Book 1,063: The Spellshop – Sarah Beth Durst

When the publisher reached out about this one they referred to it as “cottage core fantasy” and I was like OMFG I am here for this.* One of my favorite game streamers does cottage core Minecraft and I may have been watching it at the time. This was back in January of 2024 (SHAME ON ME I KNOW) and after a wild year last year I finally picked this one up and it was lovely.

The Spellshop is the tale of Kiela, a librarian from the capital city, who flees to her home island with a sentient spider plant and then causes all sorts of good unintended consequences as she adapts to small town life again. It’s a slow-burn romance set in a light fantasy in which I genuinely forgot on some occasions until someone’s blue skin tone or antlers were mentioned or magic.

The book got off to a slow start, which I really should’ve expected with the cottage core descriptor, but Durst’s beautiful writing kept me engaged. It didn’t hurt that I finished this on our way to a Caribbean vacation, but some of her descriptions just made me want to live on a secluded island by the sea:

It was the vastness of the blue that was so breathtaking, as well as the variation: the bleached blue-white of the sky near the sun, the deeper blue of the sky near the horizon, the slate blue of the clouds, the black-blue and green-blue and the fathomless blue of the sea, all contrasted against the pale sand of the shore, the bright colors of the houses, and the dark green of the trees. Far below, at the base of the cliffs, she saw the waves crash in foaming white and then caress the sand. It was high tide, and it reached nearly to the base of the stairs. (Ch. 9)

I mean, for real the blues of the ocean and the sky are what get me EVERY time I’m on a boat.

The other thing that really got me was the prescience of Keila’s changing attitude toward books and access to knowledge as her country goes through a revolution and chaos. It’s striking a lot of eerie chords that I didn’t think would have to be struck during my lifetime in the US. Book bans have always been attempted, but we’re seeing the systemic erasure of records and knowledge from government sites and attacks on museums and libraries that will cause generations to seriously lose out and the world to be a darker place.

Books should be shared with everyone who wants to open their minds and hearts to them.
Keeping them, keeping knowledge, from people who needed it, that was the real crime. The words belonged to the people, all the people, not just the wealthy and powerful, even if that led to a few disasters due to magic in the hands of inexperienced spellcasters . . . Well, the current laws weren’t keeping anyone safe. In fact, the status quo was only making everything worse. If it was up to her, she’d share the spells with everyone. (Ch. 24)

And the final good thing I’ll throw out there is that Durst had a great sense of humor and timing. Between Kiela and Larran (her love interest) and Caz (the spider plant) there are so many hilariously awkward interactions that I highlighted.

I’m not asking our houses to marry. I’m asking you to be my wife. If you’d like to. If you don’t want to, I love you just as much. You can forget that I asked, and I’ll pretend I didn’t, and we can continue on exactly as we were. Either way, we can sleep and eat and live wherever, whenever we want, together when we want or not. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable or push before you— (Ch. 36)

Quite a few of them I was like ‘oh good grief, this is what Tim must deal with when he’s talking to me sometimes.’ The man is a saint.

The major meh for me was the broader political turmoil that we got a slim taste of. With the novel starting in the middle I had so many questions to start with that I nearly didn’t get out of the first chapter or two. We did get a lot of answers and even an additional subplot that almost detracted from the main plot and could’ve gone really wrong, but added additional other questions about what happened after the last page. I think this is also kind of how for the longest time the Skywalker Saga was the only thing we knew about Star Wars (excluding the legends series which I adored) and it was a narrow slice of a GALACTIC wide era; this was just the smallest slice of a much larger story that we got bits and pieces of to connect it to that.

Recommendation: Definitely read this one. I wasn’t sure at first as it starts in the middle of what has clearly been a tumultuous time for this kingdom and world, so it was a little confusing and a little slow. However, as I got through that first chapter or two it picked up and although it’s a very small slice of this world and one small community’s lives within it, it packed a big punch. Durst created a fascinating world filled with different people and magic and beauty and I flew through the book and wanted it to go on past the perfectly happy for now that we got. I definitely need to check out her back catalogue.

*I received a copy of The Spellshop via NetGalley in return for my honest opinion. No goods or money were exchanged.

Opening Line: “Kiela never thought the flames would reach the library.”

Closing Line: “She kissed him and then said, I’m happy I’m home.” (Whited out to avoid spoilers, highlight to read.)

Additional Quotes from The Spellshop
“She didn’t know first hand what a battle sounded like, but she did know what a library was supposed to sound like, and all of this was terribly, horribly wrong.” (Ch. 1)

“Her sky-blue skin looked sickly in the unnatural light, and her dark blue hair soaked in the scent of smoke.” (Ch. 1)

“He was tall, which wasn’t an argument for or against murder. He must have had to duck through the doorframe. He also appeared stronger than the average library-goer. Judging by his arms, he looked as if he could pick up one of her crates one-handed. Or crush her throat with his pinkie. None of that was reassuring.” (Ch. 2)

“She’d never questioned the laws before, or really thought about them much. She’d had a job, to maintain the spellbooks in her area’s collection, and she’d never considered how they were used or weren’t used by the library’s patrons. ‘Because knowledge is power, and the powerful want—wanted—to keep it all to themselves.’ Their greed had brought about their downfall.
‘Not because it’s dangerous?’
‘Of course knowledge is dangerous.’ Kiela felt herself grinning. She’d never done anything the least bit dangerous before. It felt like a deep breath of sea air. Maybe the taste of the breeze is going to my head. ‘But ignorance is even more dangerous. In this case, ignorance means failure, and failure means no food, no way to stay here, and nowhere else to go.” (Ch. 6)

“The storm had as many colors as Larran’s eyes, all swirling over the sea, purple chasing blue, black streaking through like the inverse of lightning. Shapes formed and then dissipated—the face of a lion that roared so wide its jaw split apart and then re-formed as a bird diving toward the sea. It vanished in a spray of waves that crashed against the rocks.” (Ch. 17)