The Spellshop
- 384
- Pages
- about 7 h
- Reading time
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Our view
“The Spellshop” delivers exactly the gentle, warm-hearted cosy fantasy its premise promises. Kiela, a librarian who has avoided people for years, flees to her childhood island with stolen spellbooks and a sentient spider plant, and the pleasure lies in watching her make room for neighbours and for a tender romance. Some readers single out Caz, the plant, as a scene-stealing sidekick. Its mood stays light and hopeful throughout, which will not suit readers wanting danger.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
'Reading this book was like sitting in the sun . . . a warm, peaceful delight of a novel' - Katherine Arden, author of The Bear and the Nightingale Every home needs a little magic . . . Kiela has always had trouble dealing with people, and as librarian at the Great Library of Alyssium, she hasn't had to. She and her assistant, Caz, a sentient spider plant, have spent most of the last eleven years sequestered among the empire's precious spellbooks, protecting the magic for the city's elite. But a revolution is brewing and when the library goes up in flames, Kiela and Caz steal whatever books they can and flee to the faraway island where she grew up. But to her dismay, in addition to a nosy - and very handsome - neighbour, she finds the town in disarray. The empire has slowly been draining power from the island, and now Kiela is determined to make things right. But opening up her own spellshop comes with its own risks - the consequence of sharing magic with commoners is death. And as Kiela starts to make a place for herself among the townspeople, she realizes she must break down the walls she has kept so high . . . From award-winning author Sarah Beth Durst, The Spellshop is a cottagecore cosy fantasy following a woman's unexpected journey through the low-stakes market of illegal spell-selling and the high-risk business of starting over.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.2 across 373 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 72% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Fantasy average of 8.0. That is how 8.1 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.8 | 8 | 2% |
| Hardcover | 8.2 | 365 | 98% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Spellshop?
It has 384 pages — shorter than 82% of the ranked books in Fantasy.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
The same shelf — Fantasy — and a score of 8.1, the closest to this book.
