***Thank you to Hachette Audio and NetGalley for providing the audiobook copy in exchange for an honest review.

This standalone fantasy follows a woman in her twenties who works in a zoo as the keeper of an endangered phoenix. I knew this purported to be a cozy fantasy with romance elements, and while many people will find it so, I did not. The characters read very young and the cozy element fell flat. Unfortunately, I found this one to be overly descriptive (and yet not of the magical creatures) and a bit boring.

The narrator, however, did a nice job bringing the characters to life. Her voice for the protagonist made her sound juvenile at times, but it was usually clear which character was speaking.

Book rating: 2 stars
Audiobook rating: 4 stars

I think I can officially say that cozy fantasy is not for me. I think the idea of a magical zoo could be a fun idea, but I was not feeling this book. I wish this hadn’t been urban fantasy and was kind of surprised when it was the modern world mixed with fantasy elements, I don’t know why I assumed it would be set in its own fantasy medieval type world.

I also wasn’t a fan of the main character and wasn’t a fan of the way she seemed very judgemental and at times rude to others. I also didn’t love the audiobook narrators' happy and peppy tone throughout. The main character is supposed to have anxiety and I felt the voice didn’t match for moments when she was struggling with her mental health.

If you like cozy fantasies you might enjoy this more than I did, but I don’t think I can recommend this book.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an audio arc in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

The cozy fantasy I have been dying for! I have read a few cozy fantasies after many years of epic fantasy, dark fantasy, romantasy and never thought I would love cozy fantasy. This book has me sold!
Alia is living her childhood dream as a Phoenix specialist at a magical zoo that is in desperate need of some tender loving care. Alia and the her pals at the zoo put forth the effort in the wake of their zoo being evaluated to bring in a male phoenix the breed with the resident female, which is a high honor. In the wake of another zoo having their Phoenix eggs stolen for the black market, the co-workers work so hard to get everything up to sniff.
The characters were so relatable! I love the introvert representation! And the plot, while some parts were predictable (isn’t that part of cozy fantasy?), was fantastic. I want to live in this world and be a zoo keeper, too!
the narrator did an awesome job. Her voice was perfect for this story. her pacing and intonation was great.
Thank you to NetGalley and Hachette Audio for this ARC!

Thank you NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This was such a cute and absolutely cozy queer fantasy! I had a great time reading/listening to this book. The audiobook was fantastic and if you are in audiobook listener, I highly recommend.

The main character, Aila, was very relatable to me because she was a neurodivergent individual with a lot of anxiety. There were so many times when I was like, "oh, I've done that" or "oh, I definitely had have done the same thing in that situation."

Aila's relationships with her best friend Tanya and other zookeepers, like Luciana, were all fun to read and each one unique. I liked how Aila came to learn that there is always a possibility that there's more going on around her that she might have missed and that her friends would take the time to explain certain situations when they noticed her panicking.

The author did a fantastic job making this book queernormative. There was a lot of rep throughout the book from both the main and side characters which we love to see!

Overall, this was a great book that I'm so happy to have read. If you like cozy, slice of life, fantasy with low to middle stakes, very awkward FMCs, magical creatures like phoenixes, kelpies, and dragons, then check out The Phoenix Keeper when it comes out on Aug 13th!

4.5 stars! Thank you to NetGalley, Hachette Audio, and Orbit Books for this advanced copy. You can pick up The Phoenix Keeper on August 13, 2024.

This was such a cute and cozy queer fantasy! I love how immersive S.A. MacLean made this world, and how all of the magical creatures leapt off the page. I felt so invested in the wellbeing of the phoenixes, griffins, dragons, and more, and of course, I loved the journey our main character went on.

Aila is so deeply relatable, not only to those with anxiety, but to those who have ever felt immense pressure while pursuing a dream. I wanted to laugh and cry and cringe with her throughout all her interactions, and it was so heartwarming to see her grow in confidence and friends by the end of the book. Her relationships with Tanya, Luciana, and the other zookeepers were absolutely delightful , and the ending had my heart racing with adrenaline and happiness.

Overall, if you like an immersive fantasy with low to middling stakes, awkward FMCs, and tons of beautiful magical creatures, this is the book for you!

Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for a copy to review!

First of all, the narrator was soooo good! I listened to this book on my commutes and could easily follow it even between breaks!

I enjoyed this cosy fantasy! At first I was sceptical about a fantastical zoo, but the author made the everyday so entraping, I sometimes forgot that the animals were made-up! The characters are flawed, but interesting and it was a joy to follow their journey. Its important to note, that the romance is a subplot (which I actually enjoyed!), so do not expect a lot of romantic scenes!

4.5 stars

The Phoenix Keeper is a cozy fantasy novel that, while not typically my genre, offered an intriguing setting and captivating animal characters. The detailed world-building and the enchanting creatures were the highlights, making the fantasy elements truly come alive.

However, the romance subplot fell flat for me and felt unnecessary. The book also felt overly long, and the ending was predictable, which diminished some of the excitement. Despite these drawbacks, the main character was relatable and added depth to the story.

Overall, The Phoenix Keeper has its charm, especially for fans of cozy fantasy, but it didn't quite hit the mark for me.

DNF @ 38%

Aila, the head phoenix keeper at a zoo for magical creatures, has one goal: revitalize the zoo's phoenix breeding program to keep the the majestic firebirds from going extinct. When a heist sabotages the flagship breeding program from a neighboring zoo, Aila must prove that she has what it takes to rekindle the zoo's conservations efforts.

I'm going to be honest, this book just is not for me...

As much as I like the idea of this book, in practice it just feels very mundane. I was looking for more of an adventure - like a Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: The Original Screenplay vibe - but instead, this book goes hard into the actual profession of being a zoo keeper. This might be interesting to some people, but just bored me to tears. I also didn't really feel any chemistry between the main character and the supposed love interest.

Ultimately, this book was not for me, and I found myself procrastinating reading it.

I don't even know how to completely put together my thoughts on this story. I loved this so much. Every part of my fantasy loving heart obsessed with the idea of a zoo full of magical creatures. Put together that with the message of animal conservation and the daunting possibility of extinction. I really liked Aila's character and loved the fact that she was so introverted. Her over thinking and anxiety ridden personality was so relatable. Her passion and dedication to her phoenix's was a huge catalyst to her growth as a character and it was great to see her slowly put herself out there for the sake of her birds and also her heart. I loved the friendship between her and Tanya. The kind of wholehearted love and total acceptance between friends that everyone should have in their life. Character wise it was fun to have a couple wild cards and I did find myself surprised more than once. Archie was definitely my favorite character, what a delightful little mischief maker. This is definitely hard on the cozy side for the majority of the book which I really enjoyed, but when it does take off oh my hold on! Although the romance is not the main focus in the story it does have an important roll in the drive of the plot and in Aila's character growth. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for a cozy magical story with a flare of adventure and a lot of great animals.

Thank you to Orbit and Netgalley for this ARC!

I was really excited to read this as the concept seemed up my alley. Full disclosure: I am not the biggest fan of cozy fantasy but the magical creatures and anxiety rep drew me in. Unfortunately the book failed to deliver.

While I appreciated that the book showed anxiety in Alia (as I myself have anxiety), Alia became a very difficult character to read because her anxiety is nearly her only personality trait. Also it caused her to be very judgmental of other individuals despite the fact that she barely knew them. It didn’t help that Alia was the only POV. Alia also came off as extremely immature for someone described as being mid-20s. Her friend had to come to Alia’s rescue many times.

I enjoyed the magical creatures but they were a relatively minor part of the plot, despite the fact that Alia’s goal was to start breeding a specific species.

Finally, IMO it’s a misnomer to call this a romance. The romance doesn’t come in until nearly 70% and was a minor subplot. The lgbtqia+ rep felt like an afterthought.

Thank you Hachette Audio and Netgalley for the advance listening copy. This is an action packed fantasy novel about Aila, a zoo keeper of endangered firebirds at a conservation zoo for mythical creatures. I loved following Aila's journey of self discovery and confidence in this novel. I disliked Luciana, Aila's arch-rival from college, but slowly as the novel progressed her character began to grow on me. This novel included a good mix of suspense, action and self discovery.

Somewhere between 3 & 4 stars, so I'm rounding up to 4.

I liked this book a lot but there were some things that I found frustrating mostly having to do with Aila's love life, I wish less time had been spent on that overall. The best parts for me were all of the mundane things about working with animals and all the worldbuilding about how the magical creatures affect everyday life. I want to live in this world!

Aila is a main character that could easily frustrate readers, she has a lot of times where her anxiety overwhelms her and she’ll start catastrophizing. and she also doesn’t seem that great at a lot of aspects of her job, she is book smart but not real world smart. She takes things too personally and holds grudges easily. But all of these things were done in a way that felt very real and believable to me. She felt human and I loved seeing her passion for the phoenixes. I had a lot of fun following her work within the zoo and watching her try to work on her people skills.

I also really loved the relationship between Aila and her best friend, Tanya was always willing to call Aila out on her bullshit. The romance was the weakest part of the book for me because we don’t spend nearly enough time with the love interest but exploring Tanya & Aila’s friendship made up for that. Honestly, I feel like Connor (another zoo keeper that Aila has a crush on) could've been cut from the story completely and that would give more time to spend with the animals and with Luciana & Tanya.

The best part of this book by far is the animals, I love love loved all of the animals.

Audio, phenomenal omg love it!!! This was so well done , the voice was perfect. Recommend 100%
Now story wise, this was so damn cute adorable. Omg too much. I loved the easy going of the story and how chill it was. I adored to learn about the animals and the world as they explain. This was so very well set up. I loved Aila and her best friend Tara. And the way Aila and Luiciana relationship develops so good. That was so cute to read . Perfect cozy read for sure .

The Phoenix Keeper is a cozy fantasy that follows a magical zoo employee. I loved the different creatures and laughed out loud multiple times. I struggled a little with the pacing, but I think I might not be the target audience for cozy fantasy.

I received an ARC from Orbit Books and ALC from Hachette Audio via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I’m a big lover of the cozy fantasy genre, and this did not disappoint. I absolutely adored The Phoenix Keeper. This book speaks to my animal and fantasy loving soul. Working with magical creatures would have easily been a dream job for me. Aila was such an interesting character battling her inner struggles with the public against her absolute love of phoenixes. I really appreciated how MacLean approached Aila’s struggles. I also love the cast of great women that Aila ended up surrounding herself with. The enemies to lovers story line was pure perfection. This is definitely a character focused read, so keep that in mind. In terms of the plot, the twists weren’t really twists and were incredibly obvious from the onset. It’s fine, though, at least for me because I felt like the theft storyline was more of a subplot to Aila’s character development. I combo read this between the eBook and audiobook. While I enjoyed what I read in the eBook, I LOVED the audiobook. Stephanie Bentley did so well narrating the book. Bentley made you feel Aila’s anxiety and struggles but also her excitement. I couldn’t stop smiling while listening to Bentley’s narration. If you love the cozy book genre, I would recommend reading this.

I feel rather meh about this book by the end, but the beginning through the middle held such promise!
Honestly I quite enjoyed most of my time reading this and believe those looking for more cozy fantasy books will enjoy The Phoenix Keeper.

My main quibble comes down to the predictability of the plot (we already KNOW this male love interest won’t be endgame from the start, making it easy to guess the twist later on). I also, sadly, grew a bit annoyed with our FMC as the plot dragged on. Her severe anxiety made me sympathetic to her, but it also became a driving issue for her self centeredness. Her friend was constantly coming to her rescue and it was just unreal how oblivious she was to the strain this caused. And the lack of understanding to how unsupported Taryn felt in return?? It took so long for Aila to realize it.

I did enjoy several scenes though (I audibly laughed aloud at some interactions) and overall it's a very cozy feeling book. It certainly succeeded at its genre! I do wish the world was a bit more magical-based outside of just the animals though.

This one skewed a bit more towards romance than cozy fantasy for my taste (I wanted more details about the magical creatures, more worldbuilding than just “it’s basically exactly like the present-day real-world but with magical creatures and countries have different names”). It had romance novel beats as far as how the plot progressed and it had romance novel characters; just a note for romance readers, the spice level is zero.

But main character Aila and her best friend were endearing. The rivals-to-lovers seemed a little contrived, but that’s not entirely unexpected. I also liked the themes of conservation and preventing species extinction but again would have wanted more worldbuilding-level details about the specific creatures, their habitats, and the various uses for their magical components.

All that to say, it wasn’t my cup of tea, but there may be other people who will really enjoy it.

3.5/5

Thank you to Netgalley and Hachette Audio for this early audiobook copy of The Phoenix Keeper.

Stephanie Bently did a wonderful job with her narration of this book! I could feel Aila's happiness, sadness, and anxiety throughout the story. The producers also did great work, if there were any edits, I could not notice them as the audiobook was completely seamless.

Now for the story. Aila's life goal is to be a phoenix keeper and help conserve this endangered species.

Things I liked:
-Aila's friendship with Tonia's boyfriend. So cute!
-Luciana and her incredible self. 1000/10.
-Tonia is such a great friend, and I doubt Aila would have gotten as far in life if it wasn't for her.

My criticisms:

I like a low-stakes fantasy. I like complicated characters, and I typically feel an instant kinship with characters who have anxiety. However, I can't stand Aila's self-centeredness throughout the entire book. She has moments of self-awareness when she hurts her friends but most of the time she is so judgemental of people who did nothing to her. She carried a grudge against Luciana for so long over something so small, that I was shocked to learn she was 28. She calls Luciana a witch for 30-40% of the book because of a misunderstanding that happened in college. The way Aila treated the Unicorn keeper and judged the unicorns--UNICORNS!--because she wasn't invited to unicorn-themed parties when she was a kid was so ridiculous. All of this and more I could have forgiven if those were starting points and Aila learned from them, but there wasn't even an attempt to make Aila grow. Her big learning moment is to become more confident about public speaking and that Luciana is not, in fact, the devil. She did get to help save the phoenix species. I just wish we got to learn more about the other animals, once Aila gets the male phoenix, the other animals Aila is supposed to take care of disappear from the narrative.

All in all, I am glad I read this book!

While The Phoenix Keeper would be a great read if you like cozy romantasy, it fell short for me. The writing style, setting, and pace of the book were the only reasons I was able to finish this book. What I loved most about The Phoenix Keeper was the relatability to Aila was so spot on that I instantly felt a connection to her. The mental health representation in this book is a great asset and I feel as though that will connect with many people.

The biggest issue I had with this was that the romance in the book was subpar to what I expected. Through half the book Aila is crushing on a man that I knew nothing would come out of it, which annoyed me, but the main romance was only a small fraction of the book. And while I think that rivalry is an interesting aspect of some books the arch-rivalry between Aila and Luciana seemed a bit flat. It seemed as though Aila kept putting her down for things she couldn't see herself doing (public speaking, looks, manicure?!, etc.) these all made the rivalry seem somewhat childish and could have been executed in a better way.

Thank you to both NetGalley, Hachette Audio and for providing the eALC.

Unfortunately I am putting this book down at 56%. The mention of cake pops and stock trading almost put me over the edge. This is supposed to be a fantasy book but the only fantasy element was the magical creatures and I even found myself disappointed that there wasn’t more information on those. I found the world building and characters all very surface level and shallow. Aila’s anxiety was also frustrating to read because I feel like she used it as an excuse to be really rude, judgmental, and selfish. She was literally judging another zookeeper for having manicured nails, which was giving major pick me energy. The writing was fine, but I was bored with how absolutely nothing was going on besides preparing the zoo for a new animal.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.