Stay for a Spell

 

Stay for a Spell- Amy Coombe

Ace

Release Date: April 14, 2026

Rating: 📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Princess Tanadelle of the Widdenmar is disillusioned with life as a princess. She longs for real conversation, the chance to build a life of her own making, and uninterrupted reading time.

During a routine royal visit to the town of Little Pepperidge, Tandy’s dream comes true when she finds herself cursed to remain in a run-down bookshop until she unlocks her heart’s desire. Certain that someone will figure out how to break the curse eventually, and delighted by the prospect of an entire bookstore of her own, Tandy settles into life among the stacks. She finds it easy to exchange balls and endless state dinners for teetering piles of books and an irritatingly handsome pirate who seems bent on stealing her stock.

She even starts to believe she's stumbled into her very own happily ever after.

There's just one, minor problem: as Tandy's royal duties go unfulfilled, her frantic parents start sending princes to woo her, each one of them certain their kiss will break the curse. After all, what more could a princess want but a prince?

____________________________________________________

We've all had the dream: if you were locked in a bookshop overnight, what would you do?

Tandy (Princess Tanandelle of Widdenmar) gets to find out the answer. She pops off for what should be a quick visit to a local bookshop in between royal duties on the road and finds herself cursed to stay in the shop until she finds her heart's desire. What's a book-loving woman to do when literally unable to leave a bookshop?

She dives right in and finds herself loving the quiet life. Before long it's just Tandy; a goth teenage assistant; a magical bookshop cat (every bookshop should have one); and a hot (also-cursed), pirate who seems to enjoy hanging out with them. Chaos and hilarity ensues when Tandy's parents start sending princes out to kiss her and break the curse. Because what else could a princess want? 

Stay for a Spell is a cozy fantasy that I can best describe as utterly delightful and adorable. Tandy is completely down-to-earth in a slightly naive way. Used to trying to make everyone but herself happy, she's suddenly confronted by the one question she's never asked: what does she want in life? Is the solution to all her problems a prince, the way her parent think? (Never mind that she's known them all for most of her life and would already know if she loved one). What else is she allowed to have? 

The secondary characters are well-done. Goth draconae Sasha is a classic teen, but once she drops the initial act she and Tandy get along really well and she's more of a delight than she'd want to know. Bash the cursed pirate gives off Once Upon a Time Captain Hook-lite vibes—so I completely fell for him. The slow build relationship between Bash and Tandy was completely charming. And though the competent Honey doesn't get much page time, she rocks what time she has.

If you're a cozy fantasy fan, and especially a fellow book-lover, make sure you read Stay for a Spell. 

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Murder on the Airship

 Murder on the Airship- Victoria Bergman

Stonehenge Circle  Press

Release Date: March 12, 2026

Rating: 📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: An emergency landing, quarreling elven and naga nobility, meddlesome dwarven officials, renegade pixies, dubious mercenaries, and a dragon who cheats at cards.

Bad enough without a murder.

Thyria had signed on to protect passengers, not investigate them. But she takes over morning watch aboard the Silver Kestrel, the finest airship aloft, to find a first-class passenger stabbed to death in his own stateroom.

Now she must investigate – tactfully, whatever that means – a burgeoning diplomatic incident, navigating the towering egos of influential passengers who each have something to hide.

Because if she doesn’t find her quarry within the day, this will be the Kestrel’s final flight.

________________________________________________

What would you get if Terry Pratchett's Discworld visited Agatha Christie's Murder on the Nile? Probably something along the lines of Victoria Bergman's Murder on the Airship. 

When guard Thyria finds one of the annoying first-class passengers stabbed to death on the airship Silver Kestrel, it isn't a great start to her day. The good news is that there are a limited number of suspects, since most of the passengers were in town partying for the solstice. The rest of the news is all bad. All the guests have reasons to want him dead; the airship has been sabotaged; the elves and naga are about five minutes from war and everyone is taking sides on the ship; there's at least two assassination attempts on top of the murder; a smuggled dragon; and let's not even mention the pixies. The guard who should be in charge is in sickbay with a bad case of being poisoned and it's up to Thyria to figure out what happened—preferably before the local dwarves get involved. But when everyone has a reason to want soomeone dead, how do you find the actual killer?

Thyria is a fun character. She's not a detective. She's the guard who gets to threaten smugglers and toss drunks off her ship while her boss handles things like "diplomacy" and "politeness". So she's completely out of her element being asked to deal with important ambasadors and first-class passengers. Give her a good bar fight any day! She's quite sure at first she can't handle the assignment. But the captain is busy and she's the only one left to handle it, so she has to grit her teeth and figure it out.

There's a delightful sense of humor to  Bergman's writing. Thyria approaches the murder (and the world) with a no-nonsense, we're-all-in-this-together-so-why-waste-my-time feeling. The various high-handed sensibilities of the senators, ambasadors, and self-described important people she has to deal with don't get anywhere with her. But they try. While she may not be able to threaten them the way she can incompentent mercenaries and moronic magic students, she learns the power of a fake smile and a little blackmail.

While things got a little overly complicated in ways they might not have needed to, and tangled with a few extra subplots, Murder on the Airship was a delightful cozy fantasy mystery that should make readers of both genres happy and looking for more by Victoria Bergman. I will certainly be hoping for more flights by the Silver Kestrel.

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review