Homegrown Magic is the first book in a cottagecore cozy romantasy by Jamie Pacton and Rebecca Podos. Released 11th March 2025 by Penguin Random House on their Ballantine imprint, it's 368 pages and is available in paperback, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links.
Although the writing has a definite YA vibe, there are adult themes, spicy scenes, and more adult situations than appropriate for YA lit. The authors are adept with solid prose and the dialogue is well constructed and paced. The queer friends-to-lovers romance is well written, although the standard massive amount of drama caused by the main characters not *communicating* in any meaningful way with one another was irritating.
The author(s) did a good job of writing a believable and interesting gender non-binary character and the they/them pronouns fade into the background quickly (and are used appropriately). As other reviewers have stated, there are coded stereotypes (including names which cannot possibly have been an unfortunate coincidence) which could be hurtful for some readers. The specific issue with Jael's family name is pretty obscure, however, and there won't be many readers who will be conversant with that particular trivia. In other words, the racism isn't in-your-face overt and while it probably shouldn't be ignored or glossed over, won't be apparent to most readers who aren't particularly eagle eyed.
The happy/cozy aspects are well done and will give readers who enjoy spicy romantasy the happy feels.
Three and a half stars (mostly because the MCs were annoyingly dense throughout 85% of the book).
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
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