The Enchanted Greenhouse by Sarah Beth Durst – Review

Published: July 15, 2025

Publisher: Bramble

Series: The Spellshop #2

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 384 (Kindle)

My Rating: 4 Stars

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis:
New York Times bestselling author Sarah Beth Durst invites you to her new standalone novel set in the world of The Spellshop! Follow her to The Enchanted Greenhouse, a cozy fantasy nestled on a far-away island brimming with singing flowers, honey cakes, and honeyed love.

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.

Funny, kind, and forgiving, The Enchanted Greenhouse is a story about giving second chances—to others and to yourself.

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The Enchanted Greenhouse is for the lovers of all things sweet, cozy, and plentiful in vegetation. This is the sequel to The Spellshop, but I think it would work fine as a standalone reading experience as any context you need is explained throughout the book. 

This follows Terlu Perna, a librarian who was turned into a statue as punishment for illegally using magic to bring a plant to sentience. For those who’ve read the previous book, you know that this is Caz the spider plant. Terlu awakens from her punishment on a snowy island covered in a sprawling magical greenhouse, with a single gardener named Yarrow tending it. According to Yarrow, after he requested the assistance of a sorcerer to fix the failing greenhouse spells, her statue arrived on the island of Belde with a note about how to perform the spell to awaken Terlu. Though Terlu may not be a sorcerer, her knowledge of languages and spells from her time working the library prove invaluable in saving the place Yarrow calls home. 

The Enchanted Greenhouse is a very sweet book and very much has the same vibes as The Spellshop. Terlu and Yarrow start out somewhat awkward around one another but during the course of their work on the old sorcerer’s journals teasing out the secrets of the spells keeping the greenhouse working they begin to grow closer. It’s not rushed and there’s plenty of blushing and loving offers of honey cakes, tea, and support. This is cozy and clean, so it would also be appropriate for young adult readers as well. There are some explorations of themes like family dynamics, second chances, and supporting someone you love. Nothing too heavy here. 

Perhaps the best part (for me at least) were the greenhouses themselves and all the magical flora and fauna found within. This is a vibrantly magical world anyway, but the denizens of the greenhouses are darling – miniature dragons, leafy mice, a slew of sentient plants, and the ever present winged cat named Emeral. The greenhouse is a wonder, with hundreds of rooms that contain plants from all over the world and even a few created by the sorcerer who built the greenhouse of Belde. It’s definitely a story I’d love to step into and explore! The Enchanted Greenhouse seems like it would be a perfect book to read near Christmas, as the story is set in winter and everything is snow-covered and that makes the scenes with lots of warm food and cozy blankets even nicer.

Overall, I thought this was a wonderful story though I think The Spellshop remains my favorite of the two because the stakes were just a bit bigger in that story. I certainly didn’t want the greenhouse to fail, because it was marvelous but it just didn’t feel as perilous as saving the livelihood of an entire island’s people. I can’t wait to see what Sarah Beth Durst has in store for this world next – I read somewhere that there were several more books planned in this universe!