The Enchanted Greenhouse has made me wonder whether cozy romantasy is mostly just about at least a couple of characters working through their issues together is a somewhat healthy way, and catching feelings along with way. No plot necessary. Which might be why The Enchanted Greenhouse barely has one, a plot that is.
The central figure is Terlu Perna who spent The Spellshop being mentioned briefly as Caz the sentient spider-plant’s creator who got turned into a statue for illegal magic use. Somehow Terlu gets un-petrified when she is sent (in statue form) to an island of greenhouses created by a wizard but now mostly abandoned except for the apparently deeply introverted lone handsome gardener. And also some talking sentient plants.
There are sort of two plotlines/mysteries but neither create much of any action; somehow the greenhouses’ magic is starting to fail, which means the greenhouse dies, and the wizard who started them all is dead. Terlu has a mission now, being a plant loving research librarian, to figure out the magic problems. There is very little action involved, just research, the occasional experiment, and a lot of having to work through the trauma of being turned into a statue for doing magic while not being a legal user.
Terlu’s second challenge is figuring out Yarrow (the hot gardner). She’s the sunshiney one to his cloudiness. Neither of them are in touch with their families, and both have issues related to that. Yarrow’s are more prominent though since his family issues might be related to the gardening problems (the whole family once upon a time lived on the island caretaking for the green houses until the wizard told most of them to leave).
Emeral the flying kitty is there more for comic relief and cuteness as only kitties can do, and the little mini garden dragons seem to serve a similar purpose. There’s a nice nod to the previous novel towards the end, and I have to admit I was a little disappointed when I found out that book 3 won’t be going with that. It makes sense in a way; romantasy series’ typically work by pairing folks off, not long term plot building, but still, that would have been interesting.
