The Keeper of Magical Things (2025) by Julie Leong is a super-sweet cozy fantasy with a sapphic romance/friendship a big part of the story. I loved it!
Certainty Bulrush is a 6th-year novice mage in the Guildtower in the city of Margrave, having an ordinary sort of magic–when she touches a magical object, she can “talk” to it and determine what it’s for. She isn’t a spellcaster and hasn’t really grown magically beyond her innate ability with objects. After an incident with storage of excess inventory of magical objects, she’s given the task to travel to the far-off town of Schpelling, to inventory and safely store the objects to get them away from the Guildtower. Accompanying her is young Mage Aurelia, a farspeaker who is known around the tower as an ice queen. Cert is a little intimidated by her but she believes that if she carries out this assignment successfully with Aurelia’s help, she will finally become a Mage herself after six long years (and two failed examinations).
The High Mage chose Schpelling because it is the last magical place in the country, the result of some Mages years ago burning themselves out during the Great Wars and taking with them any natural magic in the area. When Cert and Aurelia get there, they find small town residents who aren’t thrilled to find representatives of the Guild in their midst and there aren’t even beds–they have to sleep in the same warehouse where they store the minorly magical objects!
But sometimes folk need someone to blame. Easier to be mad at the person in front of you than to be mad at the whole wide world.
But some people can’t help but provide hospitality to Cert and Aurelia, and as they get to know each other through both the non-magical tasks (building shelves and doing the inventory) and the magical ones (using a gossipy teapot to make their morning tea) Cert wonders if Aurelia is feeling the same way she is. Aurelia comes from a family with high expectations, and Cert is horrified when she finds out how Aurelia is reminded of those expectations.
Certainty liked dandelions anyway. She liked to think they kept the real flowers on their toes.
One of my favorite things is the accidental catdragon! A fluffy cat with dragon’s wings named Hope who reigns terror on the local rodents is just delightful. Along with a wand that summons bees so Schpelling’s orchards will actually set fruit, and a Schroedinger-type box in which a cat occasionally appears.
But not everyone is thrilled with the changes in Schpelling brought by Certainty and Aurelia. When they return to Margrave in shame, Cert isn’t sure she’ll get to stay in the Guildtower and Aurelia hasn’t contacted her–what has happened? Never fear, though, all will be well.
It was mostly weight-neutral with some slight fat positivity, in that Leong notes early in the book that Certainty had never been too concerned with her own figure, associating such concern with the upper classes, and since she grew up on a farm in the country, a rounded figure was a sign a woman would be a good cook, and thus a good wife.
I will be reading Leong’s first book, The Teller of Small Fortunes, and it appears book 3 will be coming in 2027!
Reading While Fat 