"I dont want to go back - I want to be on the sea," Ree clarified. "This is where I belong ... you can miss home and choose to live your life elsewhere at the same time. It's okay to feel both."

GENRE: Cozy Fantasy
RATING: 4/5
FORMAT: eBook and physical ARC
Tropes: Found Family, Life at Sea, Sea Serpents and other fun magical creatures

Overall Impression: I think one of my favourite things about this series and cozy fantasy generally is how there is a focus on finding our home and found family. It shines a light on how sometimes we do have to travel far to find the place where we belong. It also validates the feeling that it's okay to miss all the places we've been or grew up in and that it's okay we feel that we belong elsewhere.

Review:

Ahhh we're back to the Spellshop world and I was so excited to see that we get a story about Marin!

This one was a fun story where we follow Marin, who leads a quieter life in the sea with her friends, Perri (sea serpent) and a few others that she meets along the way. Then, we get to meet Dax and ahh what a cute, wholesome interactions this found family has.

Sea of Charms definitely has the same wholesome vibes you find in the first two books. We also get to address heavier themes, like self-doubt and learning to trust our selves. We also get to see the impact of politics and the impact of the Empire on the rest of the islands. I think what I appreciated is that because Marin is always in the sea, we get to see the world in the book through her eyes and see how the empire and the changes they implemented impacted everyone. We also get to see the painful way that making a change turns out to be and I'm excited to see if we dive more into this in further books.

Sea of Charms definitely builds up on the first two books and we get to meet older characters too! This was so fun and the way it was done was unexpected too. I'm not sure if this is a standalone though I do think you could read it without reading the first two books BUT I do think there are a few easter eggs that you do only catch if you've read the first two books. Also, there's such a fun thing that connects all these books in terms of a central theme and it's finding a place where you belong and are accepted as you are, which I love reading about

I'm super excited to continue reading more from this universe and reading more of Sarah Beth Durst's books, which are always so wholesome, all in different ways! I'd definitely recommend Sea of Charms to all Cozy Fantasy lovers. My favourite is definitely The Spellshop (the first book) and I'd start there to catch all the easter eggs along the journey

I was provided a free advance reader copy and I’m sharing my honest thoughts.

I can’t believe it’s almost September already! That means it’s time to get into some fall reading 😍🍂🍁🧡 I’ve got some super exciting picks for this month and we have ONE BONUS book that is not a fantasy or thriller, so you will have to use 1/2 of your votes if you normally vote for both fantasy and thriller/horror.

I have three horror books to choose from this month to get into the spooky season spirit!

• The Black Farm

• Intercepts

• Seed

The three fantasy books to choose from I am genuinly so excited to read all of them… can’t wait to see what wins!

• Anathema

• A Forbidden Alchemy

• Intercepts

Our bonus book for the month is TAIPEI STORY by RF Kuang. This releases in just a couple of weeks and I know there’s a lot of RF Kuang fans here… so if you’re interested, make sure to vote!

As always voting will end on the 31st!

Hi All! Well it was harder than I thought lol everyone had days they could and couldn't do and days they preferred which was expected. Which was why I also proposed we changed days as we go along so everyone can make a day.

Weekdays are preferred by all, but what does everyone think about Sunday nights?

We also have a split between CST and EST and kids with bedtimes, so 9pm EST (8pm CST).

If people still prefer not to do Sunday since it's a weekend I totally understand, and we can start this one off on a Monday! Then we will just rotate through the week as we go along that way everyone will get to make a meeting if that works for everyone?

Let's have a rebrand, shall we?

After much thought and discussion, we've decided to leave Two Stories Bookshop behind as a name and rebrand as BONES & BROOMS BOOKSHOP. With our shift to the horror genre, this feels more appropriate and catchy!

We do have to re-register our business with the county clerk, and then we'll have our website up and running by the end of the October. If you want to help put money towards the registration costs, please either purchase books from our Bindery.org page or do a direct donation to Ryn on Venmo (username rynwerns91).

Thank you all so very much for bearing with us through this journey; I'm looking into pop up events now!