REVIEW: Isabella Nagg and the Pot of Basil by Oliver Darkshire

JayneB- Reviews / Book Reviewscozy fantasy / Dark Fantasy / Magic / married couple / self discovery2 Comments

A hilarious and surprisingly moving cozy fantasy novel from the best-selling author of Once Upon a Tome.

In a tiny farm on the edge of the miserable village of East Grasby, Isabella Nagg is trying to get on with her tiny, miserable existence. Dividing her time between tolerating her feckless husband, caring for the farm’s strange animals, cooking up “scrunge,” and crooning over her treasured pot of basil, Isabella can’t help but think that there might be something more to life. When Mr. Nagg returns home with a spell book purloined from the local wizard, she thinks: what harm could a little magic do?

This debut novel by beloved rare bookseller and memoirist Oliver Darkshire reimagines a heroine of Boccaccio’s Decameron in a delightfully deranged world of talking plants, walking corpses, sentient animals, and shape-shifting sorcerers. As Isabella and her grouchy, cat-like companion set off to save the village from an entrepreneurial villain running a goblin-fruit Ponzi scheme, Darkshire’s tale revels in the ancient books and arcane folklore of a new and original kind of enchantment.

A delightful and entertaining story of self-discovery—as well as fungus, capitalism, and sorcery—Isabella Nagg and the Pot of Basil is a story for those who can’t help but find magic even in the oddest and most baffling circumstances.

Dear Mr. Darkshire,

This sounded whimsical and charming and it has a cat – or a grimalkin. That’s all I needed to know but since I’ve never read the “Decameron,” I decided to check out who Isabella is and why her pot of basil is so creepy. For those who also haven’t read this, the “why” is very, very creepy.

I’m beginning to wonder if “cozy” fantasies are for me as there often appears to be So Much Telling in them – or maybe I’ve just tried the wrong ones. This book is no exception and for the first third, things dragged. I was mentally making the hand waving “get on with it” motion. After two to three pages of description of the slightest detail about basically nothing, finally something would actually happen. Then there was the vast abundance of footnotes. So Many footnotes. Sadly they mainly served to break up my reading as often, by the time I got to the bottom of the page, I would have forgotten what the footnotes were referring to. I think they were supposed to be part of the “delightful” description for the book but after a while, I skipped most of them and did just fine.

Most of the characters are, at times, unlikeable. Isabella and her feckless (and basically useless) lump of a husband are unhappily married and seem to enjoy making each other miserable. Isabella does her fair share of this. The townspeople are under the thumb of one of those totally organized women who, in our world, would run a lifestyle Instagram/YT/social media empire of unattainable perfection and judge those who fall short of this. Everyone hates her. The one thing Isabella’s husband does for her is to take a volume of a local wizard’s spell books (no worries as the wizard has shapeshifted on to other things) which Isabella begins to tinker with. A crusty grimalkin comes with the other volumes which Isabella goes to fetch. And despite its words of warning and eye rolling, Isabella proceeds to half-ass her way through learning and casting spells only to discover that she’s got a knack for it.

All hell, as the saying goes, soon breaks loose. Yes, there’s a talking plant, a sentient donkey, a walking headless corpse, evil goblin fruit that (eventually) kills anyone who eats it, and a bizarre elfin woman with a business plan and aims to join the 1%. Things are Dark, in case this has slipped by.

I admit that I pushed through the first part of the story. But, and it surprised me too, I did end up liking a lot of the book. Once things got going, I didn’t want to stop. It’s a fast read and wacky enough that I just had to find out what was going to happen next once things actually started happening rather than just be described in detail. For those who survive, and not everyone does, prices have to be paid and I felt this was just, only I think Grimalkin has paid its share. The final section is sort of a horror comedy.

To go with the unlikeable, several characters are deeply morally gray. Terrible secrets come to life. The one mostly good character is the donkey who has opinions on sentience and friendship. I’d advise skipping the footnotes – unless you find you like them more than I did – and settling in for more darkness than coziness. B-

~Jayne

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