Terlu Perna broke the law because she was lonely. She cast a spell and created a magically sentient spider plant. As punishment, she was turned into a wooden statue and tucked away into an alcove in the North Reading Room of the Great Library of Alyssium.
This should have been the end of her story . . . Yet one day, Terlu wakes in the cold of winter on a nearly-deserted island full of hundreds of magical greenhouses. She’s starving and freezing, and the only other human on the island is a grumpy gardener. To her surprise, he offers Terlu a place to sleep, clean clothes, and freshly baked honey cakes—at least until she’s ready to sail home.
But Terlu can’t return home and doesn’t want to—the greenhouses are a dream come true, each more wondrous than the next. When she learns that the magic that sustains them is failing—causing the death of everything within them—Terlu knows she must help. Even if that means breaking the law again.
This time, though, she isn’t alone. Assisted by the gardener and a sentient rose, Terlu must unravel the secrets of a long-dead sorcerer if she wants to save the island—and have a fresh chance at happiness and love.
Review
The Spellshop was my favourite book of 2024, so when I learned that Sarah Beth Durst was publishing a new book set in this amazing magical world I was beyond excited. And I am pleased to report that The Enchanted Greenhouse absolutely did not disappoint. You do not need to read The Spellshop in order to read this book, but I absolutely recommend it because it is a wonderful book.
In The Enchanted Greenhouse we are introduced to Terlu Perna, who we had a brief glimpse of as the wooden statue in The Spellshop. Terlu was punished and turned into a statue for illegally performing magic in order to create the sentient spider plant Caz (a beloved character from The Spellshop). She awakens six years later alone on an island, confused, and stumbles across a network of enchanted greenhouses housing magical plants and the only resident on the island – a grumpy gardener named Yarrow. It turns out Terlu was sent to the island in order to fix the issue that is causing the magical greenhouses to fail one by one; only problem is – she’s not a sorcerer. As Terlu, Yarrow, and the sentient plants they bring to life work out this dilemma, we are introduced to a cast of whimsical characters.
There is just something so wonderful about this world that Durst has created. The way that she describes the setting is so evocative, I can actually imagine jumping into the pages of this book and living in this world. The setting is incredibly wholesome and cosy, the characters are lovely, and the writing is beautiful. It is just the perfect cosy, light-hearted, imaginative, low stakes cottagecore fantasy. I absolutely recommend it.
