Atmospheric start. Sweet. Interesting world building. Although, I need to reevaluate what is considered cozy fantasy because this confused me. I mean there was a fair amount of action and high stakes. Does the fact that the characters also sat around a lot and talked make it cozy? I don’t know. I’d just call it a fantasy.
And I liked this one slightly more than I typically do with fantasy. I enjoyed the characters. (Morally grey monster pov! And two older women main characters! AND they were mothers! Plus a goblin guy!) I thought the plot itself was good too. I would’ve liked the pacing to be honed in and some of the nothingness trimmed down. It just felt much longer than it was. 3.75 stars.

Thank you to Molly O'Neill, Orbit, and NetGalley for giving me an eARC of Greenteeth in exchange for my honest review.

Greenteeth follows the perspective of Jenny, a sea monster of sorts (though not really) who takes care of her lake. Jenny has lived in her lake for centuries without issue, and then one day a witch, Temperance is thrown into her lake to die after Temperance's village turns on her. Jenny decides to help Temperance, and through that process, they learn that a dark figure is loose in Temperance's village who has the potential to harm not only the village, but Jenny, her lake, and so much more. The two set off on a quest to get help so that they can save Temperance's village from evil.

I enjoyed this book a whole lot more than I thought I was going to. There is not a lot of character development, but that is because this is such a plot-heavy book in so many ways. Yes, it is a cozy fantasy. However, it focuses more on the plot, which does feel fun, more than the character development. Do not get me wrong, there is character development sprinkled in there. I loved watching these friendships blossom and watching the characters navigate the different dynamics that they have to face coming from completely different cultures. The plot was also a lot of fun, and in many ways, it was fast-paced and kept me on my toes. Nothing happened that was completely shocking or came out of left field, but I was having so much fun reading it that I did not realize how many pages had passed. It really kept me hooked and wanting to know what happened next. This book is perfect for fantasy lovers who like a more low-key fantasy book rather than this big epic or high fantasy story that spans several novels.

Greenteeth is a historical fantasy (set somewhere in 1700s/1800s England) with a traditional fairy quest plot. Jenny Greenteeth is a water hag: she lives in a pond near the quiet village of Chipping Appleby. She keeps her pond clean, eats mostly fish along with the occasional bag of drowned kittens (~sob~), and tries to stay out of the way of the human inhabitants of the town. But when the village witch is thrown into the pond by the new preacher, Jenny unexpectedly saves her. This draws her into a quest on the road, performing a series of tasks for the King of the Wild Hunt in the hopes of retrieving a weapon that can defeat the preacher's dark influence.

The book is written in first person, entirely from Jenny's POV. She's a "monster," surprising even herself when she decides to help out a human witch. The story feels timeless and poignant: magic is vanishing from the British Isles, and Jenny has no idea why she, a relatively powerless hag, remains. There's an answer to that, of course, and it's a satisfying one.

But the appeal of the book is how it works within the fairy quest framework to illuminate Jenny's character and motivations. This is a really enjoyable book. Yes, it made me cry; yes, it has a satisfying though bittersweet ending. It's a nice addition to any fantasy lover's TBR.

This objective review is based on a complimentary copy of the novel.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC!

A cute and (dare I say) cozy romp!

The main trio are comprised of Jenny (our monstrous main character), Temperance (an outcasted witch), and Brackus (a travelling goblin merchant). Each of them have their own unique quirks, and I loved reading their interactions and banter.

Together, they embark on a series of quests in order to defeat the evil force that has come to Temperance's village. To be honest, I thought the quests were a little too easy. Don't get me wrong, I liked following them on their journey, and exploring these new places and meeting new fae. However, the actual quests are presented to us as huge, insurmountable tasks, yet they are quite easily accomplished. I would have liked if the characters had to struggle more, or if they came up with more creative, clever ways of completing the quests.

I found the villain to be legitimately sinister. He isn't on page for most of the book, but when he is, he brings a threatening aura with him, and proves to be a truly formidable enemy.

This story incorporates some characters from Welsh mythology. The back of the book has a handy pronunciation guide that was very helpful, as I am not familiar with Welsh pronunciation.

Overall, a solid debut!

Loved the first quarter of this, Molly is a great protagonist and I loved the relationship between her and Temperance. The middle of the book lost me a bit with all the questing, but the end of the book was great. A pretty fun and interesting standalone fantasy about the nature of friends and family.

Like stories from days gone by, Greenteeth whisks it's readers along on an unlikely hero's quest. With it's quirky characters and lush lore, it's hard not to fall for this charming tale!

Readers follow Jenny Greenteeth and her unlikely group of acquaintances as they band together to defeat an ancient and deadly evil.

I personally find comfort in a story that structures itself around a classic hero's quest. It's like coming home after a lengthy time away, you just sort of melt into the familiar. While the bones of this story may feel like a well worn sweater, the nuanced characters and take on the lore feel fun and fresh. The story is one of simplicity but that gives the lessons, threaded throughout, time to really root into your heart and mind.

With themes of friendship, evolution, and embracing who we are, Greenteeth is worthy of your TBR pile!

I love the friendships in this book and enjoyed reading it overall. I did get the impression that the two characters were going to me romantically involved at first and was a little disappointed that they weren't.

3.5⭐️ Gentle and charming with a little bite.

Greenteeth is a classic quest story with a twist - the hero is a lake monster. Jenny Greenteeth has lived a mostly solitary life for a thousand years, until one day a witch is thrown into the lake she calls home. Meeting Temperance puts a wrench in Jenny’s routine and sets her on a path to save the local village from a malevolent force.

I loved how this tale was imbued with British folklore, from our MC Jenny Greenteeth, to witches, goblins, high fae and more. It really felt like an ode to Old World Britain. It also goes by quickly; it’s fast-paced and easy to read.

But because of the pacing and relatively simplistic storytelling, I not only found myself a little bored but also wanting more depth. Except the MC, the characters showed little to no growth and to me were pretty one dimensional. And I just can’t fully get behind a quest in which tasks are complex, but then easily accomplished. It all felt very convenient.

Ultimately, not my favorite cozy fantasy but if you’re into British folklore I might check it out! If you’re looking for descriptive prose, complex characters, or a tension-filled plot I may skip this one.

Thank you to Orbit books for the eARC :)

As magic is dwindling in Britain, a witch, a goblin, and a lake monster form an uneasy team that has to learn to work together to defeat an ancient evil. Join them on their epic journey to collect the materials they need to create a weapon that can vanquish an old god.
I absolutely loved this book. Witches, fae, and Arthurian legends come together and create a magical old world that you will long to explore.

I'm always a little wary when I read something in the first person as it can sometimes be hard for me to find a connection to the narrator. I'm happy to say that was not the case with Greenteeth. Molly O'Neill has created a character with a wonderfully distinct voice who is hilarious, kind, and more than a little socially awkward. I loved the insight into Jenny's world and getting to watch her world expand and grow. This is a read I will be recommending to many, many friends.

This was a delightful read with a compelling protagonist (a lake monster!!!) having to leave the safety of her watery home, build unexpected friendships, and defeat an ancient evil. Come on. How could you not fall in love?

Jenny is a wonderful narrator, equally lovable and flawed. She has a past, is jolted from the comfort and loneliness of her present, then eventually challenged to envision an unthinkable future. I personally enjoyed reading her internal dialogue and bickering with her companions—it gave me all the feelings I want out of a cozy adventure. Even their three quests to retrieve specific items felt new and exciting to me, because it allowed me that much more time to travel alongside Jenny and crew.

Understandably, the book gets significantly less cozy about halfway through, but I didn't mind that too much. I think my gripe was with the pacing afterward, and how a lot of Camelot history felt very abruptly injected into the plot—but then again, I'm not too familiar with the Arthurian legend, so maybe I just didn't notice the beginning details too much until things became more obvious.

I still am so happy I got to dive into this story. Thank you NetGalley for providing this ARC, and thank you Molly O'Neill for your magical words.

Jenny Greenteeth is a low fae. She's also scary, and pretty disagreeable. All she wants to do is tend to her lake and be left alone.

Temperance is human and lives in a village near Jenny's lake. She loves her life with her husband and two children.

Ever since the new pastor came to town, things have felt off. Then, the town turns against her. They think she is a witch.

Jenny and Temperance must join together to save the town and the lake from the evil trying to destroy it all.

This was great! A cozy adventure story with found family vibes. Fun banter, great characters.
I highly recommend!

When the Erl King decides to take over the town by her pond, Jenny Greenteeth, a lake-dwelling monster, finds adventure thrust upon her in this post-Arthurian story of found family, fae, and good vs. evil. I was really looking forward to this one, and I'm sad to report that it didn't land for me. This book is presented as a cozy fantasy, but it did not strike that tone. The writing, in particular, was very difficult for me to connect with. Ultimately while I enjoyed the folk and Arthurian elements, I found most of the characters and world-building to be lacking in depth and most of the story to be a lot of waiting with not enough payoff.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A beautiful, lush fairy tale in the vein of T. Kingfisher's Nettle and Bone -- just familiar enough, with enough warm humor to enhance the wonder of the story. I particularly loved the writing style, which was descriptive and evocative without being overly flowery.

Minority report here: 2.5 stars, rounded up.

I was smitten with the darkly funny opening passages, in which Jenny Greenteeth describes her life as a lake monster: "Usually when I see a human, they’re either crawling away from me in horror or floating face-down in the lake"; "There’s a lot of eating to be got out of a child and most days I’m just not that hungry. I’d rather stick to fish or frogs or the occasional bag of kittens that some farmer throws in the lake. Right nice of them that is, I always thought, though it takes me ages to get the fur out of my teeth."

Yikes, and also how promising, especially given that Booklist's review describes Jenny as "morally grey." Jenny's first meeting with the witch Temperance Crump is hilarious, too -- I loved the bit where, "after some reflection," Jenny hides a human skull in her bedding so as not to alarm Temperance unduly.

But I should have paid more attention to the ad copy's characterization of "Greenteeth" as "cozy fantasy," because after that sharp, horror-laugh-inducing scene setting, it's almost all warmheartedness almost all the time among the three main characters -- Jenny; the witch Temperance; and the goblin peddler Brackus Marsh. Their characterizations and interactions kept tipping over into twee cuteness, while the plot involves Temperance being cast out of her village by a world-destroying evil masquerading as a human witchfinder; along with Jenny and Brackus, she seeks help from the cruelly amoral king of the fae. The contrast was jarring, because so little of what the characters said or did took any account of the context of their quest. Temperance, for instance, seemed to forget her lost family more often than not. And Jenny's supposed moral grayness was scarcely ever in evidence.

On the copyediting level, too, there was plenty to find fault with. So many misused words: "affectation" for "attitude" (in the sense of posture/position); farms described as "arable" (the term applies to the land itself, which anyway has to be arable by definition, if it's being used for farming); "intercedence" (what? intercession? intervention? just plain help?) ... and so on. Clunky dialogue. Weirdly anachronistic details, such as a medieval village woman referring to Europe as "the continent" and knowing the exact date at which a church was built.

The off notes and missteps accumulated until I found myself reluctant to resume reading after every time I broke off, and longing for the book to be over.

This is my first read from Molly O'Neill. This is a sort of folklore story that is reminiscent of T. Kingfisher grim fairy tales, but not as dark.
Jenny Greenteeth is an actual legend, a creature that lives near water and lured unsuspecting victims to the water's edge to snatch away.

This book is easy to read, the flow of the narration is great, and although there is some conflict in this book the stakes felt low.
We enter this world that Jenny lives in as a water-fae. who begins a close friendship and sort of found family relationship with a witch named Temperance. Jenny goes through character development, which was heart warming to see, as she has a very closed off personality to start.

If you want atmosphere and are a mood or vibe reader this would be a great read to pick up, it is in my opinion a cozy fantasy. I think Jenny is a great character that people will enjoy, I do wish we got to know more about the other characters within this book, but the little quests and dialogue was fun.

This is a fun adventure that feels like a new twist on a classic quest-based fairytale story.

The story is told from the point of view of Jenny Greenteeth, a water fae based on British mythology, who lives and maintains a lake near a small town. Jenny's world is turned upside down when a witch is thrown into the lake by as local pastor. Instead of eating the witch, she saves her. And so sets off an adventure of revenge, self-discovery, magic, and myth.

I really enjoyed the non-human narrator and getting to see the world through her perspective. We watch Jenny grow as a character, confront her past, learn to connect with others, and push herself out of her comfort zone in a surprisingly relatable way for a "monster".

I found myself more attached to the characters than I realized and by the end was really moved by their relationships and interactions with each other.

I recommend this for someone looking for the nostalgia of a classic fantasy quest-- with fae, goblins, witches, unicorns, and demons-- with a cozy feel of the English countryside.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Orbit books for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was a fun quest-based fantasy read. Our MC is Jenny Greenteeth, a green water monster living in solitude until one day a witch named Temperance is tossed into her lake as part of a small town witch trial. Jenny helps Temperance and while trying to help her return to her small town with family, Jenny discovers that a dark force is taking over the town. The monster teams up with the witch and a goblin to complete 3 quests determined by the Lord of the Hunt to help them take down this villain. There is a ton of folklore included and even Arthurian legend at the end. The plot twist absolutely got me - I knew there had to be a resolution but didn’t see that one coming!

It did feel a little slow at times and it took me a bit longer than a book this size would usually take me to read. This is also the first time in a long time that I have read a book with absolutely no romance sub plot which isn’t a bad thing, just different - I kept waiting for a romance to bloom somewhere 😂

Thank you to Orbit for an ARC in exchange for my honest review!

I'm afraid I had to DNF this book. It has a couple of tropes I really can't get into, and I don't want to spoil the book for others by mentioning them.

With that said, I know this books has an audience. The writing is good, the characters (especially Jenny) are engaging, and the evil confronting Jenny and her friends is not something I've seen often. I hope this book finds its audience!

This review has only been posted to NetGalley.

Jenny Greenteeth lives in a lake and has never spoken to a human before but one day a witch thrown into her lake and she decides to save her. Something sinister going on the village and Jenny, Temperance and a goblin named Brackus go to a quest to save their village and kinda the world. I love everything about this book.It was cosy, has action also emotional. It was such a lovely debut and cant wait to read more from Molly O'Neill. I highly recommend it to every reader. Thanks to NetGalley and Orbit Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.