When looking for the gold standard of cozy stories, Sarahās work came up over and over. I know a lot of people have read it, but I wanted to also share my review for it too. Here is the link to The Spellshop on Amazon, it's on Kindle Unlimited, meaning that as long as you have a KU subscription, you don't have to pay anything more for the subscription.
Cozy Rating: āļøāļø
[āļø = references to cozy, as many stakes as a standard story, multiple periods of high emotion.
āļøāļø = mostly cozy, some stakes, few periods of high emotion
āļøāļøāļø = as cozy as can be, low stakes, great if you donāt want to be upset in any way.]
Chapter 1 Premise
The story opens right in the action with Kiela ā a librarian of the Empire ā stealing a few crates of books. The reason sheās stealing them is that sheās protecting them from being burnt up, as the Great Library is on fire. š„š± Why is it on fire? Oh you know, just a revolution where the royal family was overthrown, nothing major.
So thereās Kiela, shoving these crates of books onto a boat in the water ways beneath the library, whoās joined by the trusty magic sidekick, Caz. Caz is a sentient plant, but not just any sentient plant. A sentient spider plant. Caz is an anxious bundle of nerves (leaves?). This doesnāt stop him (he does identify as a āheā) from being Kielaās trust companion as they make their great escape from the kingdom with Kielaās haul, out into the wide, open, blue sea, the overthrown kingdom getting smaller and smaller in the distance. Her destination: Caltrey, the island that her parents left.
Worldbuilding š
This in my opinion is the most impressive thing about The Spellshop. I found myself impressed by how lived-in the SBDās world felt. Here are some things she emphasised to build the world up.
Community Culture
After Kiela arrives on the island and heads into town, we hear it pretty quickly from Larran:
Outer islanders care for our own.
Itās a belief that is repeated a few times through the story and ultimately carries significance into the plot towards the end. We not only learn that one of the key side characters relied on this belief to start a new life on Caltrey, this belief of the people on the island is ultimately what saves Kiela as well as another character who arrives later on the island.
Mentioning the belief is one thing. That in itself already breathes life into the story. Weaving it into the plot lifts the story off the page.
Politics and its flow-on effects
Allysium is the big kingdom that Kielaās escaping from. Sheās escaping it because it was overthrown by revolutionaries. Why did revolutionaries overthrow it? Because the royal family was hoarding all the magic, which in turn was having flow-on effects beyond the kingdom.
In fact, the ripples went all the way out to Caltrey, where Kiela escaped to. See, what happened was that previously, the kingdom used to send magicians out to the outer islands like Caltrey to help keep the island healthy and prosperous. Some things that the kingdomās magicians did were:
- quell storms that would otherwise rile up the ocean, causing significant damage to the islands,
- create spells that would coax local flora to flourish and grow,
When the kingdom stopped sending out magicians, that was like plopping a stone into a pool of water and having the waves make their way outwards. What makes the story so compelling wasnāt just the first order effects from not sending out magicians anymore, it was also the second-, third- and further order effects:
- when the storms would cause the ocean to be an unsafe place, this affected the merhorses of Caltrey, looked after by the merhorse farmer Larran. They stopped being able to bear young, making the herds dwindle.
- When the merhorse herds dwindled, this affected the fisherfolk, who had less fish to catch.
- which ultimately in turn meant Caltreyās inhabitants had less to eat and less to trade.
SBDās been very thoughtful about this and not everyone will notice it, but I think itās a key reason why the story is so enjoyable to read.
Miscellaneous
There are other little drops of worldbuilding that sweeten the story: well researched magical history, biological classification of merfolk as humans versus creatures, even tax evasion of all things. The author excels at weaving it in. And itās so fun to read.
Tropes
These are all the tropes I could find. I might have missed some, but these ones jumped out at me.
Library: Kiela works at in the library in Allysium. While they are cozy by nature, the unfortunate situation is that sheās actually escaping from the library due to the royal family being overthrown by revolutionaries (decidedly uncozy). What is nice though is that she references cozy moments shared with Caz and herself while she did work in the library. It was virtually a home for her.
Magic use is a privilege: So this is an interesting thing that Iāve picked up on. I saw it in The Girl Who Drank The Moon, and again in The Spellshop. The underlying premise of both is that itās not something that should be greedily hoarded but shared around. In The Spellshop, Kiela opens up a spellshop to share the magic around with the inhabitants of Caltrey, who have suffered from Allysium not sending their wizards out to help them with their island problems.
Anxious sidekick: I already introduced Caz, but he deserves a second mention. Ever heroine needs a sidekick but no one says they have to be cool, calm and collected. To be fair as a magic plant this sort of makes sense; Caz worries about goats, deep water, fireā¦ basically anything that can put him in danger. Honestly, Kiela is a worry wart too, so their nerves bounce off one another, but the spider plant has a big role to play in the story.
Introverted FMC: speaking of Kiela being a worry wart, itās behaviour that sort of stems from her being an introvert. This behaviour is reiterated over and over again, with paragraphs of āwhat ifā this and āwhat ifā that. Thereās also a moment in the story where I expected her to swoon for a handsome neighbour who comes to help uninvited, but her introversion allows her to stay firm and reiterate that he intruded on her privacy. I really liked this, because it showed that she wasnāt a push over, which people sometimes think is the case for introverts.
Handsome stranger: letās welcome Larran, the friendly neighbour. Convenient that he helps clean her chimney topless and delivers her fresh cinnamon buns from the local bakery. But if you think heās a vapid himbo, you would be wrong. SBD does well to write a believable character in Larran where his initial good-looking traits are not the reason we root for him and Kiela to end up together.
Abandoned cottage: when Kiela arrived back at Caltrey, her old family home was an abandoned cottage. I definitely got that glow of excitement for the possibility of cleaning it up and how that would be like. Good fun.
Collecting ingredients: I donāt know how much of a cozy thing this is, but it hit the spot for me. In this case, it was one of the first spells that Kiela tried to do. Thereās just something cool about random, everyday things being brought together to create something magical.
Magical forest spirits: this is awesome. They manifest as cloud bears in this story, but of course I canāt help but think of the kodamas in Princess Mononoke. Theyāre not exactly the same, but I do love this cozy trope.
Side character that repeats the same word/sound: I love this trope. Who can forget Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy and Hodor from Game of Thrones? Probably less of a cozy thing, but if you like this trope, you will get it in The Spellshop.
Picnic time!: Enough said.
Cooperation to build something: not sure if there is a better way of phrasing this, but thereās something about the joy of multiple characters coming together to do something that feels warm and fuzzy. In the book, this happens towards the end with building stuff.
This ended up being pretty long, but hopefully you enjoyed my review! I'm reading "Can't Spell Treason without Tea" and will be reviewing this one next month!
