A NOTE ON THE SPOILERS
A while ago I got a comment tantrum from a semiliterate rando because apparently some people are too stupid to understand a SPOILER WARNING, so I thought I’d elaborate on my exact definition of a spoiler. I AM GOING TO SUMMARIZE THE ENTIRE BOOK, INCLUDING THE ENDING. Think of me as a very niche Wikipedia. If you have a problem with that, you are welcome to stop reading at any time. I don’t make money from this content. I don’t care how many people read it.
This is your legacy, Fedup: an extra line on an obscure book blog that probably doesn’t even have ten followers. It’s not exactly a Nobel prize, but it’s still quite a nifty little achievement. Your parents must be so proud. Please seek help.
The Enchanted Greenhouse
Sarah Beth Durst
You’re off the edge of the map, mate. Here there be spoilers. Other reviews in this series can be found here.
I have a problem. I don’t know which one I love more, Caltrey or Belde. (Who am I kidding, I restarted my second island so I could name it Belde.) I am two books deep in Durst’s bibliography, I now have a very serious Crescent Islands addiction, I have preordered book 3, and I want a flying cat. I think that about covers it.
Half a decade before the fall of Alyssium, Terlu Perna – Fourth Librarian of the Second Floor, East Wing, of the Great Library of Alyssium – casts one spell and is sentenced to a living death when the judge decides to make an example of her. Over the objections of head librarian Rijes Velk, Terlu is transformed into a statue and put on display in the North Reading Room of the Great Library after a brief stint in a storage closet. Her one consolation is the safety of her dear friend Caz, for whose sentience she cast the spell in the first place, and who is deemed innocent by the court. Meanwhile, Yarrow Verdane – last man standing in a large family of gardeners tasked with caring for over 200 magical greenhouses on the island of Belde – writes to Alyssium pleading for aid with the greenhouses, whose enchantments are failing for unknown reasons. As every member of his family was fired and/or sent away from the island by the sorcerer who created the greenhouses, Yarrow now lives on an island of one (the sorcerer died some time ago) and is in desperate need of help. His letter receives the royal runaround until it gets to Rijes, who smuggles the statued Terlu out of the North Reading Room just prior to the fire that consumes the Great Library and hands her over to a supply runner with instructions to take her to Belde.
Six years after she was sentenced, Terlu therefore wakes up in the forest of Belde in the middle of a snowstorm, confused and scared and completely unprepared for either the weather or her sudden recovery. Though she had some knowledge of her surroundings as a statue and remained very much awake and aware within her own mind, she has no idea of the chain of events that brought her to this unknown island. There’s not much else to do but to try to get on with things, so she walks through the storm until she stumbles across one of the greenhouses, and, finding the door unlocked, slips in to find herself in one of hundreds of connected greenhouses built to house plants and enchanted fauna from a variety of environments. The greenhouses appear to be uninhabited at first glance, but she quickly finds a green-winged cat whose name turns out to be Emeral, and he leads her – after a fashion – to a very surprised Yarrow. Initially pleased that the statue counterspell he received did in fact work, Yarrow is less pleased to learn that Terlu is a librarian and not a sorcerer. Despite this bad beginning, he gives her shelter (and soup) in his own cottage, lets her sleep in his bed, and in the morning provides clean clothes in her size and honey cake (served with syrup) for breakfast. They both make a halfhearted attempt to move her into a cottage of her own, but the cottages on offer are not habitable, and in the end she never does leave.
Unfortunately, this still leaves Terlu with a few rather large problems: she has nowhere to go because she is estranged from her family, who live on the tropical island of Eano and have no idea where she is or whether she is alive; she still considers herself a convicted criminal because she has no way of knowing that Emperor Mevorin exited his palace via a window; Yarrow is quite grumpy and communicates mostly through shrugs, but he is also handsome and kind and seems extremely kissable; and she has nothing to do. This last problem is handily resolved when she finds an abandoned tower, former workroom of the deceased sorcerer Laiken, and unintentionally revives an imperious resurrection rose named Lotti. One thing leads to another, and she ends up researching Laiken’s spells in an attempt to revive all of Lotti’s friends, themselves sentient plants who were put to sleep some years ago and are thought to be permanently dormant. This task is complicated manifold by Laiken’s absolute paranoia, manifesting as an uncrackable code that prevents Terlu from reading his notes. After several days of deadlock, Terlu, Yarrow, and Lotti find Laiken’s codebook in the middle of a maze guarded by tiny dragons who turn out to be shockingly bribeable, and they succeed in waking every plant in the dormant greenhouse.
Bolstered by the revival of the plants, Terlu sets out to repair the failing spells that keep the greenhouses running, but time runs shorter and shorter as more and more greenhouses abruptly die without any obvious cause. The plants pitch in wholeheartedly, helping care for the greenhouses that remain and assisting with Terlu’s research, while Yarrow reluctantly agrees to invite his family to the island to help out. Terlu writes to them on his behalf and sends the letter off with Mariner (“Marin”), the same supply runner who brought her to Belde. After much pleading and some extra payment, she also convinces Marin to take on a sentient wax myrtle named Ree, who yearns for the sea, as a crewmate-in-training. With the letter sent, she teaches the sentient plants a spell to seal the cracks in the greenhouses’ glass walls and thinks nothing of it until the day Marin and Ree show up with Yarrow’s entire family, including his father, Birch, and his older sister, Rowan. Yarrow is deeply displeased, while his family reveal that they came en masse because they had nowhere else to go (because of the revolution) and thought his letter was an invitation to permanent safety. Upon hearing that Alyssium has fallen and the Great Library is largely gone, Terlu gives Marin a large ruby, originally gifted to her by the tiny dragons, and asks her to find Rijes Velk and take her to safety.
Confronted with his family for the first time in years, Yarrow insists that they will abandon him a second time and refuses to socialize, but he also regularly bakes them honey cakes (to be delivered by Terlu) and, after a period of silent hostility, finally makes up with Rowan. His unbothered family cheerfully settles into the previously uninhabitable cottages and starts making them livable again, and treats Terlu as Yarrow’s official girlfriend. Terlu herself is terrified that the rest of the gardeners will notice the inescapable signs of illegal magic, particularly as the sentient plants doggedly continue to seal the greenhouse cracks and are not subtle in their work, but her fear of a second arrest is soothed when Rowan assures her that none of them have any intention of turning her in. Eventually, and with some consultation with the resentful ghost of Laiken, Terlu realizes that the greenhouses are not being targeted by a malicious spell cast by a rival sorcerer (Birch’s theory), but are suffering from the side effects of Laiken’s own final spell. He had intended to seal the greenhouses off from the rest of the world in order to preserve them perfectly for eternity, with a time lag built in to allow the gardeners to leave the island before the spell set in. However, he then unexpectedly tripped on the stairs of his own tower and died before the spell was perfected but after he had already cast it in an unsuccessful trial run, which I must say was rather careless of him. Either way, this at least gives Terlu the information that she needs to save the surviving greenhouses, and she and Yarrow – along with a few of the tiny dragons – travel to the caves under the island, where they destroy the faulty spell for good.
After the destruction of the spell, Terlu writes to her family for the first time since her revival, telling them everything she never said during her time at the library and asking them to write back. A few weeks later the final glasshouse crack is sealed, and five days after that Marin and Ree return with three letters for Terlu and a handful of Alyssium refugees, including Rijes Velk. Marin also tells Terlu that the law that turned her into a statue has been repealed, and the imperial inspectors have been abolished (YAY!). As the newcomers are folded into the growing community and Rijes (and her rescued books) settle into Laiken’s cleaned-up tower, Terlu reads her family’s letters and learns that she has a new niece, and that her family still loves her. There is one final surprise: along with the letters, Marin brought Terlu the gift of a book entitled Spells from Caltrey, written by Kiela and Caz. Reading the author bios, Terlu learns that Caz became Kiela’s library assistant prior to their move to Caltrey, and finally knows that he is happy and safe. When all is said and done, the community celebrates its first Winter Feast in the rose greenhouse, with Emeral and the enchanted fauna and sentient plants attending as well. In the well-fed aftermath of the feast, Yarrow apologizes for having left Terlu in the snow after he’d revived her, and asks her if she is happy in this unexpected new life they have built. She tells him that she is, and that she is home.
I had some questions about the physiological variations in The Spellshop, but I no longer care. Terlu is purple and Yarrow is gold, and I have absolutely nothing to say about that. If animals can be flashy colors, why the hell can’t humans be too? In this regard, The Enchanted Greenhouse has outdone its predecessor, in that the notion of a purple-skinned person doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb. This probably has more to do with it being the second book, and with my having had the time to get used to the idea, than it does with any differences between the two books. Nevertheless, it felt more natural in this book than it did in the first. Maybe it helps that there is more than one oddly-hued main character. I actually don’t remember what color Larran is, and if it was mentioned at any point I don’t remember it. Having said that, I do have one question that just now occurred to me: do any of the people in this world have stripes or spots, or even calico patches? Animal features other than antlers and extra arms? Can anyone fly in this world? I’ve seen so little of it, but I already feel like the sky’s the limit.
Anyway, to get back to what I was saying before I so rudely interrupted my own train of thought: both books have distinctive strengths, but I think I’d give the slight edge to Greenhouse. We can officially put me down as a romance tolerator, and even sometimes a romance devourer. We can blame that on Chloe Gong, who sucked me into grumpy sunshine land with Foul Lady Fortune, and I’m not even mad. I am obsessed with this book. If I woke up in a random forest after spending six years as a statue, I would want to wake up on Belde. For one thing there’s fewer people, but also I could learn to love gardening for those greenhouses. I would move to Belde for the ocean room alone. I would learn to swim for the ocean room. I say that as someone who has never taken to swimming despite repeated attempts to teach me, which is bizarre when I have always been drawn to the sea. I also love the idea of reviving a cottage – like I said, I really just want a free cottage to fix up – and building a new community from the ashes of the old. Though now that I think about it, I would push Laiken out a window if it meant I could live by myself in his tower with maybe a winged cat or two or five.
The characters are more of a mixed bag. The sentient plants are extremely lovable and Terlu has far more personality than Kiela, making her a more engaging narrator, but Yarrow sometimes behaves like a petulant child, which is less appealing. But he is also kind in his actions and so sweetly thoughtful, as when he not only remembers Terlu’s story about her favorite chocolate oranges but makes them for her, perfectly, just in time for Winter Feast. He genuinely cares for everyone’s safety, even a total stranger who crashed into his greenhouse out of nowhere and hugged him almost the minute she laid eyes on him, and he goes out of his way to make sure everyone is comfortable and looked after even while he’s asking them why they’re there. He isn’t threatened by Terlu’s education and intelligence, but supports her in the ways that he can – for instance, by voluntarily cleaning the filthy workroom and bringing her food while she puzzles over Laiken’s impossible codes – and adores her exactly as she is, with no ifs or buts. He admires her ability to befriend damn near everybody, and he tells her that anyone who doesn’t like her is a fool. He never throws in little cutting remarks about her weight and he never tries to control it, and it is never presented as any sort of an obstacle; if anything, it seems to be part of her appeal. She herself uses words like “cuddly” and “huggable,” which I love.
This is why I love them, even with Yarrow’s habit of shutting down when the conversation becomes too difficult. The relationship works because it isn’t a matter of Terlu “fixing” Yarrow, or vice versa. They take care of each other, and they learn each other’s needs and vulnerabilities and passions and try to provide for them accordingly. Terlu runs interference when Yarrow can’t deal with his family, gives him time and space when he gets overwhelmed by the talking plants, and reacts with joy every time she triggers his unskippable plant-loving dialogue. Yarrow dreads company and needs recharging time, but he listens to Terlu’s stories and gets offended on her behalf when others treat her poorly, and he suggests that they invite her family to visit for the Summer Feast. He delights in her experiments and never blames her for their sometimes inevitable failures. As much as she has been told that she is simply too much – and my introverted ass would probably agree if I ever encountered her in person, though I would hate myself for it – I love that it is never about making Terlu sit down and shut up. Her love of every living thing frequently works to her detriment simply because people are people, but it is also her greatest strength as she builds a community from the ground up, starting with the enchanted fauna. I love that she befriends the tiny dragons by bringing them treats for no other reason than that she thinks they will like them. I wish we had more people like her in this world.
I am less fond of the other gardeners, though I do love Rowan’s relationship with her wife, Ambrel. Rowan herself comes across more combative than I would’ve liked, possibly mostly because of her and Yarrow’s estrangement and lack of communication, which I can certainly understand. I am glad they manage to resolve their differences. I have more of an issue with Birch, who dismisses a major traumatic event from Yarrow’s childhood as a rite of passage and never tries to understand why nine-year-old Yarrow might not have wanted to be abandoned in a spooky cave. He later apologizes sincerely for leaving the island and never returning, which is the root of Yarrow’s issues with the bulk of his family, but he never acknowledges that the cave thing was wrong. Neither does Yarrow’s Uncle Rorick, who was the main instigator of that trauma. It would’ve been nice to have had some admission of wrongdoing, even a simple “Yeah, not my best parenting moment.” Maybe he’ll eventually take Terlu’s words to heart, because she does try to talk to him about it, though he doesn’t actually listen to her. Still, all hope is not lost. He and Yarrow are getting along better by the time Winter Feast rolls around; maybe there’ll be some progress at some unseen later date.
As much as I loved this book, I almost gave it a 4.75 for some pacing issues and continuity blips. In the end the satisfaction of the conclusion boosted it up to a full 5, and it deserves it, but I also acknowledge that the book is a little slower than it could have been. This is chiefly because Terlu’s narration is gratingly repetitive as she frets again and again and again over the possibility of capture and punishment – which is entirely fair, but not when her internal dialogue just repeats the same talking points over and over again. I could also have used less of her constant agonizing over Yarrow’s affection for her, though it sounds heartless to say so. It’s a natural part of her character, given that she has spent her life trying to reach out to others and getting shut down, but the constant repetition bogs the story down. There was also at least one continuity goof, which could and should have been caught during the editing process. In Marin’s first scene, she refers to Yarrow by name; on the literal next page she says she never knew his name until Terlu used it. You can’t have it both ways, Marin.
In the end, of course, these issues are so small, and they pale in comparison to the beauty of the rest of the book. This is the absolute best book I have read in the month of January, narrowly beating out Brigands & Breadknives (Travis Baldree), which – while I adore it – did not contain tiny dragons with a treasure hoard bigger than all of them put together. I love Terlu unreasonably, and I stand fully ready to eat her enemies and bathe in their blood. (She won’t like that, so I’ll do it when she’s not looking. And before you come after me for missing the point of the book, this is a basic courtesy I would extend to all of my friends, okay.) She and Yarrow are so sweet and so full of love that they give so freely, in ways that are uniquely their own, and the book itself is so wonderfully kind. The one major issue, possibly larger than the tiny nothings mentioned above, is that you cannot read this book if you are hungry, or even just if you haven’t eaten in a couple of hours. It made me so hungry literally while I was just flipping through it for this review that I had to stop mid-review and go to the kitchen for some of the leftover blueberry nut bread baked by my second cousin, eaten naturally with butter and a few slivers of cheese. I need to track down a good recipe for honey cakes and a magical vegetable soup that somehow tastes sweet and spicy and nutty. For the syrup that goes with the cakes, I’m wondering if it’s something like a simple syrup? I still know the recipe for the simple syrup I used to make before my second bakery job went down in flames, because I made sure to write it down after I left.
Despite the essay I just wrote for this book, all I can really say is read it. I can’t wait for Marin’s story and am simultaneously so irritated with myself for reading the synopsis ahead of time, the same way I was irritated that I read the synopsis for Greenhouse ahead of time, because Terlu’s survival was spoiled for me long before I got to the end of Spellshop. Now that I know each Spellshop book is going to be a standalone (and I am crossing my fingers and praying for more), I will try to avoid reading synopses before I’ve had a chance to read the actual books. Marin’s reappearance would have been a delightful surprise; I loved her in this book, little though she appeared. The woman literally showed up with a trumpeting sea serpent heralding her arrival, there was no way I wasn’t going to love her. Between the foods, the locales, the people, the creatures, and the nerdy magical linguistics, this series is just the absolute best, and I never want it to end.
