the book, which include some we already know as well some innovative new ones. Winged cats and merhorses, anyone? 😍 I also include Meep in this category, and leave it for you to discover who or what Meep is.
🌳 The magic in the book, heavily rooted in nature and hence appearing even more delectable. I loved all the magic of the book, even when it wasn’t friendly.
🌳 The food references, from berry jams to cinnamon buns. My salivary glands rarely get affected by mention of Western dishes in fiction, but the descriptions in this one were yummm!
🌳 All things books – the magic of them, the value of them, the importance of treating them with care. Kiela’s person skills might be zero, but her librarian skills were top notch. Caz was the perfect assistant, being surprisingly passionate about books though he probably knew they are made from dead trees.
🌳 Because of the remote island setting, the story offers nice small-town feels, where neighbours can be helpful as well as inquisitive. The found family trope is used fairly well.
🌳 The indirect focus on the perils of resource hoarding by a select few, climate change affecting ordinary citizens, animals and nature suffering because of human misdemeanours, and parental abuse affecting children – all minor arcs but important and intriguing enough.
🌳 Can’t forget that stunning cover! It is almost like a painting. Don’t miss the adorable winged cat!

Bookish Mixed Bags:
🌱 While this is a cosy fantasy, it is heavily tilted towards the cosy side than the fantasy side. I like cosy fantasies so I was somewhat prepared for what I would get going into this novel. But I wish the writing had not worried so much about making things cosy that it forgot many other necessary requirements of a satisfying reading experience.
🌱 Kiela is a complicated protagonist, and not exactly a loveable one. She is quite grumpy and annoying at the start. She is also too impulsive, naïve, and a short-term thinker. While I don’t mind unlikeable characters (I think they offer far more depth to stories than goody-goody characters), the conversion of Kiela’s people-shirker persona to town saviour and friend is a bit too instant to be convincing. If you necessarily want novels to have likeable leads, this book might not work for you.
🌱 Larran and the other citizens of the town are much better and hence more likeable than Kiela, but their character dev is somewhat surface level. They are either 100% likeable or detestable, no in-between greys. This gets boring. Larran, being the male lead, deserved better character development, but we don’t even know what he looks like, except that he is huge.
🌱 The basic storyline is too simplistic. Except for the fantastical characters and the references to magic, the plot has a typical romcom storyline: a city girl moving to a small village, finding love in various forms, and deciding that her new location is way better than the life she left behind. I wish there had been some novelty to the plot, though the magical beings were imaginative enough to save the book.
🌱 The approach to the story is somewhat episodic, with several conflicts coming and going over the course of the 384 pages. Once a conflict is settled, it doesn’t pop up again. This works well in continuity, but it also feels formulaic after a point. I’m surprised that the major historical event at the start of the book – a revolution in the empire that ends with the emperor being killed and the city overtaken by rebels – is chucked aside after Keila moves to her hometown. Even during later mentions of the rebellion, there are no major details provided. If you begin with a political plot-point, surely that needs to be settled better.
🌱 The world building is highly developed on some points, and lacklustre on others. The townspeople (when they are non-human) and the fantastical creatures get exceptional description, but the ordinary humans barely get any detailing. We get great descriptions of the island setting, but hardly anything about its magical backstory. We know the whats of the magic, but it is taken for granted that we also know the hows and whys.
🌱 This is tagged as a fantasy romance. So I can’t really complain about the dominant presence of the romance, but I will complain that the romance was a bit too insta for my liking. It had elements of grumpy (Keila) vs sunshine (Larran), and was clean, so no steam-related worries.

Bookish Nays:
🍂 Though the writing is in third person, there are a lot of inner monologues, which also leads to loads of repetition. The proceedings are also somewhat slow because of this, though I didn’t mind the slow part.
🍂 Some plot points are too convenient to be convincing. A cottage that has been abandoned in the wild for more than a decade still has everything in working order and the bed isn’t even dusty? A character changes their stance on a topic at the most opportune moment? Eople pop up exactly when they are needed?
🍂 I think the book should have had a different title. Not only is it a spoiler (because Keila doesn’t take a call about “selling spells” until much into the book, but it is also inaccurate, since there is no actual “spell shop’ in the book.
🍂 The second relationship introduced at the end comes out of nowhere. I think it was introduced just to tick off one item on the inclusivity checklist, but it simply wasn’t needed. A similar forced inclusion is the mention of the pronoun preference of a talking plant. (I’m not kidding! At times, I feel like we are going too far with the inclusivity rep in fiction. Yup, I said it! Yes, we need to be inclusive and treat all gender and sexual orientations equally, but do we need to shove it into every single plot, even when it doesn’t even make sense?)

🎧 The Audiobook Experience:
The audiobook, clocking at 12 hrs 11 min, is narrated by Caitlin Davies. Her exuberant performance matches the cosy tone of the story. She does go a bit over the top during dialogue delivery, but I don’t mind this because it adds greater emotional depth and excitement to the conversations. Her voices for Caz and Meep were fabulous. If you want to give this book a go, I’d definitely recommend the audio version to audiobook aficionados. It would also be a great option for audio newbies as the timelines are straightforward and the characters, limited.


All in all, there are a few gaps in the writing approach of this novel, but there is also enough to enjoy. Caz alone should be a strong reason for you to pick up this ‘cottage-core’ (So many new labels these days!) fantasy-romance.

Recommended to cosy fantasy readers who don’t mind an extra bucketload of cutesy in their novels. This is Twee with a capital T! Be prepared to leave logic aside to enjoy it better.

3.5 stars, rounding up for Caz, Meep, and the audiobook.

My thanks to Pan Macmillan and Tor for providing the DRC, and Macmillan Audio for providing the ALC of “The Spellshop” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

I found this one very hard to follow in audiobook format. Perhaps if it was a physical book, I could keep track of the plot a bit better! Cool premise though, and great characters.

This was a cute and fun, cozy fantasy. The world building was done very well. The characters and their world seemed vibrant. Everything practically came to life in my head because the descriptions were so beautifully conveyed.

Kiela was a bit annoying at first, but as the story went on, she became more and more likable. I loved the side characters, especially Caz, the sentient spider plant, and Meep.

The relationships between the inhabitants of the island were really the star of the book. The budding friendships and romances were handled quite nicely.

The narration by Caitlin Davies was wonderful! There were so many different types of characters, and she gave each a distinct voice. Her range is pretty fantastic!

The Spellshop is a heartwarming and charming little escape of a book that I recommend to anyone in need of some light fantasy. Do be aware, though, that you may come away from this with an urge to make jam.

Thank you, Macmillan Audio and NetGalley, for this ALC. Opinions expressed in this review are my own.

This was a very well done cozy romantasy. I may even put this above Legends and Lattes and that's high praise as nothing in the genre has lived up to that book.

To be blunt, Kiela sucks at first. She's very annoying and not very likable but as she spends time on the island, she blossoms into a real human being as opposed to the library troll she was. Early on in the book, the side characters kept me reading as I liked everyone else and by the end I was happy with the cast of characters and would even love a sequel where everyone just does more of the same.

The plot was predictable but I wasn't too bothered by that because I never expected to be wowed by some big plot twist.

Overall, this was enjoyable and may even be worth a reread one day.

Damn it… I was prepped and ready to be a hater. By every meaningful metric, I did not particularly enjoy the experience of reading this book. I felt basically no compulsion to pick it back up when I wasn’t reading, and thought about dnf’ing a couple times. And yet.

The Spellshop effectively asks: what if the Legends & Lattes formula was Hallmark instead of D&D? It kicks off with the fish-out-of-water city girl returning to her quaint island hometown. She moves into the house conveniently left to her by her late parents, struggles to integrate with the quirky townsfolk, and reconnects with the perfect golden retriever man who has secretly had a crush on her ever since they were kids together. But all of these romantic staples are infused with aggressively cozy fantasy - the childhood friend is a merhorse farmer, there are centaurs and other magical beings mixed in with the townsfolk, and the city girl integrates into the island culture by starting a spellshop. Every element of this story is familiar, and that’s very much by design.

By the end of this book, I realized that my problem with it was entirely a me problem. I’m just not a huge cozy fantasy person, and this is COZY. Having read a decent handful of other cozies, though, I can recognize the ways that The Spellshop actually surpasses a lot of its contemporaries. This is a subgenre that tends to struggle to say anything meaningful, and often fumbles its ethical subtext in its refusal to address unpleasant realities. When a book purports to be cozy, we have to ask: “cozy for who?” Legends & Lattes is a prime example: the entire plot literally hinges on a magical allegory for cultural appropriation, and the book is deeply uninterested in even taking that into consideration. Everything must remain glossy and easy and surface-level.

The Spellshop’s ethical subtext is thoroughly realized and fairly cohesive. This book is very decisively about fascism, about protecting the most vulnerable community members, and about each individual’s ability and moral obligation to break from unethical systems in the ways that we can. It’s about book burning and hoarding vs freely sharing knowledge. I won’t say it always exactly nails every point - it IS hard to balance critique of fascism with a centaur bakery - but damn if it doesn’t try, and I’ll absolutely give it the A for effort.

Don’t get me wrong, this is very much a glossy book. It’s sweet to the point of being saccharine. It’s aggressively cutesy, with winged cats and mermaids and lots and lots of jam and baked goods. The villains are very obvious, the romance is very simple, and everything will very obviously be ok in the end. Also, the main character was honestly pretty unbearable (in the beginning - her character arc is actually solid). But this book succeeds in what it sets out to do and then some. It’s light and charming but also actually thoughtful and meaningfully compassionate, and if you enjoy cozy fantasy at all, you’ll probably love this one.

I also liked the tree spirits a lot 🐻🌲

Thank you NetGalley for the audiobook.
The Spellshop is an adorable cozy book about an introvert terrified by the prospect of leaving her comfort zone. But life has other plans.
Kiela just wants peace and to do what's right: protect the spellbooks under her care. Then she has to flee a fiery revolution that takes place in the background of the Spellshop, back to her isolated island hometown. She tentatively begins to socialize with neighbors old and new, then one thing leads to another and suddenly she's using the spellbooks to save her hometown.
This book is fun, adorable, and has relatively low stakes, but with enough plot to make you keep reading and wanting to know what happens next.