📕 Title: The Faraway Inn
✏️ Author: Sarah Beth Durst
📖 Genre: YA Fantasy
⭐ Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

“When sixteen-year-old Calisa arrives at her great-aunt’s B&B in rural Vermont for the summer, she’s shocked to find a rundown inn rather than the cozy bed-and-breakfast she was expecting. Grumpy and eccentric, Auntie Zee is determined to keep anyone from messing with her beloved inn . . . even though she clearly needs the help.

To convince her great-aunt to keep her around, Calisa sets to work fixing up the inn, enlisting extra help from the groundskeeper’s (handsome) son. But the longer she stays, the surer she is that there’s something strange about the B&B—and its guests. Something almost . . . otherworldly.

The inn is keeping a magical secret—but to protect the place she’s come to love, Calisa must unravel the truth before it’s too late.”

REVIEW

Thank you to Delacorte Press for the digital copy!

I loved Sarah Beth Durst’s adult cozy fantasy novels so I was excited to read this one, but I was disappointed by the setting, pace, and romance.

Unlike the fantasy world portrayed in The Spellshop series, The Faraway Inn is real world based so there are references to modern technology such as cell phones, Google, and Star Wars. This is a slow burn fantasy, teasing hints of magic that everyone reasons away until it becomes impossible to hide.

Unfortunately, it took far too long to get to the part where the magical elements are revealed. There is so much time spent on describing Calisa and Jack repairing the inn and baking, while the quirky guests mostly stay in their rooms and Auntie Zee makes rare appearances. This was a bit of a slog, especially since the worst outcome at that point was Calisa being sent home to Brooklyn—and while that might have felt like the end of the world for Calisa it wasn’t enough to keep me fully invested.

Even after the magical elements made their grand appearance, it felt like one of the coolest concepts—portals to other realms—was often reduced to synopsizing visits in a single sentence rather than showing us these magical worlds in detail. Instead, the most detailed scenes involved non-magical tasks such as weeding gardens and baking things, which became repetitive and I had to push myself to keep reading.

I liked Calisa and understood her desire to get away from her cheating ex-boyfriend back home. Auntie Zee infuriated me at first with the way she treated Calisa and Jack, but I loved Calisa’s determination to win over her cantankerous aunt. I liked the guests, though it felt like they had little page time compared to Jack, and especially loved the mirror.

Jack’s backstory was interesting, but I didn’t like that he was a rebound relationship. His golden retriever energy was clearly in contrast to Calisa’s cheating ex to show her what a positive relationship should look like, but I disliked how much significance this relationship played in the story compared to her platonic and familial relationships.

I really loved the author’s adult books, so I am a little disappointed with this one because the fantasy fell to the background and the rebound romance didn’t work for me.