Title:	The Spellshop
Author:	Sarah Beth Durst
Category:	Fantasy / Science Fiction
Rating:
Date Reviewed:	November 6, 2025

here are cozy mysteries and cozy romances, is there also a subgenre of cozy fantasy? The Spellshop would certainly be classified as a cozy fantasy if such a thing exists. Durst has written some fantasy books that I really liked, but unfortunately The Spellshop was not up to her previous standards. It was shelved in the adult section of our library, but the plot is so simple and so gentle that it reads like a children's book. The heroine Kiela casts a bunch of magic spells to help out various inhabitants (the merhorses, the mermaid, the cloud bears) of the island of Caltrey, and everyone one of those creatures that she helps turns around and comes to Kiela's aid by the end of the book - just the type of morality lesson included in many a book written for children.

The Spellshop features Kiela as the protagonist. She has blue skin, blue hair and magenta freckles. Kiela works as a librarian in the Great Library of Alyssium along with her trusty sidekick, a sentient spider-plant named Caz. (Caz bothered me. I know Caz was created magically, but being a plant he has no eyes, ears, mouth, muscles or bones, yet somehow he moves and communicates like any human. So how can he do any of this stuff? Magic. That's not a well plotted answer.).

The emperor has declared that magic and spells shall only be used for the rich and the powerful in the capital, it is forbidden for the provinces to use magic. Where sorcerers once roamed the empire, casting spells to improve the lives of the empire's citizens, now the sages have all been recalled to the capital and any magic use is illegal. The reader is told that the emperor does this out of greed, but it makes no sense. It is not as if casting a spell in a province to improve the yield of an orchard somehow makes in the emperor poorer. Indeed, having more wealthy, successful citizens would presumably allow the emperor to raise more money through taxes. I felt Durst did not think this through.

Angered by the emperor's rules, revolutionaries storm the capital, and the Great Library of Alyssium is set a blaze. Kiela and Caz manage to escape with five crates of spellbooks. Kiela sails to the island of Caltrey, where she grew up until the age of nine (at which point her parents - now both deceased - uprooted and went to the capital). Kiela returns to her childhood cabin, which is remarkably good shape despite decades of neglect. She decides that she will support herself by selling jam and secretly casting magic spells to make Caltrey a better place. It bothered me that no matter what magic spell Kiela wants to cast, it is found in one of the books stored in her five crates of salvaged books. It made me wonder what was in the rest of the Great Library if the sum of all spell knowledge seemed to be in the relatively few books Kiela took with her.

While learning to cast spells, Kiela accidentally creates a sentient cactus called Meep. I didn't like Caz, and Meep was ten times worse. Durst turns up the cuteness factor on Meep to eleven; the reader is meant to find them adorable. I found Meep (who can only say "Meep") to be most annoying.

It felt like Durst wrote The Spellshop determined to not have any antagonists. Everyone in the island of Caltrey is so welcoming and understanding of Kiela and Caz. Other than grumpy old Fenerer, who merely spouts off a few suspicious accusations at Kiela, there seems to be no villains in this book. Maybe cozy fantasy are not allowed to have villains?

I see that there is a sequel called The Enchanted Greenhouse, but I think I shall skip it. These cozy fantasies are too cloying for my tastes. Maybe when Durst returns to write adult novels, I will resume reading her books, but for now I will look elsewhere for reading entertainment.