Sea of Charms (Spellshop #3) by Sarah Beth Durst

The Spellshop
The Enchanted Garden

Cozy fantasy is NOT an easy genre to write. It is hard to write about something with actual stakes, but that doesn't seem like TOO many stakes, if you know what I mean? There has to be some conflict, but not enough that the reader is actually worried in the Ned Stark is about to lose his head sort of way. Legends and Lattes was quite good, but the follow-up was a snooze. People recommend the Monk and Robot series for cozy fantasy and, while I do like Becky Chambers a lot, maybe the first book was a little too cozy for me? I think Sarah Beth Durst is actually quite good at it. Sea of Charms is the third book in the Spellshop series and if you're looking for something to distract you from reality, these books are just the thing.

Marin is a sailor. She runs supplies from island to island in an attempt to pay off the debt her parents took on to help pay for her boat after Marin had a broken engagement. Suddenly, she has a crew of a talking plant and this composer named Dax who is fleeing from the war-torn city of Alyssium. She has a pet sea serpent. A PET SEA SERPENT. Can they pay off her parents' debt? Can they safely escape the danger from the war? 

OF COURSE THEY CAN. THIS IS COZY FANTASY.

I don't think Dax is as good a male lead as the grumpy gardener in the second book, but not every book has to be grumpy/sunshine to parallel my own real life. 

I love the world Durst is creating. I love how simple everything is in these books. 

Do I want every book I ever read to be like this? No, of course not. But as a diversion as I'm going to bed, I absolutely do want it. 

4/5 stars

Lines of note:

Sure, the city was lovely, in the same way that a many-tiered cake covered in fondant and spun sugar seemed lovely if you didn’t know it had been baked with fish inside. It soured if you sniffed too hard. (location 182)

“People think pleasure is the source of happiness. I have found that it is not. It is purpose. Purpose and passion.” (location 5627)

Hat mentions (why hats?):

he wore a stiff box-shaped hat on top of slicked-down hair (location 5340)

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Are you a cozy fantasy fan? What's your favorite in the genre? What's your favorite mythical creature? 

We Were Forbidden by Jacqueline Harpman, translated by Ros Schwartz

Since I read I Who Have Never Known Men, I've wanted to dig into Harpman's catalog a little bit. We Were Forbidden is a new translation of three short stories written by Harpman.

In the first story, a woman and her fellow survivors wander around a woods after having been conscripted to the military in a war, a war they haven't heard any news about in years. Is the war still ongoing? Can they leave the woods? As their clothing falls apart and their ammunition stores dwindle, what is going to happen to this group?

There's a mini-series on An Old Timey Podcast in which they talk about Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese soldier ordered to lead guerilla warfare missions on Lubang Island in the Philippines. He was told to never surrender, so when he received word that World War II had ended, Hiroo was certain that the message was a trick. He kept fighting until 1974 – nearly 29 years after the war ended.

This short story made me think of Onoda. It's probably the strongest story in the collection.

The second story is based on Harpman's childhood, when she and her family fled to Morocco in light of the invasion of Nazi troops. In this story, the main character is punished severely for ideas she doesn't share with the Moroccans. It was also zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

The last story was confusing, but fascinating. The main character is an author and, as she's going about her daily life, she starts inventing a story and characters in her head. So it's a bit unsettling because you're going from "real" life to the invented life. Honestly, it's one of the best things I've read about the writing process. Most books on writing don't actually touch on how ideas happen - they focus on butt in seat and hours at craft - but this short story really did seem to talk about the creative process in a way that felt real. 

As with most short story collections, I thought the stories varied in strength, but I'm glad I read this. Plus, it's only 90 pages long, so I finished this in an evening after dinner!

4/5 stars

Line of note:

I hadn't understood that there are moments in history when noble sentiments prevail over common sense...I had naivety and reason but no tact. It didn't occur to me that an argument that was well-founded could be controversial. (page 30)

I know this is just because of the anniversary of 9/11 recently, but I remember being so vehemently against the PATRIOT Act and it seemed like everyone around thought I had lost my mind. I was not tactful about what I thought about the government and sort of missed the memo on blind patriotism at that time in history. 

Things I looked up:

humus (page 12) - dark, organic material that forms in soil when plant and animal matter decays

Giorgione's Young Man with Arrow (page 57) -  an Italian Renaissance oil on panel painting created by Giorgione in 1505. It lives at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. 

Gros's Bonaparte at the Pont d'Arcole (page 57) - an oil-on-canvas painting executed in 1796 by the French artist Antoine-Jean Gros. It depicts an episode during the Battle of Arcole in November 1796, with General Napoleon Bonaparte leading his troops to storm the bridge. It is housed at the Palace of Versailles.

the plot of Madame Bovary (page 76) - Emma Bovary marries Charles, a fairly dull doctor. Emma's bored with her staid middle-class life and to escape this life, she has affairs with local men and runs up massive debts buying luxury items. When her lovers refuse to help her pay what she owes and her creditors close in, she kills herself by swallowing arsenic. Her heartbroken husband dies soon after discovering her betrayal, leaving their young daughter to an impoverished life. Oof. Sounds sad. 

Hat mentions (why hats?):

broad-brimmed black hat (page 56, 72, and 73)

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How do you feel about short story collections? Have you ever read one where all the stories were a hit? 

Cool Bloggers Book Club (CBBC) Edition #7: The Vote

Previous CBBC books:

A Tree Grows In Brooklyn
My Brilliant Friend 
I Capture the Castle
The Blue Castle

The Joy Luck Club

The Age of Innocence

According to my still non-existent editorial calendar, we're doing another round of Cool Bloggers Book Club (CBBC) next month! I have winnowed down the book selection to three books and now you, my friends, are going to vote on what you think is the best option. How did I choose these books? When I was in Indianapolis with TJC, we spent an inordinate amount of time discussing books I would pick for the next CBBC vote.  Here's the theme: non-American authors. 

You do not have to be cool or a blogger to participate, although I'd argue you're cool just by being here. 

Now that we're done with all this introductory nonsense, let's get to the vote. 

Option #1: I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman (1995, 173 pages) - What would it be like to live in a world without men? A meditative book about what it means to be human and what we continue living for. 

Option #2: The Vegetarian by Han Kang (2007, 158 pages) - A woman has nightmares and decides to stop eating meat. This leads to disturbing cascading events at home.

Options #3: Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata ( 2016, 163 pages) - Keiko is very happy with her job at a convenience store, but it seems like the rest of the world isn't happy for her. 

Those are the options. You can try to lobby fellow readers to your favorites in the comments, but your actual vote will be cast at this Google form. I am asking for you to rank order your choices from your most preferred to least preferred book. You do not actually need to be a blogger to participate in CBBC, but you should probably at least occasionally read this blog. I'll leave the form up until Wednesday, September 23 and then I'll tabulate the votes and post the schedule soon thereafter. 

Sound off in the comments!

Habits of the Sea by Shea Ernshaw

Habits of the Sea by Shea Ernshaw is a weird little story.

Clay Lockhart's wife and son die in childbirth on a stormy night. During this storm, Clay's house and the eight hectares of land surrounding it break off from Scottish coast in the wake of his grief. This island becomes legend, as people very occasionally see it, but no one ever goes to the island itself. Twelve-year-old Ellie Mills finds the island herself one night in a storm and Clay sends her back on her way. But time goes by differently on the island and what was a couple of hours for Ellie was weeks back at Ellie's home in Nova Scotia. 

Thirty-year-old Ellie hears about a sighting of the island and she goes in search of it. What happens next? 

Here's what I learned from this book. If my husband and I were stranded on a floating island in the ocean and we had to somehow survive with what we had in our house and our land, we would die. That's all. 

Clay didn't even have a dog or a cat with him! He's all alone for decades. I like my alone time, but wouldn't you go absolutely crazy? Like...batshit? 

Some people compare this to Wild Dark Shore, but I think it's better than that (I DNFed WDS). I mean, I bought into the magical element of the wandering island and time slowing. I wanted to read it and find out what would happen to these two fools. I wanted to know if Ellie would ever figure out what was right for her life. I  thought the author did a nice job of not making Clay look like a creep since he first met Ellie when she was a tween. 

I liked this one. I didn't LOVE it, but I did want to know how things ended up. 3.5/5 stars

Line of note:

Some part of me knows he's too good, too perfect for me - and it makes me wary. Suspicious. Not of him, but of life. Like I've always known I don't deserve him. (page 22)

But we all feel way, right? Asking for a friend.

Thing I looked up:

snell (page 1) - chiefly Scottish, meaning quick or acute (a snell wind or a snell storm)

Hat mention (why hats?):

thick hats (page 205)

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Would you want to be alone on an island by yourself? Without another person, dog, or cat? 

Lady Tremaine by Rachel Hochhauser

There was so much love for Lady Tremaine by Rachel Hochhauser on the interwebz that I finally caved and got it from the library. 

Etheldreda is a two-time widow. She lives with her daughters and her stepdaughter in a crumbling mansion with only a couple of incredibly loyal servants. Etheldreda believes in keeping up appearances because if her daughters can marry well, their problems will be solved. So when there's a ball to introduce people to the very eligible prince, she's pumped when all three girls get to go. But we soon learn all is not right with the kingdom. 

This is a take on the Cinderella tale from the POV of the stepmother. It was interesting, but really just made me think everyone in the story was terrible. Surely there are good people out there? One of the key features of Cinderella is that Cindy is truly kind and hardworking (I mean, at least in the Disney version I'm familiar with). In this book she's lazy and entitled and it feels like it's truly a different story. I mean, obviously the stepmother would have a different view of Cinderella than Cinderella herself, but the character is completely different. 

So. Hm.

It really is a good look at how, for most of human history, women's fates have been determined by the men in their lives. It's a look at the most genteel of survival. 

But, to be honest, Etheldreda isn't evil enough for me here. 3/5 stars

Lines of note:

One had to have a shell, or at least the projection of one, for protection. For the sake of presentability, all our lives were a performance. (page 7)

I had once heard a sculptor compare his children to marble. He said, like stone, their future shape lingers inside of them, waiting to be revealed. But I believed that children were paintings as much as they were sculptures. You shepherded the along from blank canvas: guiding and cajoling and teaching and begging and reprimanding and instructing and demanding pushing and prodding the finished art into a picture of your own making. A stone is just a stone until someone appears with a chisel. (page 62)

"Of course families are negotiated. We are all in negotiation. A marriage begins with negotiation and continues to be one. And that is if fortune smiles upon you! If you are not viewed as chattel, or property." (page 201)

There are far-fetched stories of headless men that wander, bodies that keep walking without skulls. But I've killed enough chickens to know: Sometimes a torso keeps going. The last pumps of the heart. The legs moving. The final stumble before the collapse. (page 247)

Things I've looked up:

girandole (page 58) - an ornamental branched candle holder, a convex wall mirror fitted with candle arms, or a cluster-style pendant earring featuring three dangling drops

solecism (page 202) -  a grammatical mistake in writing or speech, or a breach of good manners and social etiquette

austringer (page 204) - one who keeps goshawks

Hat mentions (why hats?):

large sun hat (page 47)

ridiculous hat (page 57)

sew a ribbon to a hat (page 119)

it is my hat (page 119)

unbecoming hat (page 119)

new hat (page 119)

ugliest, most regrettable hat (page 119)

do not need to concern yourself with the hat (page 119)

I do not think her hat is ugly (page 120)

the hat and veil and gloves (page 123)

I pulled my hat down (page 139) 

ribbons of her hat (page 151)

complimented your hat (page 152)

tipped his hat (page 154)

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Okay, real talk. Do you think I'm not vibing with any of these books because of the time of year? Do you find yourself being harsher about books during certain seasons/times?

August 2026 Accountability Buddy

Saturday, August 1
Day off

Sunday, August 2
30-minute yoga for tired legs

Monday, August 3

30-minute conditioning yoga video at the student union during lunch - YOU GUYS. My arms and abs may never recover from this workout. 

Tuesday, August 4

35-minute full body - Sometimes you actually have to lift a weight. 

Wednesday, August 5

30-minute cardio with Fitness Blender - This was old skool for me. 

Thursday, August 6

30-minute continuous yoga flow - Oof. Tough one. 

Friday, August 7

15-minute stretch class at lunchtime*

30-minute posterior chain dumbbell workout

Saturday, August 8

40-minute yin yoga

I have been slowly chipping away at this ten best balance exercises to help with my bad leg and I finished it today. I'm going to keep trying to do one or two of these exercises a day. 

Sunday, August 9

Day off

Monday, August 10

30-minute yoga video in the student union during lunchtime

Tuesday, August 11

10-minute upper body workout

10-minute lower body workout

10-minute standing abs

Wednesday, August 12

45-minute yoga class at the community center after work

Thursday, August 13

30-minute yoga video in the student union during lunchtime

60-minute Zumba class after work

Friday, August 14

15-minute stretch class at lunchtime

Saturday, August 15

Day off

Sunday, August 16

30-minute upper body and abs

Monday, August 17

10-minute standing abs

20-minute evening yoga flow

Tuesday, August 18

Day off

Wednesday, August 19

45-minute yoga class at the student union after work

Thursday, August 20

10-minute quads and calves - I mean, maybe my form IS bad. This is mostly glutes in my world. Whoops. 

10-minute standing arms

10-minute Japanese walking

Ooof.

Friday, August 21 - Monday, August 24

Days off

Tuesday, August 25

15-minute stretch class at lunchtime

30-minute no repeat full body & abs

Wednesday, August 26

15-minute stretch class at lunchtime

45-minute yoga class at the community center after work

Thursday, August 27

30-minute yoga video in the student union during lunchtime

Friday, August 28

15-minute stretch class at lunchtime

Saturday, August 29

30-minute upper body and abs

Sunday, August 30

40-minute yoga flow

Monday, August 31

15-minute stretch class at lunchtime

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Total: 20/31 (64.5%) of days 30 minutes or more

Cardio/strength: 10 days

Yoga: 12 days

Short stretch classes at lunchtime: 6 days

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I am losing steam. Ha. It feels like my 80% goal for the year is slowly slipping away. Oh, well. Onward.

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There's a lot in here if you are me and you know what to look for. I went away for the weekend and while I considered it "time off," you would probably not if you considered how many miles we walked and how much I jumped at the concert. It's also just that the days are getting shorter and, as many of you know, I suffer from SAD and I am struggling these days. But I shall persevere and try to get through this.

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Do you find your motivation for working out slipping this time of year? Or do you find more time once the kids go back to school? 

Five for Friday, Edition #49

 1) My husband won a big award. I mean, technically he won two big awards, one at the university level and one at the college level, but the one at the college level was super meaningful. I was there when it was announced and he was so surprised and I was surprised at how quickly I welled up with tears. He's so good at what he does.

2) The first day of classes was Wednesday. There was a "threat to life safety" emergency issued at my campus, but we didn't know at the time was that it was not a true threat to life safety.  It was scary. Fortunately, I was not the adult in the room at the time - our associate deans started telling us what to do in our office space and I just did what I was told to do. I had a student in my office and I shut off the lights, closed and locked the door, and pulled down the blinds. It was terrifying. I mean, in the end, it was nothing, but there was a half hour or so there where I was frantically trying to find my husband. I just. I never want to go through that again.

And, honestly, the rumors going around this are astounding. Someone was acting erratically at the library and someone else thought they had a weapon. This was called in. It turns out that the maybe weapon was an umbrella. That's the end of the story. But the rumor mill is out of control. 

Now we're dealing with a flood of calls for students asking to move to online classes. Classes have started. Classes are at full capacity. This feels like a surreal nightmare. 

3) The dog was sick. Again. This time it was the living room rug. So if you come to my house and it smells like dog shit, YOU HAVE TO LET ME KNOW. We are officially nose blind to it at this point because the involvement in cleanup was real.

4) Labor Day is this weekend. I have been tasked with bringing salads. Let's be clear, I usually bring a lettuce salad, but I'm OUT ON LETTUCE RIGHT NOW. I'm going to bring green bean salad and grape salad and hope for the best. If anyone dares to call me out on the salad game, I will probably not handle it well.

I also added "mani/pedi" to the options of things to do over the weekend and a bunch of us are going to get our nails done on Saturday morning. I've already made the appointment and everything. I WILL BE THE COOL AUNT.

5) Updated on seasonal SAD: It's already bad. I'm walking Hannah in the dark 2/3 daily walks again. I am chronically tired. I am very much liable to start crying if you ask me a single even slightly controversial question. I am looking forward to Labor Day, but as soon as someone asks me how the start of the semester is going, I'm nervous I might just break down. 

I decided on my birthday in mid-August that I was going to reset. It's been a tough couple of years in the old Gimbalsh household and I was determined that things were going to turn around. But the days get shorter, there's unbloggable things happening at work, and then this week happened with the dog and the active threat to life alert and the news of the world. And it has been (counts days) seventeen days since I decided to reset and I think I'm in a worse place than I was before. 

So if all I'm writing about is books and what I ate for dinner, please give me some grace. I am trying to keep it together. 

Happy Labor Day to those who celebrate. For the rest of the world, happy weekend!