Must Love Scones and Secrets Book 1 in the Moonshine Hollow series
O M G This book is so dang cute and cozy, you step into a world of wonderful magical creatures where a bunch of different species live together with their adorable pets. There are caticorns, and I need one, because who wouldn't want a glitter sneezing caticorn with a golden horn!? Also, Merry the caticorn sprouts wings when he gets the zoomies, and I just cannot stop laughing at the mental imagery of a cat flying around with zoomies! There are firewolves, teeny tiny finger sized fairies, unicorns, uni-seals, Snufflecorn piglets, elves, gnomes, etc. The names of the shops, Sir Reginald Hootington's Magical Bookery, what a cute name! The town of Moonshine Hollow is a place I would love to be able to visit! And bring home a pet caticorn.
This book starts off with an extremely amusing horrible date for the FMC Rosalyn, who is a Pixie. Then we meet the MMC, Prince Bjorn of Frostfjord, a rune elf, also in a similarly amusing predicament, dancing with a woman who literally asks him if she would have access to his riches if she became his wife. With a letter from Moonshine Hollow asking for help with the unicorn herd whose magic was acting up, Bjorn decides to sneak away from home and the castle life to attend to the unicorns, and be just Bjorn, not Prince Bjorn, for once. When Bjorn walks into Rosalyn's "The Sconery and Teashop" she gets heated in all the right places, and his rune marks light up indicating Rosalyn might be someone special....
Every single thing about this story is magical and whimsy and cozy and so cute. I want merchandise from this book, I want to see it come to life as a movie series (granted not sure it could live up to my brains imagination of the book!), or show, because all the creatures and characters are so cute and amusing! I loved this story from beginning to end, and was sad when it was done. I am so glad this is a series, I can't wait to meet more characters from this town! There is a couple of spicy scenes in the book as well, and I just love spicy scenes in such a cozy book because it feels like it comes out of nowhere, but in a good way, and this story had it perfectly.
Something I super appreciated about this book is the attention to detail on the main character's pets. Merry the caticorn wasn't just a side character that you read about here or there, but was almost always with Rosalyn, and included as a true part of the story. Bjorn's firewolf Smoke was also a very present character, and again, I just loved that part of the book. I feel like often there is a pet mentioned and then semi forgotten about in stories, and I absolutely love and appreciate when the pet sidekicks are true sidekicks.
You have to read this magical cozy book, you will be whisked away to a land you wish you could visit, and humored by all the magical creatures.
Some Fav Quotes: SPOILERS to some extent in the quotes about the creatures
"Merry's enchantments mostly consisted of zapping mice or growing iridescent golden wings when he had the zoomies. Sneezing glitter was a new one."
"...what I loved most about our lands were the magical creatures. I seized any excuse to sail away to study them, whether it was the uni-seals of Eld Island or the winged reindeer of Frost Isle."
"He meowed loudly, his glimmering golden wings appearing. Zoomies."
"With his little iridescent wings, which only appeared when he had zoomies, he flew around the room at lightning speed. He catapulted off the side of the wall, narrowly missing Primrose and Winnifred."
""Just Bjorn," he replied, smiling softly as he took my hand and placed a genteel kiss thereon. I'm going to die. Right here. In the middle of breakfast. I am going to literally implode into a cloud of glitter."
""I never thought it was possible to spontaneously combust in response to someone's sex appeal, but I think I was dangerously close.""
""That sounds very similar to the issue Granik's new snufflecorn piglets have been having"..."The piglets have been zipping around and leaving trails of truffles in their wake, not that anyone minds.""
"On the other side of the field, an old stallion was grazing, minding his own business, and farting clouds of sparkly rainbows."
"I melted into him, heat coursing through me. Bjorn met my passion without hesitation, his lips claiming mine with a hunger that sent sparks shooting from the tips of my wings."
Thank you so, so much to the author for a copy of this book!!