Twig's Traveling Tomes by Gryffin Murphy Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: cozy fantasy, fantasy, romantasy
Pages: 280
Published by Bindery Books on September 8, 2026
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads
A plot is brewing between the adventure and romance aisles.
When visiting Twig’s Traveling Tomes, customers will get the exact book they need, even if it isn’t the one they want. As for the proprietor and renowned Book Witch, Louella Twig lives her life sequestered with her stories, just as she likes it.
When devilishly handsome rogue Everett Sharp stumbles in looking to remove some handcuffs—closely followed by Louella’s former tutor, whose prized grimoire has been stolen—her literary sanctuary is fully upended. Only Louella’s magic can locate the grimoire, and teaming up with Everett is her best chance at retrieving it . . . but how can she trust that the man behind the wolfish grin isn’t interested in stealing the book for himself?
With a host of friends old and new, Louella sets off on an adventure she never thought she’d take—and starts to realize that, just like her books, what matters most has always been what’s under the surface.
My Review:
Louella Twig thinks she needs a broom. Not a real broom for sweeping floors – she already has one of those. She needs, or at least thinks she needs, a broom to hang on the wall of her traveling book shop. A symbolic broom.
A broom that would represent her successful graduation from a magical academy, proving that she was a fully trained witch. Which she is. Fully trained, that is. A graduate of one of the academies, however, she is not.
Not because she failed her studies, but because her natural magic failed to fit into one of the established, well, natural, categories. Magic is supposed to be rooted in something, well, natural. An element like earth or fire or water. Or something in nature such as a particular type of plant. Or, like her mentor’s magic, a species of animal.
Louella Twig’s magic is bound in books. Literally AND figuratively. Books speak directly to her, whispering their thoughts and the thoughts of their authors into her head. Not merely allowing her to magically match the right book with the right reader at the right time, but magically compelling her to do so.
She’s kept herself busy with her traveling bookshop, telling herself she really doesn’t need that graduation broom and that she’s fine as she is. She does her best not to admit to herself that she’s lonely, that she won’t let herself put down roots out of embarrassment that the magical establishment didn’t recognize HER branch of magic. And that everything is FINE – thankyouverymuch.
But it’s not. She IS lonely, she misses having friends and interacting with people who aren’t customers, AND she hasn’t made time to go home and visit her mothers because they see her too well and will KNOW she needs help she doesn’t want to admit she needs.
Which is where life decides it has other plans for her. Plans to shake her out of her doldrums, help her to accept herself AND help the magical establishment accept her true power, as well as provide a vehicle (technically Louella’s bookshop is the actual vehicle) for her to gather a group of companions around her in a found family that helps her find herself, lets them find themselves, share a fantastic adventure AND fall in love all in one captivating cozy fantasy.
Escape Rating A-: This is another one of those “book in a blender” stories. Twig’s Traveling Tomes combines two cozy fantasies, Stay for a Spell and Brigands & Breadknives (the latest Legends & Lattes story) into one lovely and cozy read.
Both of those stories are books that are steeped in the love of reading and the solace of being surrounded by books. It takes both of them to make Twig’s Traveling Tomes because Brigands is about a bookseller deciding that books are not enough and needing to go on an adventure of her own instead of just reading about them, while Spell is about finding yourself in a bookshop and having the world come to you instead of you going out to meet it. And both stories are about finding love in the last place you look for it because its the place you never were allowed – or let yourself – be before.
Louella’s adventure has to come looking for her – because she’s been unwilling to admit that she needs it and the motley crew of would-be adventurers that moves into her life around that adventure.
It begins when her mentor rushes into her shop because he needs her – expressly for the magical talent that he officially rejected. She sees their encounter as an opportunity to PROVE that her magic is what it is and that it is useful and worthy. OTOH Feralorn Rags, her former mentor, as self-centered, self-absorbed and outright flighty as he is, recognizes that he didn’t do right by Louella, and this is his chance to PAY ATTENTION this time so he can right the wrong he committed. AND get his stolen grimoire back before someone does something truly terrible with the power inside it.
Of course, there’s a lovable rogue in this story – just as there is in Stay for a Spell, who may be just a bit over the top in his flirtations (also a part of the romance in Spell) who may have a “colorful” past he’s running away from but also has a heart of gold that is firmly fixed on Louella.
Along the way, there’s a terrific adventure in pursuit of an incredibly magical book that has transformed itself into impossibly magical creatures in order to keep itself out of the clutches of those who would do it, as well as the animals and people of this world a terribly great wrong.
This is a lovely story for anyone who believes in the power of magic and in the magical power of books and reading. If you’ve fallen in love with cozy fantasy romantic adventures like Legends & Lattes, Tomes & Tea, Adenashire and Stay for a Spell, Twig’s Traveling Tomes will be another dollop of delicious reading jam.
A thorough review. I absolutely loved this book and bought a sprayed edge copy today! I also loved Stay for a Spell.
Have a great weekend!