Twig's Traveling Tomes

by Gryffin Murphy

Synopsis:

A witch with a magical affinity for books who owns a travelling bookstore reluctantly teams up with a charming rogue, her former professor and a gnome in search of a rare stolen grimoire. Perfect for fans of Rebecca Thorne, India Holton, Travis Baldree and Sarah Beth Durst

Romance is easier read than done...

Louella Twig is the only witch of her kind, much to the disappointment of her former mentor and her previous academic ambitions. While others connect to nature as their source of magic, Louella has an affinity with books. Denied her graduation broom, Louella carves a new path using her talent, creating a magical ambulatory bookshop that travels throughout the realm uniting readers with stories.

She lives a cosy, stable life, until she collides - quite literally - with a mysterious man between the Romance and Adventure aisles. Everett Sharp is handsome, charming ... and a rogue on the run. He's absolutely not someone Louella wishes to share either an adventure or a romance with. But then her old mentor arrives with a desperate a valuable grimoire has been stolen and there is only one witch who can retrieve what has been lost ... a witch who now finds herself in need of a bandit with experience.

Together with friends both old and new, Louella and Everett embark on an adventure across the four kingdoms, encountering whimsical creatures, a flying greenhouse full of plant pirates and a magical World's Fair. Along the way, Louella starts to wonder if this new chapter of her life could include some romance after all ...

I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

I’m a sucker for books about books, and especially about magic involving books, so I had to give Gryffin Murphy’s Twig’s Traveling Tomes a shot. I love the idea of how Louella’s magic works, the books shouting out to her to help her give each person the perfect book — even when it isn’t necessarily in Louella’s interests, as sometimes the right book for someone might make them angry (when it suggests their husband is cheating, for example) or help them do something unethical.

I kinda enjoyed the fetch quest way the book played out, as well, with Louella using her magic to find the scattered pages of her old master’s book. It’s a bit of a romp, and some of those bits were quite fun — and the familiar she accidentally acquires along the way (a “haregon”, AKA “dragon rabbit”) is pretty cute and entertaining. The characters we learn about along the way are often fun in concept too, like Louella’s parents and their flying greenhouse.

Buuut I found the romance more than a little frustrating. The instant attraction felt completely unearned and cookie-cutter, and I didn’t feel like there was a speck of real chemistry between them beyond the author repeatedly telling me there was. I know the descriptions are meant to indicate that they’re super into each other, it is “shown not told” in places, but it just didn’t ring true somehow. Like someone holding two dolls up to each other and smooshing their faces together, saying “now kiss”. Some of the humorous moments feel similarly forced, to be honest.

That romance element takes up a fair portion of the page count, so given it didn’t work well for me, it’s not too much of a surprise that I didn’t love the book. The bookish magic is fun, and if insta-love doesn’t bother you (which… for me, it kinda depends on how things play out, and it didn’t work for me here), you’ll likely have more fun than I did.

Rating: 2/5 (“it was okay”)