Review: The Enchanted Greenhouse - Sarah Beth Durst

Genre: Cozy Fantasy Published: Tor UK, July 2025 My Rating: 5/5 stars

“People were cruel to you, and it didn’t make you bitter. What else would you call that?” “Naïve? Needy? Pathetic?”

“Strong,” he insisted.”

For the longest time, I felt left out of the hype of cozy fantasy. I desperately wanted to like it, but somehow just couldn’t find one I truly loved. Last year, The Spellshop made my Most Surprising-list of the year, for changing that, and this year its sequel cemented this series as my favourite cozy fantasy of the moment.

The Story:

The Spellshop followed a former librarian of the Great Library of Alyssium, who starts a new life in a small island community after having fled the capitol in the wake of a rebellion that burned her beloved library to the ground. Helped by her assistant Caz – a sentient spiderplant – she opens a jam-shop, selling illegal spells on the side. The Enchanted Greenhouse follows a completely different cast, and can be read as a standalone. Doing so will mean you miss some adorable call-backs and easter-eggs though, so I personally recommend publication-order.

6 years before the events of The Spellshop, librarian Terlu Perna broke the law by performing a spell of illegal magic to bring a spider-plant to life. Made an example to deter the public from the use of illegal magic, she’s turned into a statue and placed in the North Reading Room of the Great Library. Years later, her curse is inexplicably reversed and Terlu finds herself waking up in the snowy landscape of a remote island. Confused, dazed and not understanding who broke her curse and why, Terlu finds shelter in the local enchanted greenhouses, managed by a lone gardener. Soon she finds herself wrapped up in a plot involving a botanical magic, a sentient rose and the secrets of a long-dead sorcerer, that sets her off on a journey to save the island—and have a fresh chance at happiness and love.

What I loved:

Sarah Beth Durst is an author I already loved for her traditional fantasy (The Queens of Renthia) as well as her contemporary family saga’s with a magical realist twist (The Warbler). She channels her skills for creating vivid atmosphere, lovable characters and themes of found-family and second chances to perfection here. The atmosphere of both these books is the perfect mix of cozy-Hallmark-romcom, humor ánd some actual stakes. My main complaint with cozies is the lack of stakes, but Durst subverts that by adding true emotional depth to her characters, and the overarching plot of the empire, that’s well in the background, but present nonetheless.

If you’re in the market for a perfect holiday-read – think cozy-wintery atmosphere, lovable characters and food-descriptions so vivid that you can almost taste the honey-buttered buns – look no further.

You can find this book here on Goodreads.