This was very cute. I had some qualms with it because I'm a little tired of being told cozy fantasy and then finding several spicy scenes that just feel out of place with the atmosphere of cozy. I'm just really tired of every romance I read have to include explicit scenes when the vibes are sweeter and don't need to have the characters suddenly have filthy minds and mouths.

That being said, the overall story is good, I liked the character arcs and I can see the potential for furthering the world with other characters, which I believe is happening based on the last page.

I do feel the book ended rather abruptly. I was hoping for a confrontation for Yael and their parents rather than what felt more like a cliffnote in the epilogue. I would have liked this to be longer to further flesh out things. How exactly did Margot figure out the cure for her parents? It's not mentioned except that she did. So it felt like all these loose threads were just cut short rather than tied up by the end.

Still, it probably sounds like I hated the book but I didn't, I'm just better at stating what I don't like than what I like. I enjoy this world, the magic systems, the characters. It's quaint and lovely it just didn't need some things and need more of others to make it a five star for me personally.

DNF at 9% I can NOT read a “cozy fantasy” about a woman who has kept it a secret for FOUR YEARS that her entire village WHICH HAS A MAIN PRINCIPLE OF COMMUNITY CARE will be foreclosed on. Margot starts her first chapter with “they can never know” LADY THEYRE GONNA KNOW. I fail to see how things like this are considered cozy, it feels abhorrent.

*Received as a free ARC*
I? Somehow forgot this was queer? I would have been much more eager to read it if I had. (Not that I wasn't to begin with!) This was actually quite delightful. A cozy fantasy perfect for that point in winter when you're ready to not. Would definitely recommend, and am looking forward to book two!

3/5 stars: This is the first entry in Pacton & Podos's Homegrown Magic series which is a 2SLGBTQIA+ Fantasy Romance that follows a wealthy family's scion who's fleeing family expectations as they wind up at their childhood friend's, a talented plant witch and greenhouse owner, home where the two will have to overcome obstacles to get their much deserved happily-ever-after. With plenty of wit and humor, Pacton & Podos's writing and character work are great; the characters are well-rounded, complex and yet remain likable. Yael and Margot are both great characters and I enjoyed seeing them dealing with their individual issues and getting their HEA. The romance is nicely done with plenty of swoony banter and the OPS is quite steamy. While there are plenty of heartfelt and lighthearted moments, Pacton & Podos does take on some sensitive subjects; so take care and check CWs. Overall, a fun queer romantic fantasy full of friends-to-lovers chemistry, found family, rival family drama, and cozy garden magic.

I received this eARC thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine | Del Rey in exchange for an honest review. Publishing dates are subject to change.

The cozy fantasy genre and I have a <I>relationship.</I> I wouldn’t say it’s love/hate. More like yearning/apathy. I keep dreaming of a book that will make me feel the way I felt when watching a Ghibli film, or playing Stardew Valley. Yet every time, my heart sinks and I’m left unfulfilled. And in fact, yearning->apathy (with a side of annoyance) pretty much describes my personal journey with <i>Homegrown Magic</i>.

It starts out well. We have one protagonist, Yael, at a breaking point, running away from their stifling, emotionally abusive family. We have another protagonist, Margot, facing the daunting task of creating an impossible potion to keep not only her home but her whole beloved village from getting repossessed. Both the leads start likable. Yael’s great non-binary rep. There are stakes!

And that’s when it all goes wrong. It soon becomes clear that in many ways, Margot is the author of her own problems. I absolutely believe and empathize with her not wanting to tell the people of Bloomfield they might be on the verge of losing their homes. (Though now that I’m typing it out, leaving them without a chance to prepare is its own kind of selfish.) What I cannot wrap my head around is her failing to tell someone like Sage or Yael, who wouldn’t take it as personally and might be able to help her. Her pigheadedness keeps her from making any progress in her goals . With her own happiness on the line, it would be a believable character flaw. When she holds other people’s lives in her incapable hands, it’s contrived, self-absorbed dumbassedry.

Fortunately (?) the shallow writing of Bloomfield and its citizens keeps me from raging on their behalf too much. And here’s the thing: I’m a co-housing resident. I am <I>primed</I> to care about a plucky intentional living community! If only a single one of these townsfolk had a single trait aside from name and occupation. At one point, the narrative goes “they say goodbye to [insert five names here,]” and it was prime-grade character soup. I could identify only one of those named, and cared about none.

(At first it seemed like Margot’s friend Sage was better characterized, but then I realized, she’s not a supporting character here to further this book. She’s sequel bait. And there went that.)

Going back to Margot, ironically, the thing she angsts about the most is something she turns out to hold no actual responsibility for. Which transforms it from a believable source of guilt and anguish to wangst. If the authors’ intent was to show how guilt distorts reality and festers, it should not have been immediately fixed by an earnest appeal from Yael. I really wish writers—not just Pacton & Podos, but writers in general—had the guts to let characters actually earn their guilt. Let the character do something bad! An honest mistake that still harms someone is a lot more forgivable (to say nothing of interesting for the reader) than the mental loopty-loops required to believe the character is stricken by something she clearly didn’t do.

For the first half of the book, Margot’s inability to communicate or take useful action is pretty much the only source of tension. She and Yael have no reason not to hook up—except she doesn’t date friends, apparently. Contriiiiivvaaaaaance. The relationship building is theoretically slow burn, except we keep cutting away via time skips and not showing much depth or development. Just a whole lot of nothingburger.

Yael’s role in said first half is both to be a good deal more likable and active than Margot, and to not have much of an arc of their own. If things kept going the way they did, I’d be grousing about this lovable character getting shafted to prop up Margot’s stagnant tuchis.

This will change.

Yael’s parents, mustache-twirling villains though they may be, clearly have the book’s best interests at heart. Around the 50% mark, they finally kick the plot into plotting by trying to drag Yael back home and spoilers ensue, resulting in Yael gleefully grabbing the Idiot Ball and sprinting toward their own goalposts.

I will say, I found the concept of Yael’s warlock patron—an evil ancestor feeding on family glory—to be an interesting one. I wish the book dug deeper on both him and a spoilery development connected to him late-on in the story.

To give a bit more credit, I appreciate Pacton and Podos offering a somewhat more nuanced take on cozy fiction’s tendency to characterize rural life as good and cities as bad. (An uncomfortably reactionary trend in a genre which at least wants to be seen as progressive.) While the protags’ time in the capital is mostly characterized as lonely and stressful, the narrative does acknowledge that it contains great cafes and gardens, as well as its own common folk who deserve better that late stage capitalism. It’s a small gesture, but one I appreciate.

I’m even more glad for this nuance, because the book’s/protagonists’ stance on class was… wobbly otherwise. And I ain’t talking about the IWW. Sure, capitalism is the vile villain of the piece. But then, we have Yael freely admitting they don’t remember the name of a coachman employed by their family for years and bullying this coachman into taking them where <I>they</I> want to go, even though it could mean reprisal from the man’s employers. This could have been part of Yael’s character arc. They thought they’d set aside their decadent upbringing, but those roots run deeper than they believed. Shame this incident is never challenged or brought up again. Meanwhile, I may not be a dressmaker myself, but I know enough costumers it made me want to slap Margot silly for casually wrecking two couture gowns which probably took a team literal months to make. Together, it doesn’t make a good case for those two respecting others’ labor. Unless the labor is wholesome farming, natch.

To go a bit further, this novel’s take on couture felt like Pacton & Podos wanting to have their cake and eat it too. Look, the protagonists get to dress up real pretty, but it’s not like that <I>matters</I> to them, and besides, <i>bad guys made them do it</i>, and peasant clothes are better! The whole thing is stupid, really, and weirdly smacking of Puritanism.

The world building aside from all of that that was boilerplate LitRPG, the kind that refers to quests and D&D classes by name.

The sex scenes were surprisingly plentiful, but also kind of boring/generic. The lack of tension hurt in this department as well. If I’m not dying for the characters to kiss/bang already, then why bother?

In fact, both world building and smut could have used a greater attention paid to sensual details. To me, sensuality and vibrant sensory detail is what makes a good cozy. I want to smell the flowers, feel the sea on my toes, taste the food. <I>Homegrown Magic</I> was decidedly mid when it came to those qualities.

It did make me crave strawberry jam, though.

All in all, two stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Del Rey for the free ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions within are my own.

This book absolutely charming! Such a sweet, cozy, queer fantasy romance.

Yael likes to drink and sleep around, does not want to take their place as heir to the most powerful business in the country. They run away from their own college graduation party, drunk, on a stolen mechanical horse. Meanwhile, Margot’s family has lost just about everything due to their failed financial dealings and large debts owed to Yael’s family. Margot is trying to create a potion that will help save her home and the village around it from being repo’d by Yael’s parents. Yael and Margot were childhood friends and when they reunite, there is CHEMISTRY! I really enjoyed Yael and Margot as characters and as a couple. Yael in particular is quite funny because they are so spoiled and unserious and extremely charming!

I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Homegrown Magic by Jamie Pacton and Rebecca Podos is a third person dual-POV Queer cozy fantasy romance. During Yael’s graduation party, they run away from their parents’ manor and their life of privilege to the village they visited in their childhood and the home of their old friend, Margot. Margot has lost everything: her parents are sick, her old home belongs to Yael’s family, and her beloved grandmother has passed away. To make matters worse, she’s under pressure to finish creating a potion that her grandmother started, a potion that Yael’s family wants very badly.

A major theme is legacy. Yael’s family name, Clauneck, is not only a strong sounding name, it’s also the name of Yael’s demon ancestor who the family is still very much in service to. The way this is connected to capitalism in the worldbuilding and how consumers of Yael’s family’s products feed the demon ancestor feel very relevant to how late stage capitalism does seem to devour everything in its path. On Margot’s side, she’s the only one left to continue her grandmother’s business, such as making her heartbreak strawberry jam, and is responsible for finishing her grandmother’s work. A lot of her drive towards upholding legacy comes from her love for her grandmother and her recognition of the good things her grandmother’s work did.

Margot and Yael are childhood friends who haven’t seen each other in a while, but have a deep understanding of each other from their shared past. Yael wants to call Margot ‘Daisy,’ a nickname given to her by her grandmother and used by close friends, but Margot is initially a bit resistant. There is tension in their relationship because Yael is ignorant of how their family has treated Margot’s family. Yael is the one who wants to initiate their relationship at the start, but it’s Margot who sets the pace as she’s not ready to cross the line from friends to lovers.

The descriptions are rich and very cozy with a strong focus on gardening. I loved the silk goldfish in a glass bubble that swims around; it’s such an evocative image and does the job to sell small magics in the world. I could feel the magic in the things we take for granted (gardening) and the beauty in nature that requires love and care to keep going.

I would recommend this to fantasy fans who love gardening and readers looking for a Queer cozy fantasy romance

Homegrown magic is a great example of cottagecore cozy fantasy. There's the adorable little village, and the witch making remedies from her plants in her greenhouses.
The story follows Yael, the heir of the richest family in the country, who flees their party and determined path and finds themself in Margot's little village. They were a childhood friend of Margot's, and decide to stay with her and help her out in the greenhouse.
Meanwhile, Margot is stuck trying to invent a natural caster potion (something that would give non magic people magic without needing to make a deal with some entity), because Yael's parents seized basically everything her family owns because of debts, and if Margot doesn't figure this out her entire village would lose their homes.

The chemistry between the two characters was great from the start and I enjoyed reading about them. They already liked each other when they knew each others as teenagers, but time has passed and both are keeping some secrets now, but they still grow to love each other.

The plot felt a bit slow for me early on, and I think that's to do with it being cozy fantasy and a lot of it just being them doing stuff in the greenhouses, hanging out in the village, selling the potions etc, and at times I did get bored, but the plot really picks up in the second half, and I'm guessing the first half was still necessary to show their bond developing before Yael's family starts making it a problem, though I might have liked a little more focus on Margot's task early on.

I liked the world building. While the focus is really on the smaller things and I would have liked to see more of some aspects, there was a lot of fantasy stuff going on in the background, as well as a focus on wealth inequality and the exploitative relationship Yael's parents have with pretty much everything. Yael's family are all warlocks, having some magic power through an entity they all serve, and I thought that was an interesting aspect in how it dictates Yael's life and how they try to flee this too. There's mentions of magical creatures, though I would have liked to see more of that, but I think there will be a companion set in this world which might feature a bit more of that since one of Margot's close friends is an adventurer.

Would recommend this book to fans of cozy fantasy/romantasy who really enjoy the vibes of it, and don't mind a slower plot.

Homegrown Magic is an adorable and cozy queer fantasy, and I loved it so much! If you're looking for something that will give you all the feel goods, then I highly recommend!

This is almost certainly a “me” problem than a Book problem, but I am unfortunately DNF’ing this book at 15%. I am too slowly coming to the realization that I just don’t enjoy “cozy”/cottagecore fantasy stories. I tried to lean into the cozy vibes, but I just couldn’t get into it, unfortunately.

This seems like a very cozy and sweet queer romance, that will definitely be a book that many people will love, it just wasn’t for me.

Thank you Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine and NetGalley and for providing me an early copy of this ebook. All opinions are my own.

A cozy, queer romantasy that at times felt a little bit too rushed. There is a heavy influence from DnD which I'm not too familiar with but if you're a fan, I think you'll really enjoy this novel!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC.

This was a cozy genderqueer romantasy with cottage-core vibes. If you enjoyed "Legends and Lattes" by Travis Baldree, this is probably up your alley. Not entirely perfect or seamlessly flowing, an enjoyable distraction-from-reality read.

Thank you to Jamie Pacton, Rebecca Podos, and Del Rey for the ARC!

3.5 rounded up. I think I need to admit to myself that cozy fantasy is simply not the genre for me, or perhaps I'm reading books that don't scratch the right itch.

Things I loved: I knew I would never be too stressed reading this, I loved the greenhouse vibes and potion making, the community was so lovely.

Things that didn't quite hit the mark: A lot of the characters didn't feel particularly unique - especially side characters, the third act breakup was a trope I dislike, there was a weird burst of plot tension right after it that was brief and didn't fit the tone of the entire rest of the book.

I think people who love cozy fantasy will have a great time with this one, and that's one of the main reasons I rounded up. However I do believe this has solidified for me that it's probably not meant for me; I prefer more tension and more character definition.

Thank you again to all involved for the ARC! Homegrown Magic releases on March 11th. If you love a cozy fantasy about witches, mysteries, and friends to lovers, this is a sweet story.

Homegrown Magic by Jamie Pacton and Rebecca Podos came up in my reading queue at exactly the right time. I often read books with a lot of political intrigue that are heavy on the soul, and I wanted to read something that highlighted relevant cultural issues while giving me hope after reading it. If you need that too, then Homegrown Magic is your next read.

Yael Clauneck and Margot Greenwillow are childhood friends that reunite in their twenties. Yael, the heir of a wealthy banking family in the city of Ashaway, is trying to run away from his family’s questionable business legacy. Margot, a plant witch living in the countryside community of Bloomfield, is trying to save her family that has fallen from grace. As Yael and Margot reconnect and work together to find a solution to their own troubles, a sentimental romance emerges.

The world of Homegrown Magic is inclusive and normalizes gender and relationship fluidity. This representation in literature is imperative. I speak a lot about how all readers should have the opportunity to see themselves and pieces of their stories in characters. Not only is this good for the mental health of the reader, but it also fosters empathy and understanding from readers that do not share that lived experience and seek to better understand people outside of their limited social spheres or communities.

Pacton and Podos explore themes of family duty and personal freedom. Homegrown Magic highlights the importance of community and finding people who accept you for who you are. This story also looks at what it takes to break generational patterns and the ethics and morals of possessing and using power.

Homegrown Magic is a sentimental and cozy LGBTQIA+ fantasy romance. For fans of botanical magic, feel-good romance, and inclusive stories, this is a great book to add to your reading list.

Thank you to NetGalley, Del Rey, Jamie Pacton, and Rebecca Podos for allowing me to read this copy in advance in exchange for my honest thoughts and review.

Homegrown Magic is available for pre-order and releases March 11, 2025.

This book was really good. The romantic element was fantastic. I especially loved the scenes where you could tell Yael was over the moon for Margot! There were some steamy scenes! It was a little challenging for me to keep up with it because I don't read fantasy much. Aside from that, though, this book was really enjoyable. I really enjoyed the fantasy element of it. Especially the magical aspects of Margot's plant magic. That was really fun to read about. Yael's storyline , in my opinion, was also really engaging. I appreciate that we got to see them sort of develop. That was really enjoyable. Overall this book was such a fun and interesting read!

This was an arc read given to me an exchange for an honest review.

A delightfully beautiful cozy fantasy that explores the magic of leaving high society, shrugging off familial expectations, and finding happiness in a small town doing physical labor with the people you love.

In all seriousness, I absolutely adored the story of Yael and Margot, getting to see them face the challenges the world has set out for them and seeing them persevere together was extremely satisfying. As a DnD player myself I loved getting to see the ways in which this world and the DnD world were blended together in a unique way to showcase a magical society.

Huge amounts of character development for both main characters, they are both under a huuuge amount of societal pressures and expectations, and it was very gratifying to see them both come out stronger together at the end. Additionally, with as many issues that this society has- with all the money hungry banks and power players of high society- I was extremely glad to see that homophobia and transphobia were NOT added on top of those issues the main characters had to fight against.

Thank you to Random House and Netgalley for the ARC!

Queer fantasy and friends to lovers sign me up. This book was so cozy and has one of my favorite tropes ever, found family. The found family vibes in this one is immaculate. I recommend this book to everyone who wants a cozy, queer novel that with make them swoon into another dimension. Thank you so much to the publisher and NetGalley for the absolute pleasure of reading this novel, and many praises to the author for this spellbinding treat.

I was really excited about the premise of this one. It had all the makings of a book I’d enjoy: a queer cozy fantasy, plant magic, a former childhood crush?! Unfortunately, I had to DNF at 35%.

The world felt underdeveloped, the magic system was poorly explained, and the writing style was hard to get into.

There was also a two month time jump once the main characters start working together, and they suddenly were flirty and had feelings for each other…but we got to see none of the relationship develop.

I may give this one a chance in the future to see if it was just a right book, wrong time scenario.

Homegrown Magic by Jamie Pacton; Rebecca Podos is a wonderfully written cozy queer fantasy romance.
A cozy and charming read with fascinating characters.
This is such a unique world.
I truly enjoyed this book and I’m looking forward to read more of their future work.

*As always I want to thank the author and publisher for the chance to have an advanced copy of this work.*

This book made my heart flip and flop in so many directions. It also has left me yearning for more books within this niche, and I am happy to say it was a five star for me. I connected more than I thought to the struggles with not only their selves but their families as well. It shows how much power there is in choosing the people you give yourself and your time to. This will be something I reread over and over again, plus of course adding a physical copy to my shelf.