The Mudpuddle Manual of Natural Magic - Ciara Blume - ★★★

AUTHOR: Ciara Blume

SERIES: Natural Magic #1

GENRE: Cozy Fantasy

PUBLICATION DATE: June 22, 2026

RATING: 3 stars.

In a Nutshell: A contemporary fantasy about a magical bookshop and some magical people connected to it. Somewhat cozy with a strong cottagecore vibe but contains a few dark events. Charming magic, some interesting characters. Second-chance romance and found family. Too cluttered with characters and subplots. Too slow-paced. A entertaining option as long as you keep your patience.

Plot Preview:

Thirty-five-year-old Maida has never been to Primrose Court – the hidden magical neighbourhood housing some interesting magical characters, including a witchy great-aunt she never knew about. But now this aunt has gone missing and the magical Mudpuddle bookshop – of which she was the caretaker – has also disappeared along with her. Turns out, Maida is the official heir to the shop so she is the only one with the authority to get the bookshop back. There’s just one hurdle – Maida has no magical powers at all. Can an ‘Ordinary’ inherit a missing magical bookshop with no clue about the functioning of the magical world?

The story comes to us in the third-person perspective of three key characters, including Maida.

Bookish Yays:

🏠 The Cottagecore worldbuilding, with many cozy nooks.

🏠 Who doesn’t love a sentient bookshop!? The second sentient element – the locket – was also equally charming.

🏠 The highlight on natural vs. artificial magic – interesting.

🏠 The way every chapter begins with an excerpt from a couple of magical manuals and journals. Some of these are quite indicative of the magical norms dictating the characters.

🏠 The ending being complete despite the story being the first of a series. No cliffhangers.

Bookish Okays:

🦌 The sheer number of characters. Especially tricky at the start to keep track of who’s who. Because of the large count, the individual character development is fairly thin. I liked many of them but wanted to know them better. Will and Zani were my favourites.

🦌 The wide age range of the characters, ranging from teen to centenarian. Quite appealing on surface level. Unfortunately, many characters didn’t sound their age. This is especially true of the characters who are in their thirties & forties but still behave as teens.

🦌 The clutter in the magic world. There’s a good mix of witches, shape shifters, Ordinary humans, mages, fae, and many more. The found-family seems genuinely like a good mixed family, but the vast range of magical character types means that each barely gets much chance to show off their skillset. I wish the type of characters had been somewhat streamlined.

🦌 The triple POV. Maida’s POV is the most appealing. Of the remaining two narrative POVs, Minerva’s starts off excellently but soon gets repetitive. Arthur’s is mostly dull, with his main purpose being to fill in the blanks where Maida can’t. Some events are narrated from multiple characters’ POVs, creating repetition and adding to the page count.

Bookish Nays:

🍬 The slow pacing, which gets especially tiresome in the second half. I struggled to concentrate towards the end.

🍬 The multitude of subplots, which combined with the numerous characters and triple perspective, makes the story feel very disjointed. Some minor tracks could have been easily eliminated.

🍬 The romance. Mostly lacklustre. I just didn’t see how the two characters became close to one another – there was just no development of feelings.

🍬 Too many adverbs and somewhat basic dialogue writing.

🍬 The trivialisation of the sexual assault in one character’s past – very awkward.

Overall, while the book started off well and had great promise, the dragged execution, the cluttered approach, and the overload of characters stopped it from being a more engrossing read for me. I’m sure I would have enjoyed it far better had it stuck to the central mystery instead of diluting it to such an extent.

This is the first book of a four-book series. Though the next book features my favourite duo – Will and Zani, I don’t feel like picking it up right away as I am not in the mood for slow reads. If I do read it in future, I hope it includes a list of the characters and their nature/abilities so that it’s not as confusing as this one was.

Recommended to readers looking for a fantasy that feels contemporary and historical at once. Better if you go in prepared for a slower read with many characters and subplots.

My thanks to Storm Publishing for providing the DRC of “The Mudpuddle Manual of Natural Magic” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

The digital version of this series is currently available on Kindle Unlimited.