Review: The Coffee House Witch & The Grumpy Cat by Ariana Jade

The Coffee House Witch & The Grumpy Cat (The Cobblestone Coven #1)
by Ariana Jade

My Rating: 3 stars

Genre: Cozy Fantasy
Age Category: Adult
Type of romance: f/f

Blurb:
Almost thirty, unemployed, and with a failed engagement. It seemed like all of witch Cassiopeia’s prayers to the goddess of fortune had gone totally unanswered.

Down on her luck, Cassiopeia has no choice but to return to her grandmother’s coffee house where she grew up. The familiar neighbourhood brings back memories, both good and bad.

While she tries to find her feet, she meets a grumpy cat with a secret and reconnects with an old friend in the local antique store. Everything seems to be going well… except that her magic isn’t responding like it should. What’s a witch to do when everything in life seems to be going wrong? First step, make a good cup of coffee!
****
The Coffee House Witch & The Grumpy Cat is first book in the Cobblestone Coven series and it follows witch Cassiopeia and her return to her hometown. It’s a cozy fantasy with a sapphic romance in a magical world with talking animals and lots of light-hearted banter.

My Review

I received a free copy from the author and voluntarily reviewed it.

I love the cozy fantasy genre and I am so excited when authors I already know write in the genre. The Coffee House Witch & The Grumpy Cat is the first book in this series. It really reads as a first part of the story and there’s a lot of introduction happening. Cassiopeia returns to her home town after a breakup and without a job, she starts working for her Gran at the coffee house again and tries to find her footing.

This book had some parts I really liked and others I enjoyed less. I liked Cassiopeia’s banter with Faye and I assume that will turn into romance eventually, but for now they are just friends reconnecting. I really liked Faye, she was a fun character to read about and I would say even more interesting than the actual main character. I also liked Balthazar, the grumpy cat, he was just so grumpy and cute. And I can’t wait to read more about him. I also liked Cassiopeia’s interactions with her grandma and cousin.

I liked the cozy fantasy vibes, although I would’ve liked more of this. There is very little magic and even the cozy vibes don’t come through as strongly as I wanted. Cassiopeia is still feeling down after her breakup and that influences how she sees her home town. I am thinking this will change in future books when she starts to feel more at home again.

Now for what I struggled with. I liked Cassiopeia, but it’s like I never fully warmed up her. I felt bad for her with the breakup and such, but I always struggle with breakups in books like this when I just cna’t see why the characters were together to begin with as it seemed her ex didn’t treat her well. Either way there’s a lot of sadness and Cassiopeia struggling with what to do now after losing her long term girlfriend and her job. And while this makes sense, I just didn’t find it particularly interesting to read about. I hope this changes in future books.

Then there is the magic, with witch in the title I had expected more magic. But Cassiopeia is struggling with her magic and doesn’t do much of it, except brewing a potion. I liked that scene and the potion brewing and it seems there will be more of that in the next book. It was interesting how the magic was tied to deities, but there isn’t as much about it and I wanted to know more about how it worked. I also wondered if anyone could become a witch or not and how that works with the deities. Either way there’s very little about the magic so far, but hopefully there will be more of that in future books. I also had expected there to be more progress on her magic struggles, but seems this will be continuing into the next book. I liked the familiars and the bit about them and how they can talk.

To summarize: This was the start to a new cozy fantasy series by this author and I am curious to see where it goes next. This one was a bit of a mixed read for me, with parts I really liked and others I liked less. I liked Cassiopeia’s banter with Faye, her interactions with her grandma and cousin as well as the grumpy cat Balthazar. Cassiopeia is struggling being just out of a long term relationship and I didn’t find this as interesting to read about. There isn’t as much magic and the cozy fantasy vibes are subtle, but I think this will get expanded upon in future books. This book really felt like a part 1 of a larger story and I am curious to see where thing go next. I plan to check out book 2 and hopefully enjoy that one more.

Links:
– Goodreads
– Bookbub
– Amazon
– B&N
– Kobo

You can also read my review on Goodreads and Bookbub.