When Oaklin Nettlewood accidentally joined an evil world-ending cult, mind control magic forced them to do unspeakable things. Years later, the realm’s heroes have finally saved the day, defeated the villain, and shattered the last remnants of the spell…leaving destruction in their wake. And so, with a spell-damaged memory and whole bushel of trauma, Oaklin escapes to a small farm on the edge of Mossley’s Rest and swears an After all the things they were forced to do with their magic, they will never use it again. Ever.
The no-nonsense ghost granny who lives in Oaklin’s house has other ideas. As she coaxes Oaklin out of their shell and back into the world, they find companionship (a grumpy horse and a very good dog), friendship (a local bard and magical baker who should just kiss already), and tentative romance (a paladin-librarian who makes Oaklin’s heart come alive for the first time in ages.) Magic even seems possible again—though strictly for foraging magical mushrooms and protecting the farm from bugs.
Healing comes in gentle waves, and Oaklin doesn’t have to do it alone. So what does it mean when an inquisitor comes to town to hunt former cultists just as Oaklin begins to think that maybe, just maybe, they deserve a happy ending after all?
I have many feelings about this book.
This is a cosy fantasy (emphasis on the COSY) about Oaklin who buys a farm in order to start again after being mind-controlled for six years by the evil magical overlord who has just been defeated. They move to the farm, make some friends, meet the ghost of the former owner and deal with using magic again when their strongest association with magic is them using under Enchantrix’s control.
The worldbuilding is great, I wanted to explore more of the magic system and the religious order of the Three and the role it plays in everyday life. I want to know more about this post-Enchantrix world and whether anyone apart from the Paladin was a bit resentful of the former cultists just going free.
This book has very little plot which is fine but the characters have to stand up to the challenge of carrying the book forward, and these characters just didn’t. I do wish that we could get one of these cosy fantasy novels where someone comes to start their new life over where they have actually done bad things in the past and they have to live with it and figure out how to live with themselves and their own redemption arc. Oaklin spends a majority of the book having a panic attack about using magic or their friends finding out they used to be a cultist – both of which are fixed in the end. It was frustrating when all responsibility for their actions was taken away from them. I loved the reveal of who Granny was in the end but it was probably the only part where I felt like Oaklin’s guilt had a reasonable basis. It made Oaklin toothless and a bit annoying and it was frustrating when there were far more interesting stories in the background characters, like Dara, Tallah and even Liar. They all have their own grief and guilt to work through and it’s far more interesting than Oaklin’s.
Oaklin doesn’t really have to work for anything. The farm succeeds because of magic (and a ghost), Oaklin acquires friends by just turning up at a bakery, acquires a partner by just ogling someone at a library, and there is no challenge to their role in the village. Even Tallah doesn’t challenge them (she challenges someone else). Yes they have PTSD that they have to work through but they manage to use magic when it’s most important, their flashbacks never cause issues with their friends or their work, they don’t have to work to make friends or find community, it just falls into their lap.
Yes, I may be missing a lot here because this might be wish-fulfilment that I’m just not getting but I can’t help but wish that if we were going to spend a whole book focused on wizard PTSD, then we actually had something with a little bit of teeth.
But if you liked Legends and Lattes you would probably like this and it’s not a bad book by any means. It just could have been more.
*I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley*
