The Spellshop - Sarah Beth Durst - ★★★.½

AUTHOR: Sarah Beth Durst

NARRATOR: Caitlin Davies

GENRE: Cosy Fantasy

PUBLICATION DATE: July 9, 2024

RATING: 3.5 stars.

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 wherever applicable 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.