The Spellshop is not really a cozy romantasy as it has been sold; it is actually a Hallmark movie trying to disguise itself as romantasy. The premise: a young woman flees the city and her big city career to escape a bad thing, moves back to her very rural hometown, meets an annoyingly helpful and cute neighbor, starts a jam-making business. Along for the ride is the sassy sidekick bestie, and a variety of locals, nearly all of whom love her after some initial hesitation, except for the town crank. Cue the problem she thought she fled catching up with her, threats to and from the local community with which she has now fallen in love, and maybe with the cute farmer too. Everyone bands together to save the town, and we fade out with a kiss. This is the plot of most every single Hallmark movie ever made, and also the plot of The Spellshop.
The fantasy dressing of this version of the Hallmark standard comes from Kiela, our heroine, being a magic librarian (as in she worked in the big city library of magic books) and takes some home with her when she flees a revolution that threatens to burn down the library, and with her she takes her sidekick bestie Caz, a sentient spider plant. Kiela is also for some reason blue of skin and hair. Her hometown is a remote outer island under threat from magic storms because the empire stopped sending wizards to do magic balancing. Handsome local is a mer-horse herder named Larran. Locals townsfolk include the local bakery owner, a centaur, a doctor with stag horns and wings (not sure what he is), and resident winged cats. The threats nearly all have to do with general magic use being forbidden to the general public, and Kiela decides to maybe help herself survive by using some little spells or “remedies” that she can sell for things like curing local trees that are dying, reviving the local fountain, and so on. But what’s she going to do when an Imperial Investigator shows up? Is the town crank on to her? Etc.
To be clear, none of this is a bad thing. The only major complaint I have about The Spellshop is that there is an overemphasis on waxing poetic about the island scenery. The romance part is predictable, but also kind of endearing because both Kiela and Larran are so awkward socially, and especially so with each other. Some of the side characters, especially Meep, the accidentally created by Kiela sentient cactus thing who prefers “they/them” pronouns and likes to play tag with the chicken, are some of the more entertaining bits of the story. There’s eventually a side-plot about a runaway princess, and a fair bit of backstory for both Kiela and Larran (some tragic, some not), and it mostly all works, although I never really liked the princess. The town might forgive her, but I’m not totally sure I do, even if she might have had real reasons.
So, again, it’s a Hallmark movie. Not really romantasy. You have been warned.