The Spell Shop - a cozy blunder

 The Spell Shop by Sarah Beth Durst is marketed as a cozy fantasy romance, and it gets lots of love on the internet, as far as I can tell. Is it well deserved?

Yes. Yes it is, thank you very much.

Did I give it 5 stars?

…no?

Hear me out!

The story starts out with a fast, intense scene, then slows down considerably, only to pick up again in the second half, mainly the last third. I found the pacing quite enjoyable, even if it made the book a teeny tiny bit harder to get into. But, you know, it’s popular, so it _has_ to have something going on, right?

And it absolutely does. The atmosphere of the cozy island, viewed through the eyes of an anxious librarian-turned-spellshop-owner (not a spoiler, you get this from the synopsis! It’s literally in the title! Put the torches down!) made me fall in love faster than our heroine falls for the love interest, which happens at a reasonable pace I was happy to believe possible. The friendship, the togetherness, the kindness… the author somehow managed to make it all just right, not too sweet so your teeth don’t hurt.

Sounds like a five star so far, right?

Add to it that the twist was fairly well twisting (at least for me, though I am _not_ the most keen eyed reader by far), the resolution(s) satisfying and characters lovable and funny, what’s to critique?

Well, my only complaint is really simple - the spell ingredients. Yes, you read that right. To be specific, I have nothing against the choice of ingredients, but apparently the author had. And changed them sometime during the writing process. And I was able to tell, because a time or two, the components just… change. And I’m not talking about the parts where the main character switches things up on purpose, I am talking about sap becoming bark for no apparent reason (go look it up right now if you don’t believe me!).

But that truly is a detail, and one that can very easily be missed and ignored.

So, my final verdict? A solid 4,75🌟 And that’s on me and my fixation on details. Some raspberry jam will probably fix that.

Stay kind!

Cyan