Sera Swan used to be one of the most powerful witches in Britain. Until she brought her great aunt Jasmine back from the dead, lost most of her power and was exiled from the Guild. Now, she runs an enchanted inn filled with an eclectic mix of characters and dreams about the future she could have had. When she discovers an ancient spell that could restore her powers it becomes clear that perhaps all is not lost after all.
I had a thoroughly enjoyable time with this. It was heartwarming and cosy, fantastic and magical.

There was a real mix of characters and I loved them all (well except those you’re not supposed to like). Sera was so relatable (despite her magical background) and such a lovely character to spend time with. Despite the hardships she faced, she truly did her best and this was so clear in the way everyone spoke about and responded to her. I wouldn’t necessarily say the side characters were particularly complex, but they were such a fun cast and you could really see the care they had for Sera in their interactions with her. The found family aspect was a real highlight and I loved how the different personalities gelled into one big found family. Luke was also such a good guy and I loved how he advocated for his younger sister. While there were miscommunications and a few difficulties thrown in, it was really good to see two genuinely nice people get to know and fall for each other without any major romantic drama.

I also really liked the growth we saw in Sera through the story of her missing magic. I think the time jump may have been slightly too much as we skip forward fifteen years after the first couple of chapters. While Sera has grown and is clearly a very responsible individual, her responses to the lost magic storyline at times felt a bit immature and like she was still stuck in her teenage mindset. Having said that, her ‘nemesis’ also didn’t come across as particularly mature so perhaps this worked. By the end, I do think we’ve seen real development in Sera in relation to her magic and I appreciated the message being conveyed.

I can’t say that this was the most believable thing I’ve ever read, but all of the elements combined gave me a fun, humorous, and yet cosy read that I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend for someone looking for a hug in a book.

With thanks to Hodderscape and NetGalley for the chance to read and review this eARC ahead of publication.

Last year, I absolutely loved "The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches", so I couldn’t wait to dive into Mandanna’s new cozy fantasy - and by the way, I really enjoyed it as well.
Her writing style is simply beautiful: magical, full of detail, witty, and so easy to read.
I could picture the inn so vividly: that hygge, homey feeling, the scent of cinnamon rolls in the air, jackets, papers, wellies, tea everywhere. I loved how they all gathered in the kitchen, shared meals, and spent their evenings together in the living room - each doing their own thing, but still wanting to be near one another. I fell more and more in love with all of them. Whether it was our grumps Sera and Luke, the kids Theo, Alex, and Posey, Jasmine and Mathilda who kept exchanging those longing, love-struck glances, or Clemmie, Nicholas, and the zombie chicken that brought even more loving chaos into their lives - and of course Sera’s other friends, Malik and Elliott.
I absolutely loved this found family, and I also really appreciated how Mandanna wove in other important themes like mental health, depression, getting back up when life knocks you down, reinventing yourself, belonging, rascism and classicism, fear of loss, and that it’s never too late to change, to fall in love, to start over, to stand up for yourself.
I also really liked that there was just the tiniest bit of closed-door spice. At times I was honestly worried the story might be ruined by too much spice because that simply wouldn’t have fit this cozy, whimsical vibe at all.
I’m deducting a few points for some weaknesses in the worldbuilding, especially when it comes to the magic system. Sometimes it felt a little too convenient when the story needed it to work, but at other times it didn’t quite make sense, which was a bit inconsistent. That’s also why the very end didn’t fully work for me... Sue me, but I just prefer a properly happy ending in cozy fantasy - not bittersweet.
4/5☆ from me, but definitely a rec!

What a warm and cosy book. Perfect vibes, characters and plot. I highly recommend this cosy fantasy. My first by this author and it will not be my last.

✶ PRE-READING ✶
Cosy fantasy with a magical inn and a burnt-out protagonist? Yes, please. I expected something warm, slightly chaotic, and emotionally satisfying - plus the added bonus of a reluctant hero arc, one of my favourites.

✶ POST-READING ✶
As I thought... The inn setting was bursting with charm: guests who keep secrets in suitcases, spells that run amok, and the kind of emotional messiness that makes a place feel like home. Sera’s dry humour and slow-burning vulnerability gave the story real heart, and I adored the found-family dynamic with Jasmine and the staff. The web of relationships between the characters was wonderful to trace and watch blossom and grow.

It surprised me by... ...how manic the pacing felt in places. Sera is always juggling twelve things at once, and while it fits her character, it occasionally made the story feel breathless - like cosy fantasy with a double espresso shot. That said, the book had sneaky emotional depth beneath all the chaos, especially in how it explored grief, letting go, and the fear of being unnecessary. And the romance? Delightfully awkward but grounded.

✦ RECOMMENDATIONS ✦
Book Recommendation: Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett – for another prickly academic heroine who’s reluctantly drawn into magical mischief and unexpected connection.


TV or Movie Recommendation: The House in Fata Morgana (visual novel) or The Magicians (TV series) – the former for the melancholy magic in a house full of secrets, the latter for the chaotic, clever energy and snarky trauma bonding.

This was a super cosy witchy romance read about found family and a magical inn. It was a heartwarming story and I loved it.

A wonderful cosy fantasy that is like a hug in a book. I really enjoyed it and it’s something very different to my usual reads. Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for my arc

After loving The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, I was really excited to read this, and it did not disappoint.

First of all, I really loved the setting of the Batty Hole Inn: full of life, sometimes a little messy, sometimes magical, and with just the right balance between humour, heart, and serious moments. But what drew me in the most was the chaotic mix of loud and loveable characters. It’s exactly the kind of found family story I love, where each person brings their own quirks and baggage, but they all somehow fit perfectly together.

I loved Sera as a main character. She’s one of those grumpy, stubborn characters who underneath it all just wants to protect and care for the people around her. The story does a great job exploring her loss of magic and how it affects her identity and sense of purpose. Luke’s POV brought extra depth to the story, especially his struggles as a caretaker for his autistic sister and his complicated relationship with the Guild. The romance between Sera and Luke felt very genuine, a proper slow burn, emotionally mature and with a real sense of two broken people finding comfort and trust in each other.

I also really enjoyed the smaller character moments throughout the book, from Posy and Theo’s sweet friendship to the clever magical details about how witches use their powers. Each character added something unique to the story, and their interactions felt natural and fun to read. I also appreciated how topics like depression, autism, and mental health were handled with care, without feeling too heavy.

Overall, this is a cosy fantasy with heart, humour, magic, and a strong found-family focus. It delivers exactly what it promises, a hopeful, comforting read with characters you can root for and a setting you’ll want to revisit. Highly recommended if you enjoy whimsical magic, slow-burn romance, and character-driven stories with emotional depth.

Thank you to Netgalley and Hodder & Stoughton for the opportunity to read this book. All opinions are my own.

Super cute and cosy, loved Posy, she was so sweet. I loved the inn’s little quirks like raining sweet tea. However, I, definitely preferred The Secret Society of Irregular Witches, I think I just gelled with that one better and found I wasn’t connecting with the characters in this one as much.

I absolutely loved The Very Secret Society by Mandanna and was really excited to read this one. It had similar vibes but unfortunately I didn't love it as much as thr first one but still it's worth the read.

It's magical, heartwarming, wholesome, and the right amount of quirky. The story begins when Sera Swan looses her magic and is exiled by the Guild. She is now a little grumpy and runs a magical Inn with hot aunt. The guests are unique in their own way which adds to the whimsical and fun part of the story.

2.7 Stars
One Liner: Nice vibes but tries too hard
Sera Swan went from being one of the most powerful witches in Britain to being exiled from the Guild after resurrecting her great-aunt and losing her magic. She runs an inn in Lancashire, dealing with quirky quests and hoping to get her magic back.
Then Sera finds a book that has the secret to restore her power. However, she needs help from Luke Larsen, the historian she has a history with. As they work together, Sera realizes that magic was with her all along!
The story comes in the third-person POVs of Sera and Luke, with random switches to omnipresent POV.
My Thoughts:
After enjoying The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches (adult fic) and loving Vanya and the Wild Hunt (MG fic), I was excited to read this one. While the book has all the vibes you need for a cozy witchy feel-good fiction, they don’t translate to a wholesome novel.
What I Like:
• The setting of the inn, its descriptions, and the magic around it. The place gives safe and homely vibes, which is exactly what it is.
• The collection of misfits who made the inn their home. Quirky, sweet, and a bit OTT, but good people (with a huge gray area in the case of Clemmie).
• Jasmine, the FMC’s great-aunt. A bit surprised by her backstory, but I guess that was the intention.
• Posy and Theo, the two kids, make the book easier to read.
• The concept of the restoration spell and the final ingredients that worked.
• A few scenes here and there with some laughs and the narration that suited the scenes.
What Didn’t Work:
• The slow pacing should have added to the intrigue but failed to create a proper hook. This is not a book where I can say the story started with a bang. It sadly didn’t.
• The loose plot is pretty thin and depends entirely on vibes to create the required impact. I stopped my first day’s reading at 55% and could sum up everything in a single line.
• The romance was supposed to be a slow burn, but ended up lacking chemistry and emotion. All the right words are there, but the feel is missing.
• A book with nice diversity and varied themes like racism, immigration, bias, etc., should have been good. Sadly, it doesn’t feel natural but more like ticking off a checklist to please certain audiences.
• Loads of assurances and ‘you are good as you are’ speeches that don’t do the job. I’d rather they all helped come up with ideas for the spell. That would have been more fun.
• The climax and ending. After all the struggle and everything, you end up doing this? Duh! Come on! There has to be a loophole to fix it.
• The villain is also all vibes and snobbish with little substance. Give him some meat. Even if it is a cozy fantasy, he can play the part better than this.
To summarize, A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping has its moments, but it doesn’t meet my expectations. The best way to mess up something is to try too hard. Looks like that’s what happened here.
Thank you, NetGalley and Hodderscape, for the eARC. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

Thank you to NetGalley, Hodder & Stoughton, and Sangu Mandanna for the advanced copy of A Witch's Guide To Magical Innkeeping in exchange for an honest review.

I really loved The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches and had been waiting so long for Mandanna's next book, which just...didn't live up to my expectations, unfortunately. The book was good and I did enjoy but there was just something missing. The magic, pardon the pun, that Irregular Witches had just wasn't here. I don't know if there was anything specific, it just didn't do it for me.

I loved Mandanna’s first book, The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, and have been eagerly waiting the release of this book (which kept getting delayed!) so I was so excited to receive the ARC of this from NetGalley.

I struggled to get into the book initially but I’ve also been going through a reading slump so I can’t blame the book. The book has my favourite thing: a sentient house! It’s actually an inn but it has character for sure. The book is full of cosy characters and a found family. Mandanna does cosy fantasy so well.

In a nutshell, this book is about Sera who loses her magic and is a quest story in acquiring objects for a spell to get it back. I felt the book really picked up when Luke appeared at the inn, and then I was hooked and really started to fall for all the characters.

I like that Mandanna features big themes in her book even though it’s a cosy fantasy. There is depth to it. She talks about the displacement of her characters who though they have lived in the UK for a long time will never be claimed by this land because they’re foreign in their ethnicity. This touched me deeply as someone born and raised in England but will always be seen in such a way because I’m not Caucasian. She also shows depression and how Sera has overcome it but how it shames her to look back on her old self. Things that are very real that people grapple with in reality.

There is your typical buildup to some drama that was featured in her previous novel. They’re always dramatic yet quickly and neatly resolved as it’s a low stakes cosy fantasy novel. Mandanna writes wonderful characters and this one snuck up on me and made me fall in love with everyone.

I initially felt like I preferred her debut novel but there is a maturity and depth to this novel which I can definitely see in her growth as a writer. There are some insightful monologues about our society that I particularly resonated with being ethnically not Caucasian even though I am British through and through.

Overall, I give this a much deserved 5 stars.

Thank you to Netgalley, Sangu and Hoodderscape for the chance to read this book early!

I really enjoyed A Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches but I have to say this book? ABSOLUTELY AMAZING! I did not want to put it down.

The magic, the romance, the found family! This book was magical. I laughed, cried and stayed up until 3am for it.

I could not recommend this enough for lovers of cozy fantasy. I was absolutely in love with Theo and Posy, they were adorable. And the roster, one can not forget the roster.

I can not wait to be able to re-read it when I get my physical copy next month!

If the other book, The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, felt very cozy and warm, this made my heart much more cozy and warmer. I definitely enjoyed the story and its diverse and unique characters.

The story was so beautifully written and I absolutely loved the setting. I laughed, I cried, I fell in love. This is a highly entertaining fantasy filled with rich world-building, vivid and original characters, and a captivating magical setting.

This book felt like a warm hug and a mug of piping, steaming hot chocolate. I adored this one so so much and finished it pretty much all in one day (and if you're me, this rarely happens). The found family trope will always be something I adore and the found family in this one was absolutely beautiful to read about and see unfold (I would fight battles for everyone in this book but especially Matilda and Nicholas).

If you want to read about a witch who lost her powers living with a zombified chicken, a resurrected aunt, a mischievous witchy cousin, a medieval fair knight, a kind old lady (who cannot garden to save her life) and a talking fox all whilst running a magical Inn and falling in love with the scholarly historian (and his adorable, heart filled with gold sister) then read this is the book!!! it's heartwarming, it's funny, its sweet. The characters are what make this book and I adored all of them so so much. As someone who has not read the very secret society of irregular witches yet, you bet I am picking that one up next and any future cozy adult romance with unconventional found families that Sangu Mandanna writes next.

I loved the author's first book, and this one is just as magical! With found family, a slow-burn romance, and quirky, lovable characters, I enjoyed every moment. A wonderful, witchy, cosy read that's perfect for losing yourself in another reality for a few hours! Highly recommend.

This is such a heartwarming and delightful book, it’s set in the same world as the previous book but it is a standalone, although I really recommend reading both.
Sera is a very powerful young witch with a tremendous amount of potential, but thanks to a particularly unpleasant “mentor” and the death of her dearest relative, she finds herself with very few stars in her sky. However she still radiates love and compassion, and she draws people to her and her inn.
The characters in this book are wonderful, Nicholas is a favourite of mine, and they are the very best kind of found family. The romance is charming, although as with the last book, I would have preferred a fade to black. I think that the relationship between Sera and Luke is perfection, they are both very deserving of each other in the best possible way.
A definite recommend.

I absolutely adored A Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, and this book is better! The book follows Sera Swan, who was one of the most powerful witches in England, until she resurrects her dead aunt and loses most of her magic. She spends the next 15 years running a magical inn and trying to find a way to reclaim her magic. But the story is not about her magic, it’s about her inn, which has been spelled to only allow in the people who need a place to rest and recover. And through the inn she meets people and creates her own family, which is its own special kind of magic. There’s a skeletal rooster, a sarcastic fox and a sexy librarian. All of this makes for a highly entertaining story that also touches on classism, racism and the bullying Sera endured from a mentor who was jealous that Sera’s magic was greater than her own. While the magic in this book is great, it’s the inn and the people within that make up the heart of the story.

This was a bit of a rollercoaster. Ultimately it is a 4 because I love Sangu Mandanna writing, her characterization and representation, and the ending of this book.
I didn't know when I picked this book that there would be autism representation in it and it was really well done. I love Posy with all my heart and partially related to her.
If you like slow burn, you will probably like the relationship between Sera and Luke.
Another thing I love in this book is the Found family part. Different characters in ages, in social rank, in ability who find shelter and home in the same inn, by being together and helping each other. There was not a single characters (living in the inn) I did not like.

My main and only problem with this book was the pace. It was not balance, all over the place and like all or nothing. The first 1/4 and the last 20% were well paced and really interesting, the dynamic and action were balanced but the in between ? too long for nothing. It is a 330-ish pages book but it took me so long to read it because of that.

Oh, the love I have for this book! I also adored The Secret Society of Irregular Witches so this wasn’t a surprise, I knew this would be the diamond it was.

I firstly want to talk about Posy. Posy is the little sister of Luke, the love interest. She’s autistic and mostly non-verbal with high needs when it comes to education. The way she was spoken about within the book was done with so much love and care. She was so, so loved and this is something I wish all autistic people had. She was truly accepted, she has been failed and hurt in the past and Luke (alongside the rest of the inn residents) were determined this wouldn’t be part of her future.

Disability in general is all throughout this book, including Jasmine who has a clubfoot. The inn was full of ‘misfits’ who had been rejected from the world for one reason or another but had found home and family with one another. They made an effort to include each other and make sure everyone felt safe and cared for. It was such a utopia and I never wanted the book to end, I loved being in there so much.

There’s also a storyline about accepting you, including flaws and imperfections, because all of you deserves to be loved and I adooored this message. The way Luke and Sera loved each other and helped each other achieve this, as well, was heartwarming. I loved them together. The slow burn and the yearning was exactly what I was looking for right now, too.

Jasmine and Matilda were older queer women, also, that you don’t often see in love stories and I have so much love for them both.

The writing in general was so funny, entertaining and it played like a film in my head. Sangu Mandanna may have only published two books I’ve read so far, but I’m pretty sure I can count her as one of my favourite authors. I love her and her books so much, I could go on and on about why I loved this book but I think you should just read it instead. I just finished it and I already can’t wait to re-read it.