Review--The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst

 

The Spellshop is Sarah Beth Durst’s romantasy debut–a lush cottagecore tale full of stolen spellbooks, unexpected friendships, sweet jams, and even sweeter love.

Kiela has always had trouble dealing with people. Thankfully, as a librarian at the Great Library of Alyssium, she and her assistant, Caz—a magically sentient spider plant—have spent the last decade sequestered among the empire’s most precious spellbooks, preserving their magic for the city’s elite.

When a revolution begins and the library goes up in flames, she and Caz flee with all the spellbooks they can carry and head to a remote island Kiela never thought she’d see again: her childhood home. Taking refuge there, Kiela discovers, much to her dismay, a nosy—and very handsome—neighbor who can’t take a hint and keeps showing up day after day to make sure she’s fed and to help fix up her new home.

In need of income, Kiela identifies something that even the bakery in town doesn’t have: jam. With the help of an old recipe book her parents left her and a bit of illegal magic, her cottage garden is soon covered in ripe berries.

But magic can do more than make life a little sweeter, so Kiela risks the consequences of using unsanctioned spells and opens the island’s first-ever and much needed secret spellshop.

Like a Hallmark rom-com full of mythical creatures and fueled by cinnamon rolls and magic, The Spellshop will heal your heart and feed your soul.

The Spellshop is Sarah Beth Durst's foray into fantasy romance and is a tale that is just filled with sweetness, goodness, and magic of course! This was a bit different from my usual kind of fantasy reads as it just felt so genuinely kind throughout. I kept expecting big bad horrors to darken the heroine's life, but we never really got that to the extreme.

This is definitely what one would call a cozy, heart-warming read. This book is like a big hug when you need it most. Kiela was once a librarian at the Great Library of Alyssium. A place where spellbooks and other books regarding magic and history were always kept. When political upheaval starts brewing around town, Kiela began sequestering books to safety and when the word of the emperor being killed hits, she and her sentient spider plant--yes, a sentient spider plant--named Caz flee with the books and seek safety in Kiela's old childhood home on the island of Caltrey.

After putting her family home back to rights, Kiela gets the idea to sell jam and also magical spells that she'd call remedies since magic is pretty much outlawed everywhere. It's here that the once non-peopley person librarian makes friends with fellow townspeople and even her neighbor, Larran, whom she vaguely remembers from her childhood.

But all is no longer well when an Imperial Investigator washes ashore and begins to look for signs or evidence of magic being used on the island. Kiela will do whatever it takes to protect her friends and the new life she has created here, even if it were to mean leaving the island all together.

Looking at this book I would have never really thought to pick it up myself, but an upcoming signing made me say, why not? Lol. It is a very sweet and almost simple kind of book, there was some conflict of course to give some level of danger. I truly enjoyed Kiela's "sidekicks," Caz, the sentient spider plant, soon to be joined by a miniature sentient cactus who can only say Meep! Meep was by far the cutest and probably my favorite!

As far as the romance goes this was another sweet kind that took time to develop. I totally related to Kiela at times with struggling to "people" and socialize and of course her love of books and treasuring them for the treasures that they are! But how she interacted with Larran was just so relatable as well! Larran was another kind soul as well. He and Kiela were a perfect match.

I will say that at times the pacing did get a little too slow. Like I was wondering what direction was this story heading in as there wasn't too much to go on at times. These slower books usually kind of throw me sometimes, because while I generally love a fast paced read, these slower ones seem to take more time to get through and yet, I can't seem to throw in the towel on them either.

All in all, The Spellshop was a perfectly cozy and magical fantasy read! With a budding romance, great friends, and a wee bit of conflict, this was a tale that was simply enchanting!

Overall Rating 3.5/5 stars