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Tales of Eldermere #2
The Last Recipe at the Charm Kitchen: A Cozy Fantasy of Magical Cooking, Found Family, and Second Chances
In Valecrown, comfort can be bought on demand.
June Bell knows better.
For thirteen years, June has risen before dawn to bake bread, cakes, and small comforts for the people of Briarwick. She has always had a knack for knowing what someone needs before they can quite say it. But June has never called it magic. She is simply good at feeding people.
Then a condemnation notice arrives for the kitchen her late mother left behind.
June travels to Valecrown expecting dust, paperwork, and a building she can clear out and leave behind. Instead, she finds the Ladle & Lantern—a kitchen that has been sealed for twenty years and somehow never gone cold.
Its recipe cards aren't organized by dish, but by need.
For Saying Sorry.
For Being Alone in a City.
For After a Funeral.
For When You Cannot Explain It to Anyone.
There is a twenty-year-old sourdough culture beginning to wake, an oven drake sleeping in the hearth, strange magic hidden in the walls—and one unfinished recipe her mother left specifically for June.
Now she has twelve weeks to bring the kitchen into compliance or surrender it to the city. And as an ambitious company takes interest in the kind of magic the Ladle & Lantern can create, June must decide whether comfort is something that can be bottled, measured, and reproduced—or whether the most important kind of magic only works when someone is willing to truly know the person sitting across the table.
With the help of a quiet forager who notices far more than June would sometimes prefer, a neighborhood that has spent twenty years waiting for its kitchen to reopen, and a collection of magical creatures with very firm opinions about how a kitchen should be run, June begins to uncover what her mother really left behind.
But saving the Ladle & Lantern may require something June has never been particularly good at:
Letting someone else feed her, too.
Warm, whimsical, and deeply human, The Last Recipe at the Charm Kitchen is a cozy fantasy about grief, forgiveness, community, second chances, and the quiet magic of giving people what they truly need.
June Bell knows better.
For thirteen years, June has risen before dawn to bake bread, cakes, and small comforts for the people of Briarwick. She has always had a knack for knowing what someone needs before they can quite say it. But June has never called it magic. She is simply good at feeding people.
Then a condemnation notice arrives for the kitchen her late mother left behind.
June travels to Valecrown expecting dust, paperwork, and a building she can clear out and leave behind. Instead, she finds the Ladle & Lantern—a kitchen that has been sealed for twenty years and somehow never gone cold.
Its recipe cards aren't organized by dish, but by need.
For Saying Sorry.
For Being Alone in a City.
For After a Funeral.
For When You Cannot Explain It to Anyone.
There is a twenty-year-old sourdough culture beginning to wake, an oven drake sleeping in the hearth, strange magic hidden in the walls—and one unfinished recipe her mother left specifically for June.
Now she has twelve weeks to bring the kitchen into compliance or surrender it to the city. And as an ambitious company takes interest in the kind of magic the Ladle & Lantern can create, June must decide whether comfort is something that can be bottled, measured, and reproduced—or whether the most important kind of magic only works when someone is willing to truly know the person sitting across the table.
With the help of a quiet forager who notices far more than June would sometimes prefer, a neighborhood that has spent twenty years waiting for its kitchen to reopen, and a collection of magical creatures with very firm opinions about how a kitchen should be run, June begins to uncover what her mother really left behind.
But saving the Ladle & Lantern may require something June has never been particularly good at:
Letting someone else feed her, too.
Warm, whimsical, and deeply human, The Last Recipe at the Charm Kitchen is a cozy fantasy about grief, forgiveness, community, second chances, and the quiet magic of giving people what they truly need.
301 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 1, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
September 10, 2026
Pure magic
June Bell, a cook and also a Taster - who know what people need, a special and rare gift, inherits her mother Rosemary’s kitchen. June doesn’t know what she will do with her mother’s kitchen - she just knows she must attend to the property.
Once she goes to the nearby town, June has unexpected realizations about her complex, complicated mother (and the things June got wrong, because she didn’t truly understand the circumstances). June also comes to important realizations about the patrons, the unexpected support she receives. June also learns truths about herself she had never seen, and could only learn by being in the charm kitchen. This is a book about pure magic in its simplest form of action, truths told gently and kindly, seeing what others truly need and giving without expectations.
This is a story of truth, realizations, unexpected kindnesses and consequences, and handling them in the most honorable way possible and is an absolutely worthwhile read
June Bell, a cook and also a Taster - who know what people need, a special and rare gift, inherits her mother Rosemary’s kitchen. June doesn’t know what she will do with her mother’s kitchen - she just knows she must attend to the property.
Once she goes to the nearby town, June has unexpected realizations about her complex, complicated mother (and the things June got wrong, because she didn’t truly understand the circumstances). June also comes to important realizations about the patrons, the unexpected support she receives. June also learns truths about herself she had never seen, and could only learn by being in the charm kitchen. This is a book about pure magic in its simplest form of action, truths told gently and kindly, seeing what others truly need and giving without expectations.
This is a story of truth, realizations, unexpected kindnesses and consequences, and handling them in the most honorable way possible and is an absolutely worthwhile read
October 4, 2026
This was basically a repeat of The Last Spell at the Used Bookshop. .....almost verbatim. However it still has the charm of truths read that stay with you. I did want to know who June's father was, since its clear she only had two woman in her life. It also drove me mad through half the book trying to understand that 20 years separated the closing of her mother's restaurant and her actual death. A good if unnecessarily wordy book that does somethings better than The Last Spell but was too much the same at the same time.
September 12, 2026
A wonderful success!!
I will read everything this Author writes. The remarkable depth of the writing is something I have wanted for years. Care, knowledge, understanding and feelings overflow!
I will read everything this Author writes. The remarkable depth of the writing is something I have wanted for years. Care, knowledge, understanding and feelings overflow!
October 15, 2026
A Repeat of Book 1
A delightful story made a little creepy as it was the same story already told. Same plot, same roles played by different characters. This author was either very lazy and thought they only had one good plot, or this is an AI redo of book 1.
A delightful story made a little creepy as it was the same story already told. Same plot, same roles played by different characters. This author was either very lazy and thought they only had one good plot, or this is an AI redo of book 1.
September 24, 2026
Entirely too maudlin for my taste. I enjoyed the first book much more, with less eye rolling.
October 10, 2026
food for my soul
This book is so much more to me than a cozy fantasy. It brought aching thoughts to my mind and comfort to my heart. Thank you for seeing me.
Mammons
This book is so much more to me than a cozy fantasy. It brought aching thoughts to my mind and comfort to my heart. Thank you for seeing me.
Mammons
October 19, 2026
I just love the way the books are written
I am a speed reader by nature. This book quietly insisted I read every word and I’m grateful for that.
I am a speed reader by nature. This book quietly insisted I read every word and I’m grateful for that.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews