This was so sweet and cozy, like a nice warm hug. The low stakes, small town, magical feel was exactly what I needed.
I think my favorite characters were the anxious little spider plant, and the adorable merhorses. The romance was adorable and a great compliment to the story.

I do wish the characters were a little more developed, but overall, I enjoyed this immensely.

3.5 ⭐️

First of all, thank you so much for the ARC. The synopsis of this book caught my interest swiftly indeed.

I’m sorry as I can’t give much higher rating, since for me the first 50% of the book doesn’t managed to glued me to it. I understand that that’s when the backstory / background story been introduced & tell, then the plot growth, but it’s too slow and stretchy for me. There are several interesting scenes but happened too briefly, then it’s back to the slow burn again. Perhaps I expected too much from the start, as I’m hoping for lots of adventures along side with magic and whatnot, but it felt a little bit too bland for these first 50%. I’m truly sorry since I really think the story & characters does have great potentials and I do like them all indeed.

Yet I’m glad that the next 50% throughout the book got me happy and good to read, unlike the first half. Now that’s when the plot thickens and keep my brain feeling juicy, as how I loves it when reading. There’s tension, problems, and each characters building becomes better, as well as the love interest starting to get more interesting and lovely as well. I love how I can still feel their connection as strongly even though they didn’t really show much or have much scenes together in this book, yet yes indeed we can definitely feel the love.

Also, I’m satisfyingly happy with the ending as well. Definitely managed to make me feel bubbly and warmth with the story at that ending, as I recollecting back at their whole journey and all, indeed overall this book is nice. Still love each characters and the environment setting in this story throughout the end. If you love a slow burn start, I think you’ll enjoy every bit from the start. ❤️

This is the cozy fantasy that I needed. I have been entranced with the growing cozy fantasy genre and this is a shining example filled with magic, books, talking plants, a female main character who is more comfortable in the library stacks than in the wild, but due to the library being burned to the ground must flee to her families abandoned home on a remote island.
Kiela flees the capital city where she has been living and working in the library, when the revolutionaries defenestrate the emperor and set fire to her beloved library, so she and her intrepid companion Caz, the spider plant that is the size of a dog, steal away with crates of books back to Caltrey and set up shop in her inherited cabin which has been left to nature.
Kiela faces the challenge of survival, nosy neighbors, small town island life, magical spell books, and an over abundance of raspberries thanks to a spell gone overboard.
Reading this feels like warm scones with raspberry jam on a beautiful summer day over looking a lake.

Highly recommend this book for everyone that wants a book that feels like a warm hug.

This book was as sweet and cozy as advertised! This follows Kiela and her leafy companion Caz, who flee from their lives as librarians to Kiela's childhood home on an island to hide with the books they were able to rescue before the war burned down the library. From there, Kiela must navigate the cast of islanders and picking up her life anew, while dodging magical suspicion.

It was perfectly fine! I think it tried to juggle too many plot points to be truly cozy, and the cast was too large to get too attached. I also think it would've been more successful without the romance? Or at least if we had gotten to know him more. He was just kind of there, and they seemed to fall for each other much faster than Kiela's prickly characterization would suggest feasible. I also found it baffling how Kiela's family moved from the island when she was nine, but she doesn't seem to remember anything about it. Toddler-age I would buy, but nine?

Overall, decent book! I don't know if I would recommend it blindly to those that liked Legends and Lattes, but it does have fun fantastical creatures.

Thanks to Tor for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

4.5 stars! Thank you to NetGalley, Bramble, and Tor Publishing Group for this advanced copy. You can pick up The Spellshop on July 9, 2024.

This book felt like a warm hug mixed with a seaside vacation. The vibes were absolutely impeccable, from the Pine Cone Coven friend group to the sweet romance to the jam-making and spell-casting. I loved Kiela's character arc throughout the book as she broke down her walls and reconnected with her family history and herself. I loved how deftly Durst wove in the feeling of coming home, or how a place and group of people feel like coming home. I just want to visit the island for myself and bask in the homey vibes.

I adored Caz and Kiela's friendship too. A sidekick sentient plant? Are you kidding me? They were hilarious and so fun to read about. It felt like the perfect foil to Kiela's otherwise introverted nature, which really came as a product of her circumstances. While I loved her dedication to books and research and the library, it felt incredible to see her letting in people who truly care about her.

If you want cozy, magical creature vibes a la Emily Wilde, Legends & Lattes, or The House in the Cerulean Sea, this is your book!

Genre: cozy fantasy

Kiela, blue skinned & blue haired librarian, escapes her city library by just the skin of her teeth when rebels set fire to it. She and her assistant Caz, a sentient spider plant, flee with the spellbooks they can grab and return to the island wear Kiela was raised. Kiela has always been a loner (truly, since her only real friend is a spider plant), so when her handsome neighbor Larran shows up to help her unasked, Kiela doesn’t know what to do. Slowly the island starts to creep back into her bones though, and she decides she needs to find a way to stay, which means setting up a jam shop as a cover up for the magical spells she’ll do to help heal her islandhome.

If you like cozy fantasy you'll enjoy this one.
I, on the other hand, need to stop requesting cozy fantasy ARCs. I keep trying, but they aren't for me. I need more conflict or better character development. And look, i knew what I was getting into when I requested a book called The Spellshop, but can we please find other central plots for cozy fantasy besides running away from the central kingdom and settling in a small town to open a shop?

That said, the Spellshop is still good writing, and, again, if you enjoy the subgenre you'll eat this book up. There's just a gentle dose of romance, too.

Blasted through this gorgeous cozy romantasy in an afternoon and it was time WELL SPENT.

I am left with the warm and fuzzies, a deepened love of plants, and a distinct craving for homemade jam. ❤️

This whimsical fantasy whisked me away to a world brimming with magic and heartwarming characters. Kiela, the librarian with a secret spellshop, and Caz, her witty sentient spider plant companion, are an absolute dream team!

The story unfolds with a gentle pace, weaving a slow-burn romance that had me rooting for them from the start. Plus, there’s a touch of mystery that keeps things interesting.

Here’s a sneak peek of what I loved:

🌱 A charming cast, including a witty sentient spider plant named Caz (yes, you read that right!)
🪄 A delightful blend of magic, whimsy, and small-town vibes
🔥 A slow-burn romance that’ll leave you swooning
🕵️ A touch of mystery keeps the plot bubbling

If you’re looking for:

❤️ A heartwarming story that will make you smile
🌎 A fantastical world with subtle worldbuilding
📕 A story that celebrates the power of books and friendship

Then The Spellshop is for you! ✨

This was a super cute cozy fantasy that felt really unique and so lovely to get lost in!! I loved the growth of the main character, and the side characters were all super wonderful. I’d 100% read spin offs with their stories! The writing was immersive and fantastical, and all of the magical creatures added such a great vibe to this story.

I didn’t care for the audiobook narrator though, her inflections drove me a bit crazy so I switched to the ebook. Other than that, don’t miss out on this one!!

🌈Queer rep: Secondary FF couple, non-gendered sentient cactus (they/them)

This cottagecore, cozy, romantasy is just what I needed! I was so excited to be an ARC Reader because the cover is absolutely gorgeous, and the story sounded so unique. It not only surprised me but blew me away! 15/5 🌟
Kiela and her talking spider plant are on the run from their burning empire to return to her childhood island along with spellbooks they saved from the burning library. They quickly discover the island is in poor condition, and she may need to use forbidden magic to help her people. Mythical creatures, fun characters, spells, self-discovery, found family, slow-burn sweet love... this book has it all!

Thank you Netgalley for the free arc in exchange for an honest review. I enjoyed a lot of aspects of this book. The beginning and the end were really interesting. I feel like the middle was a bit more boring but I don’t read a lot of cozy fantasy so I had to kind of change my mindset. Kiela was an interesting and very relatable main character. I related a lot to her anxiety and overthinking. Caz was my favorite character he was just so great! The plant version of an animal companion 😂 I’d read a book just about his and Meep’s adventures. I would say this was a solid book but it didn’t wow me and some parts were slow and harder to get through.

3.5 stars.

Read this:

if you love whimsical magic
enjoy diverse characters
adore magical creatures: cloud bears, mermaids, merhorses, unicorns & more
are a fan of found family
like a cozy fantasy with a hint of danger and suspense

I loved this world, and I immediately messaged the author to find out if this would be a series so I could live in it forever. If you love cozy magic, this is the warm fantasy hug of a book for you. Readalike for fans of Legends & Lattes.

Absolutely LOVED this book! I chatted with Sarah about it for my podcast, Novel Finds, and the episode is coming this weekend (July 7). I will keep reading her cozy romantasy books as long as she keeps writing them.

Oh, I struggled with this one, and I’m sad about it. Honestly, it could be that I didn’t mesh with the writing style. This is one of the ultimate cozy fantasy books I’ve ever read. However, it got a little too cozy for me.

I had high expectations for this one, and I’m so sad it didn’t live up. I loved the fact that we have sentient plants in this book. As a huge plant mom, it was so fun to read about living plants! Caz might have been one of my favorite characters in the whole book. Our main character, Kiela is a librarian who steals spell books to save them from a fire. She’s run back home and hoping to hide out there. Of course, once you start messing with magic, makes you a target. She was a fun character, if not a bit naive. Since she didn’t get out much and lived for the library, it’s not too surprising. The rest of the characters were interesting, and I loved the found family aspect. Small towns can be amazing when it comes to certain things.

I think my biggest issue with this book is the lack of world-building. We have this awesome magic system that I needed so much more of. I didn’t know how it worked or what it did. The fact that there is a talking plant was fabulous, but let’s dive into that! There’s a war going on, and it seems pretty deadly. We get a summary glossing over the things that have happened. Since I’m such a huge fantasy reader, this is where I wanted so much more from the book. We are not supposed to focus on that, but she laid out an interesting premise for this world.

Overall, this was an okay read for me. I didn’t hate it, and I didn’t love it. It did take me quite a bit to read because the pacing sometimes threw me off. We don’t get into much of the plot until the last 20% of the book. I kept looking at the % and wondering what could be left. There’s a lot of lovely magic and people, but it still couldn’t make up for the lack of world-building.

Thank you to Tor and Netgalley for an e-arc. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I will simply be unable to shut up about this book for the remainder of the year. It is everything I want in a cozy fantasy and the Kiela was everything I needed in a female MC. I put off finishing this book because I didn't want it to end. Truly, this book has it all: hope, found family, and genuinely lovely romance. I will read more like this from the author without hesitation. Placing this book in the same cherished space as Legends and Lattes.

Cottage core vibes and rom-com for fantasy lovers - what more could you ask for?

Super cute and cozy fantasy that follows an introverted librarian and her sentient plant companion as they flee their area of residence back to her childhood home when a rebellion attack hits the library.

Left with little belongings/money but plenty of salvaged books she spirited away from fire, our FMC uses the contents of the books to open a shop that will benefit both her livelihood and the betterment of the citizens/land.

Let’s not forget about the nosy neighbor/childhood acquaintance that just wants to help and make sure she’s alright. Totally not going to fall in love with him or anything like that.

Thank you Bramble for the e-book arc of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Overall I had a good time with this story! The cozy vibes were wonderful and I liked the characters. The pacing felt pretty slow so I did struggle to want to pick this up at times. Caz kept me going! Loved that spider plant so much!

The Spellshop is the quintessential cozy fantasy. Durst had me at sentient, pottless spider plant best friend/assistant who hops around on his root ball and suffers from anxiety.

This was an incredibly sweet and delightfully charming orignal story. It had me giggling and awwing and yaying throughout the whole book.

Women supporting women, women befriending women, women setting boundaries and saying "fuck niceness, "women NOT fighting over men, but over seemingly different morals. We need more of this. In 2024, we should have so much bickering between women over petty nonsense, and clearly Durst agrees. And somehow she had all of this in a COZY fantasy. 🤌

I can't recommend this book enough. It's a wonderful summer read. Please don't miss this one.

Thank you to Bramble and Netgalley for the eARC.

I was blessed to be given an advanced reader copy from the author, for my honest opinion. I will never have enough cozy fantasy in my life I think. In the authors note, she says that she wrote this book and wanted it to feel like a warm hug, and I completely agree that that is what this book feels like. just because this book is cozy fantasy does not mean that it doesn’t have steaks. There were still sometimes in this book where I was turning the page because I just had to know what happens next with our characters, and there were other times where I wanted to take my time and really absorb the chapter. I absolutely love all the characters, and fell in love with them and each of their own little corks. I loved the merhorses as a horse girl myself it just made me so happy. This book reminds me of Emily wild encyclopedia of fairies so if you love that book, then you should really like this one. I don’t know if this is a standalone, or if the author plans on riding more, but I would love to read more in this world. I also was looking enough to get an audio arc, and you best believe that I am going to listen to that right after finishing this.

This was the best cozy fantasy I’ve read since Legends & Lattes and Bookshops & Bonedust. Devoured this in a single sitting. You need this one if you want a cozy fantasy romance. Interesting setting, good characters. Solid character growth. The only thing I can think to complain about is the character was a wee bit too bookishly oblivious to the danger at the start. But that just gave her room to grow into a stronger character.