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lightreads ([personal profile] lightreads) wrote2024-10-17 01:08 pm

The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst

The Spellshop

3/5. Cozy fantasy about a shut-in librarian who escapes the city convulsed by revolution with a load of illegal magic books, which she takes back to the tiny island of her childhood where she starts a jam shop and begins providing it’s-totally-not-magic “remedies.” Also, there’s a hot boy.

I should just quit on cozies. This one started out quite nicely. It’s all extremely to spec – jam shop (you must have a small business in a cozy, it’s the law), Cute talking plant companion, small town shenanigans. But then it overstayed its welcome by a good 25,000 words, and the romance did nothing for me, and it took a distinct bend to the saccharine. I think I should just go to fanfic when I want the particular satisfaction of a cozy.