The Spellshop

In this book I learned that when the stakes are lowest, they're also the highest when there's people involved. And the most important messages in this book are to stand with each other, and to share knowledge and not abuse power.
I wanted to state this simply to show that this is not just the coziest of cozy fantasies (which it is) or a slow burning romance (which it is) or a story about love is love (which it is), but also an important statement against oppression and pro taking everyone as they are, open communication and community.
It took me a little while to warm up to the characters of Kiela and Caz, but once I did they invaded my heart and now live there rent-free. All the other characters are just as lovely (except those who aren't), but I'm not gonna lie: Meep is my favorite, my spirit animal...uh...plant.
This book is like eating a cinnamon roll while being hugged by a warm blanket. The writing style is so vivid, I have all of Caltrey in my head as if I've been there. And the inevitable conflicts are solved in ways that are unique and stem from everything I mentioned above.
This book works perfectly as a standalone, though I'd visit the island and its people again anytime.

Hurray to Pine Cone Coven!

5/5 jars of jam

Thank you @netgalley and @panmacmillan and @sarahbethdurst for the eARC !

#Spellshop #PineConeCoven #Netgalley #Bookstagram

This is a lovely cozy fantasy, with delightful characters. There is a delicious romantic vibe too. It's such an easy read, I felt so warm and snuggly reading it.

4,5*
Thank you Pan MacMillan, Tor and NetGalley for providing me an e-arc in exchange for an honest review. My review is my own and not influenced by others.

The Spellshop is the first book written by Sarah Beth Durst that I’ve read by this author. I have one of her other books Race the sands on my shelves and after reading The spellshop, I’m definitely going to read that soon.

We follow Kiela as our FMC who escapes a coup and a big fire in the Great Library where she works and lives with her Spider plant friend Caz. They decide to return to the island where Kiera grew up and start a shop; selling jam and spells to help the islanders living on this island because they have difficulty now the sorcerers don’t come to the island.

First of all, I loved, loved, loved the world building and every creature living in it. It is really an one of a kind world building and I loved living in it while reading this book. The writer was creative and wonderful in creating it and this alone makes me recommend this book!
The characters were divers and lovely. From the beginning of the story I felt a connection with Kiera as a main character and the journey she went on. Almost all the characters in this book were nice and developed and the character I didn’t like in this book, didn’t stick around so that cleaned up nicely.

The spellshop is a cozy, heart warming, romantasy book with all the elements you’re looking for when you want to sit on the couch, a warm drink in your hand, getting lost and found in the world building, laughing out loud and swoon with the romance that is just lovely to read.

I loved this a whole lot. So cosy and fun. Highly recommend this fun adventure. I had a great reading experience. Everything was just so sweet.

I really enjoyed this book. It was such a nice cosy mystery and with magic too!
I found the book to be well written with a good steady plot. The world building was fantastic and I loved learning about the unique magic system, the rules and the politics that were hinted at too!
I really enjoyed all characters and found that they had good depths to them. I especially loved the side characters and the plants too!! This was one of those books where once you start you can’t stop reading for wanting more.

I absolutely loved The Spellshop!
Cozy fantasy has become one of my favourite genres recently and I just can't get enough of reading it! I almost always love every one I've read and The Spellshop was no exception!
It's probably one of my new favourites.of the genre as well!

This writing was amazing and I'll definitely be reading more by Sarah Beth Durst. I actually recentlynfound one of her books on my shelves (The Bone Maker) and I'm really excited to read it.
The plot had great pacing which was great as some cozy fantasy books can be a little slow.
I really loved all the characters though Caz was my favourite! I also really liked the romance though I wish we had more of it!

I definitely highly recommend this book especially to any fan of cozy fantasy!
Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for a review.

I don’t know what I was expecting from this when I asked for it but gardening, cottage decoration and renovation, jam making, baking, magic, and romance was what I got. Oh and an enchanted sentient spider plant.

Cozy fantasy was a genre I didn’t realise I needed, but this book is like one big gentle hug with enough peril and romantic suspense to keep you interested in the story.

Keila, a librarian with a passionate love and respect for books, and a sentient spider plant assistant called Caz who escape from the Imperial Library during a revolution make their way back to Keila’s home island.

So far so fantasy, but on the island they find her parent’s old cottage in good enough condition to start making it a place to live and hide the spell books they rescued (or if being unkind, stole). A lot of the book is taken up with making this cottage a home, and there are lots of descriptions of homey spaces which is just so comfortable to read.

They meet so many kind people on the island, especially Larran… We watch as relationships flourish around common grounds of cinnamon buns and raspberry jam.

There was some peril but these were perils that gave a reason for people to work together to show that kindness begets kindness and that it is rare for people to be downright ornery.

The main peril is that Keila decides to use magic from the spell books to help the island and islanders who have fallen on hard times, but this is a crime against Imperial law, but does the Empire still exist, does the law still exist, after all there has been a revolution!

I really liked this take on storytelling and it has given us a great world that we could return to again and again as it is set in an ‘Empire’ of islands.

Oh and there are flying cats!

I received this book from NetGalley and Pan Macmillan in exchange for an honest review.

*thank you so much to NetGalley for providing me with an arc!*

The Spellshop is like a cup of hot chocolate or a freshly baked bread with raspberry jam. A cozy fantasy with low stakes, a charming, bookish heroine, and her faithful friend, a talking plant. Written in the same vein as Legends and Lattes, and The House in The Cerulean Sea, this story is a must for lovers of cozy fantasy. Forced to start over, Kiela arrives at the peaceful island she grew up at with nothing but a stack of illegal spell books and Caz, her best friend- who just so happens to be a plant too.
On the island, Kiela is forced to do something incredibly dangerous… talking to people. Once a librarian, talking to people is not what she’s best at, and her first meeting with her new neighbor Larran, is awkward to say the least.
In her parent’s old cottage, Kiela starts a jam shop- at least that is what she tells everyone- and slowly, she discovers that perhaps it is possible to start over after all.

Well, I absolutely loved this. The Spellshop had super cosy vibes and a low stake storyline that moved consistently. The characters were all saccharine sweet in the best of ways and the romance was slow, gentle and lovely.

The main character Kiela is a plant loving bookworm/entrepreneur with a penchant for gardening and turning her crop into jams so I couldn't relate to her more if I tried. I loved her character so much; tough and resourceful but kind with a heart of gold. Even if this book didn't have a story, I would have just loved reading about the idyllic cottage life she carved out for herself.

I would definitely recommend this for anyone who loves a cosy, easy reader. It reminded me of Legends and Lattes, both in how well written it was and how it made me want to curl up with warm baked goods and my book.

I received an early e-copy of this book via Netalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was like a hug in a book! I loved it so much! Cozy fantasy is strongly becoming one of my favourite genres, and this book is a stunning example of this genre.
Kiela is such a relatable character. She is a librarian who prefers the company of books to people (don't we all!) and her best friend is a sentient spider plant named Caz. She flees back to the island where she grew up when her library burns, taking five crates of illegal spell books with her, with the intention of hiding away in her family's old cottage. But the island has other plans, and she quickly becomes part of the community and befriends a whole host of colourful characters.
The characters and relationships is what really made this book for me! I love Kiela's journey from shy loner to a central part of the community. Every character is so unique and well developed. I especially loved Caz, Larran and Bryn. The story was lovely, and it had the perfect amount of low-stakes peril, without me worrying too much for the characters.
I believe this is a stand-alone, but the world building was so fabulous that I would love for the author to return to this world, and these characters in a future book.

This is probably my favourite book I've read so far this year, and I can't wait to read more from this author :)

This was one of the best cosy fantasies that I've ever read. It was like a warm bowl of soup on a cold day. I loved every second of it. It was everything I wanted in a cosy fanatasy - a sweet romantic sub-plot, spells, magical creatures and of course cats. I also didn't know I needed a talking spider plant but apparently I did. I love Caz.

Thank you to Netgalley and Pan Macmillan for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

A heartwarming story about community, helpfulness, and found family. Kiela is a deeply understandable protagonist. She goes from constantly having her guard up and rejecting help out of fear, to slowly seeing the good others mean for her. The story touches on points like social boundaries and fears, anxiety and overthinking, and the feeling of needing to stay hidden to protect oneself.
First and foremost, the story is touching and incredibly adorable.

Kiela is a librarian in the city, happiest between the shelves by herself, except for her best friend Caz, a sentient spiderplant. When rebels attack, she rescues her most important spell books and sets sail for Caltrey, the island she grew up on and where her parents' old cottage is. Pretty soon Kiela finds out that the magic coming from the city is causing lots of issues on Caltrey - but using magic as a civilian is forbidden...

This book is SO cute and cozy. It's really silly and honestly it's like a hug in a book. All the happy things are in here. Totally recommend if you need something solid to cheer you up!

This book was provided by Pan Macmillan through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I keep getting five star books and discovering amazing authors
through NetGalley, I love it !

This book should be read by people who wish they could time travel to the Great Library of Alexandria, to save books from the fire.

The main character, Kiela, is an antisocial librarian who escapes the fire of the Empire's Great Library with 5 crates of extremely rare spell books, on a little boat, with her assistant, Caz the sentient spider-plant. Not knowing where else to go, she decides to go hide on the island where she grew up, far away from the Empire's capital.

There, she rediscovers life, through friendship, love, gardening, even jam-making ! This book made me buy so much jam, because the descriptions of Kiela's jam spread on the baker's freshly baked goods made me really hungry !

This book is a good cozy fantasy, where enough happens to make the story interesting. But the author doesn't forget to spend a lot of time describing food, gardens, shelves building, gossip sessions with new friends, and all the stuffs we love in cozy fantasy.

Sarah Beth Durst creates a really interesting world. The characters look very interesting : some of them are blue, some of them have four arms, some of them have hooves. The cats have feathers and the horses are merhorses. Magic is needed for trees to grow, for the weather to be good, for animals to reproduce.

This book really feels like it should be made into a Studio Ghibli movie.

Phenomenal.
There are a lot of cozy fantasy novels being published at the moment, but I have to say that this is probably my favourite (apart from Legends and Lattes) yet.
It has warmth, humour, wonderful characters, a joyful descriptive style and just everything I want from a book: romance, books, flying cats, a merbaby, a sentient plant (or two) cloud bears, magic, and so much more.
This is going to be top of my recommendation list.

I received both a digital and physical copy of this book, and OMG!

Right I like comparing some of my books to games, think dnd meets stardew valley (both of which I am super obsessed with atm). This was so cozy and cute! I need more books in this universe. I don’t wanna spoil anything for anyone, I will say there are really cute companions in this book. (Notice I didn’t just say animals) 🤐

If you like Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree and Bookshops and Bonedust. Pick this book up!

Honestly, this is the best book i've read so far in 2024. I started reading it during a really turbulent period in my life and it brought me peace when I didn't think that would have been possible!

The vibes, the romance, the found-family, the island of Caltrey and THE JAM are PEAK cosy fantasy! I feel like i've been on this beautiful island with the characters and I was so invested in the story that it was a huge stuggle to put my Kindle down each night. I don't want to ruin any part of the plot but if you are a fan of Legends and Lattes then this is 100000% the next book you should pick up!

I really hope we hear more from these characters or get another book from this author because I am OBSESSED!

10 out of 5 stars!!

Utterly captivating!!

I think I was only 2 chapters into this before I preordered the hardback. Described as a cosy fantasy, it really does epitomise the genre.

Kiela is a cinnamon bun, book loving introvert librarian, with a sentient spider plant as a best friend. Rarely have I connected with a character as much as her, and I think she may be one of my all time favourite book characters! Fleeing a violent revolution, Kiela returns to the island of her birth, saving what books she can. Whilst meant as a fleeting visit, Kiela learns the island needs her and her spellbooks - and just perhaps, the island has something that she needs too.

There is magic, friendship, romance, cloud bears, flying cats, jam, baked goods, mermaids, merhorses and just wholesome characters with an equally wholesome plot.

I loved every aspect of this book. I read most of it out loud to my 12 week old baby, so I think I'll forever associate it with cosy baby cuddles, hot chocolate and sweet treats (yes, includjng cinnamon buns!). To me, this book is perfect and, whilst I maybe sometimes get carried away with 5 star ratings, this is truely deserving.

Highly recommend, especially for fans of Legends and Lattes.

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Also - I just want to jump into that cover -I think it's one of the most beautiful I've ever seen!

Thank you to Pan Macmillan and NetGalley for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Reading The Spellshop felt like being wrapped in a fluffy blanket, curled up on a plush sofa, and having a nap in the sun. It was the epitome of cosy vibes. I loved every second of it.

The best way I could describe this book would be a Hallmark movie storyline set in a cosy fantasy world. It has all the markers that make us fall in love with a feel good romance story over and over again. A big city career woman who isn’t particularly fond of people returns to her small hometown (in this case, island village), and after doing everything wrong and bumbling through simple tasks (like not losing your chicken), falls in love with the calmer way of life… and the hunky, overly helpful neighbour she initially despised for being her opposite in every conceivable way. We even get the local baker who’s a notorious gossip and the grumpy old man who hates ‘city folk’! A tried and true classic romance storyline that is comfortable and easy to melt into.

While I would personally classify this book as a romantacy, it’s about so much more than just romantic love. Our main character, Kiela, goes on a personal and physical journey that involves finding herself after tragedy, falling in love with herself and others, finding home and community, and a light-hearted take on the importance of civil disobedience. Throughout the story, she challenges her own motives as well as the motives behind the laws of her land.

Other than a few minor continuity errors that will hopefully be resolved before it goes to print, this book was so easy to fall into and get lost in the story. It gave me that perfect cottage core fantasy I’m always yearning for. Such a great read for a sunny afternoon in the garden or an evening curled up by the fire. I have a feeling this is a story I’ll come back to again and again. I was gifted a digital ARC by the publisher in exchange for this review, but I have a feeling I’ll be purchasing a paperback hard copy as soon as they’re available. This is a book I’d love to have a battered, well-read copy of on my shelves that I can pick up any time I’m needing a quick dopamine boost.

There are a few content warnings I would give for this story (domestic abuse, war, and loss). However, they are handled in a way that is respectful to the reader and are not overly detailed in a way that makes you hold your breath. Instead, they help to provide depth to our characters and better understand their motives and backstories.

Overall, I give this book five stars for its clever use of genre, wholesome energy, and overall warmth. Would read again… and again and again.