The author said she wanted to write a book that felt like a warm hug and this is 100% that book! It's so tender and soft and welcoming. I adore this island we get to know and the tight-knit community that our main character finds a home with. The romance is very much on the side of the story while the low stakes plot takes center stage. I didn't know I wanted a book about an introverted, grumpy, neurodivergent-coded librarian finding a home but damn I ate this book up! It is 100% an ode to book lovers. Sometimes books about books can get too meta for me personally but this definitely captured the joy of books as sources of information and texts that bring us together without detracting from the story. The narrator did such a fantastic job of helping to develop the world further. I listened to the audio as much as I could because the world was so much more cozy when listening to Caitlin Davies performance. I adored this cozy world and if you're looking for a reprieve from the mundanity of your life I recommend you enter this world of merhorses and sentient spider plants and everyday magic. Lovers of Legends and Lattes and The House of the Cerulean Sea should definitely pick this book up because I bet it'll be right up your alley.

Much thanks to Sarah Beth Durst, MacMillan Audio, and NetGalley for allowing me to listen to a free eaudio ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I adore this book! So charming, and so full of heart and fun. It feels like the author enjoyed writing it as much as I enjoyed reading it---or listening to it, rather; the narrator, Caitlin Davies, was wonderful. The worldbuilding is thorough but accessible, though I admit I struggled to envision some things, such as a sentient spider plant and a merhorse giving birth. Winged cats I could picture, but it's rather a terrifying idea to me, lol! If not for Davies giving life to Caz (the spider plant), I'm not sure my imagination could have done him justice. And Meep! The token they/them request threw me a bit, but Meep was so adorable I wanted to reach in and squeeze her to me. Which would hurt, because they're a cactus. But oh, what fun this was. I'm sure there are flaws to find if I looked, but I couldn't care less. The story works well enough as it is and I love it.

4.25⭐️
Loved! Super cute fantasy that I thought would be way less exciting than it was!

The characters were super likable (except that one man GOD I HATE THAT MAN. I WANTED TO THROW HIM OUT A WINDOW) and so freaking cute 😭🩷

The plot was plotting and the vibes were vibing.

The romance felt a bit underdeveloped and the book went on a little too long towards the end there (there were at least 3 different instances where I thought it was about to get wrapped up, but it would suddently pick back up again) but those are my only real issues with it.

Totally recommend picking this one up. It's was a really cute read.

Put this one on the shelf right between Emily Wilde and Honey Witch! This one is peak cozy fantasy and I gobbled it right up.

Filled with easy and natural world-building, Sarah Beth Durst flawlessly transports you into her fantastical story. I’m unsure if it was the talking plant, the subtle romance, or the adoring found family that enchanted me but I loved just about everything about this one!

The narrator was wonderful and truly brings you into the Kiela’s whimsical Spellshop. This is the perfect book to pick up at the start of autumn, so put it on your tbr!

OK SO, I LOVED THIS!!

Very cozy romance with magic, civil unrest and low stakes.

The world building was chef's kiss and the sentient sidekicks with the snappy mouth is a nice comic relief. I found myself in the jam shop, by the seashore about to mount the Mer-seahorse, and running through town looking for shelter from the storm. I was all in from the first chapter!

The voice actor did a great job of keeping me engaged as well as bringing life into the characters as individuals, with their own personalities. I really did enjoy the experience of this book.

I will continue reading the work so of this author.

Thank you to Macmillion and Netgalley for the advanced listener copy!

What a heartwarming, sweet, and lovely cozy fantasy! If you're not into cozy fantasies, this book will be very boring, it is not plot heavy. But the charming characters and fantastical creatures you learn about make up for any lack of plot! There are sentient plants, mer-horses, centaurs, forest spirits, sorcerers, and a vast array of other human-creature hybrids (scales for skin? Goat horns? wings? you got it!). Sarah Beth Durst created such a vibrant and enchanting world in The Spellshop, I would love to revisit this world again!

Kiela is a very relatable introverted bookworm, with her only companion being Caz, the spider plant. Until her entire hermit lifestyle is uprooted and she has to flee to her childhood cottage on a small island with an entire collection of magical spellbooks that may or may not be illegal to possess. Kiela herself is a hybrid human-creature, she has light blue skin, dark blue hair, and pinkish freckles. Kiela must start her life over, and a large amount of the plot is cleaning up the cabin, meeting the townsfolk, and starting her jam making business. It was so wholesome and lovely! Caz was amazing and hilarious! I can picture him getting worked up and flailing his little arms! The romance in this book is more of a subplot, which I didn't mind at all. Kiela and Loren are cute and awkward together, which I found very accurate to Kiela's lifestyle she was living up until now. Loren is such a tender-hearted, kind, and brave man who raises mer-horses and doesn't hesitate to help others in need.

My only complaints about this book:
1) Kiela is off-putting at times towards Loren, the love interest. I understand that she is not very social and is awkward, and I also understand that she is trying to hide the spellbooks and is fearful of being caught. But there wasn't any resolution to how she acted towards Loren, no declaration of her feelings and why she acted the way she did. He just somehow knew that she had feelings for him, he was that trusting and secure. Luckily I feel like the romance was a bit of a subplot so it didn't bother me too much.
2) The random trauma background of a certain character that doesn't get as much page time as I feel it should've. It felt like a last minute thing to throw into just to give this character some personality, which I feel like they didn't need and the introduction of this past veers the book away from the Cozy Fantasy sub-genre. It should be explored more thoroughly or taken out all together.

Kiela flees to the island of her youth after war ravages the city she was living in. She secretly smuggles as many spellbooks as she can in hopes of protecting them. In order to make a living while staying in her childhood home, she decides to use some of forbidden magic to help not only herself but those around her.

Do you love small town romance but sometimes wish one had a magical twist? The Spellshop is the book for you. This cozy romantasy has everything I didn’t even know I was looking for. Caz, Kiela’s sentient houseplant, is obviously my favorite character. He reminds me a bit of Calcifer from Howl’s Moving Castle.

The audiobook for The Spellshop is excellent. The narrator, Caitlin Davies, does a wonderful job not only portraying such a wide range of characters but setting the overall mood of the book through her tone.

For a stand-alone fantasy book, the author does an excellent job building such an immersive magical world without it being daunting for readers who may be new to reading this genre. This is the first book that I have read from Sarah Beth Durst but I truly enjoyed the style of her writing and would love to read more of her work in the future.

I voluntarily listened to and reviewed an advanced copy of this audiobook. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

The Spellshop is a cozy fantasy that ends up with some high stakes at the end, which I was actually really happy with because I’m new to cozy fantasy and I enjoy higher stakes fantasy! The beginning of the book is an ease into a post-revolutionary empire, which sounds exciting, but the lens is narrowed on Kiela and her sentient spider plant assistant, Caz. This narrow lens in a chaotic setting was actually really interesting to me because Kiela has emotionally and physically removed herself from society as a librarian, who seems even less sociable than the other librarians around her, and we find later on that she has already experienced the trauma of loss in her life, which makes her reaction to her government’s overthrow and subsequent executions make a little more sense—essentially Kiela remains numb throughout the fighting until her library is burned, and despite that resulting in her escape, she has an odd calm during the flight. All that is to say that throughout the book Kiela comes to terms with her trauma and PTSD-seeming symptoms as soon as she is safely ensconced in her childhood home. This type of character study may not sound very cozy, but the way it’s written by Sarah Beth Durst is calm and unobtrusive. The political upheaval in the far background of the setting and the focused lens on Kiela and her small island village act as foils in this book and made this cozy fantasy so much deeper than a simple comfort read—truly my type of story!

My favorite part of the story was watching Kiela develop relationships with the other villagers. Like the plants she and Caz cultivate in their garden, Kiela sprouted and bloomed in the safe space she found among new friends and old acquaintances in her childhood cottage—and of course she finds romance!

The Spellshop was a Macmillan Audio pick and is narrated by Caitlin Davies, and it was a cute coincidence I had just listened to another audiobook she narrated—I think she does a great job!

Perfection, perfection, perfection. First, I loved the story of The Spellshop, it has so many of my favorite things:
-Librarians
-Books
-Cozy Islands
-Talking Plants
-Found Family
-Baked Goods
-Jam

The story is so sweet - a librarian flees the city in a political uprising with a number of spell books. She returns to her childhood home on a rural island with her sidekick, a talking spider plant and they begin to restore the home. She makes friends, forms a crush, and opens a jam shop. It's perfect - I literally couldn't ask for more!

I listened to an audio arc provided by Netgalley, MacMillan Audio, and Bramble Books. The narration was so immersive and well done - the cherry on top of the cake!

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 really liked the narrator as well.

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

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. Listening to Caitlin Davies is like listening to the gentle rain fall and it is so soothing. This story was made so much better listening, even when I read this with my eyes, I adored listening to Caitlin describe everything. I could feel my body literally calm down and relaxing.

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

THANK YOU to NetGalley & the Publisher for giving me a free copy of the audiobook in exchange for an honest review!

Honestly, I loved this!! I think this was an extremely solid read. The writing style and language used was very smooth & 'adult', meaning it wasn't cringy or fanfic-y like some Romantasy novels. The timing of the plot points felt good for the most part, and any gripes I had about it were very minor. This has been my most enjoyable read so far in 2024!

I think one of my more prominent gripes is: the romance took a little long to get going, and didn't really amount to as much passion as I wanted it to? Not that I wanted spice, I don't really care about spice. Just wanted to actually feel like they were having "moments". Our main character was very anti-romantic until all of a sudden, she wasn't. And it didn't feel right having that flip in character seemingly out of nowhere and with no emotion behind it. The relationship was very "salt and pepper" bland -- but it was cute enough/worked in the end.

Another small issue I had was "the books". I got tired of hearing about these books and her never using or doing anything with them. MC kept saying how "bad" it would be to get caught with them, but I never really felt like the repercussions of anything would be that bad. It was more we were just being told that "things could be bad/get bad" But not actually being told what could be so horrible about it or why. There were just some minor world building opportunities that I felt the author could have expounded upon that could have expressed the seriousness better and raised the stakes. Overall, it felt like certain aspects were just lacking in deep emotion or passion and the book would have been all the better for it.

Other than that it's a really solid read and I really really loved it. This is exactly the type of book that I have been wanting. The vibes & execution were on point and I really hope this either gets a sequel, or this author takes on another Romantasy like this!

The Spellshop is the charming and cozy fantasy that I didn’t know I needed. With an immersive and magical setting, delightful characters and even a slow-burn romance, I felt enchanted as I listened to the audiobook.

In the midst of a firey political uprising in the capital city of Alyssium, librarian Kiela and her assistant Caz-a spider plant made sentient through the use of magic-pack up as many magical books as they are able carry and flee to her hometown with the intention of keeping a low profile.

However, her need to provide for herself and Caz, as well as the neglected state of the island and the failure of the Empire to utilize the magic it hoards to help the people who depend upon it, leads Kiela to turn her family’s cottage into a jam shop-while providing helpful spells in the form of “remedies” to assist the villagers.

Kiela is an endearing main character and her growth throughout The Spellshop as she forms new relationships and engages in self-discovery is wonderful to witness. While slightly reserved and perhaps a bit awkward, her love of books is incredibly relatable and her desire to help others even despite the risk of punishment is admirable.

Caz the spider plant is a lovely character with a spirited personality and sharp wit. He is a great balance to Kiela and made the idea of a book-obsessed magical plant assistant an appealing one

Kiela’s neighbor Larran is also a kind and pleasant man and I certainly wasn’t at all taken by the fact that he bought her food, helped to fix up her home and shop, made her bookshelves…no, not all.

The secondary characters and the assorted magical creatures help to flesh out the island and their attachment to Kiela as one of their own is also very touching.

Caitlin Davies was splendid as the narrator of The Spellshop and infused the characters with a great deal of charm. Thank you to Macmillan Audio, Bramble Romance and NetGalley for providing access to this ALC.

I love picking up a Sarah Beth Durst book, because she is such a versatile author! So talented, she makes you feel like you are IN the story, a part of the small community in this cozy fantasy in which a recluse magic librarian has to flee the empire rebellion in order to save the books! She makes it to her home island, in which she has to figure out 1. How to survive with no money and 2. How to keep the books hidden/safe. The MC will be popular with those who loved Emily Wilde as she is also a ravenclaw who is not above taking a few risks in the name of research. There is a small romance, but the main draw was Kiela and her trusty plant familiar, Caz! I loved following them around while they conversed, experimented with magic, and learned to reach out to their community. It is perfection for those looking for a well written, engaging, cozy fantasy read.

PS; the narrator does a fantastic job keeping you engaged! I will look up more books narrated by her. I wish goodreads would have a feature to show Narrators and their books, but I guess I’ll look her up in Audible.

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. The narration is pleasant, as suits the cozy subgenre, and Caitlin Davies reads the story as if we’re all in on the jokes together.

Thank you to Bramble and MacMillan Audio for the eARC and ALC for review. The Spellshop is out 7/9/24.

3.5 / 5 stars

Librarian Kiela escapes the capitol amidst the chaos of a revolution with several crates of books of magic. To safeguard the books, she returns to the cottage in her hometown that her parents abandoned long ago. The Emperor has forbidden common citizens from using magic, so Kiela fears that her act of saving the books will instead be seen as a crime. Depending on which side won the uprising, that is.

But her home island needs magical assistance and bookish Kiela hates that she has knowledge that she can't share. So she sets up a jam shop and sells "remedies" on the side. Featuring a diverse cast of fantastic creatures -- including a sentient spider plant -- The Spellshop is a cozy tale of forging a community and doing the right thing, despite potentially harrowing consequences.

This book is going to be a five star read for a lot of people. It is a cozy comfort read with lots of fun characters and a HEA. Readers who enjoyed Legends and Lattes will love this book. For me, the conflicts that arise throughout the novel are resolved so quickly that I started to have a bit of the boy who called wolf reaction -- I knew everything would turn out fine within a few chapters.

Too cozy for me, but likely the perfect cup of tea for other readers.

This is perfect for fans of Legends & Lattes / Bookshops and Bone dust. Low steaks and very cozy. I especially loved the world building and magic in this one.

Our FMC is an introverted librarian who escapes to her childhood home with her talking spider plant. She realizes that the island here is suffering so she takes her cherished and spells book to use to help the locals under the guise of having a Jam shop.

You meet so many interesting characters in the book. I especially loved Lorren and his merhorses. The creatures in this book were exceptional.

The narration was great. The voice was realizing and able to convey the characters.

Thank you to Macmillan audio for the advanced listener's copy.

This book is exactly what I needed. What a warm and cozy story, with a side of intrigue. Durst did a magical job of bringing the reader along as we set up a spell shop and help a town. While the stakes aren’t super high, as the reader, I found myself rooting for our main character and wanting to help her in anyway I could. It had me coming back, wanting more and wishing the story wouldn’t end. It’s the perfect story for any season, with a nice cup of tea.

A plant-loving librarian-witch and all the "cottagecore" vibes had me sold on this book from the first chapter! I was SOOO invested in this new to me author's romantasy debut and I can't recommend it enough, especially for fans of Sarah Addison Allen and TJ Klune. Great on audio, this was a whimsical, feel-good, story about found family, food, love and saving the natural world. HIGHLY recommended! Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early audio copy in exchange for my honest review!

I have to say that when I realized that Caz, Kiela’s friend, was a talking spider plant, I was ready to throw the towel in.
But, to my dismay, I ended up falling in love with Caz, Meep, Larran and the whole crew!

Kiela is a steadfast librarian who is very intent on keeping to herself and her job. Caz is her assistant.
When their small town gets hit by a war/revolution, and her beloved library goes up in flames, well…Kiela and Caz escape to a faraway island…

This is just the beginning!
Her adventures lead us through the book, and what a sweet story it was!
So happy I stuck with it!

Thanks to #NetGalley and #MacmillanAudio for an ARC of the audiobook which is due to release on 7/9/24.

4 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ for me!

#TheSpellshop by #LauraBethDurst and narrated beautifully by #CaitlynDavies.

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