Isabella Nagg and the pot of basil A novel

Rare bookseller and memoirist Darkshire (Once upon a Tome) jokes his way through the English canon in this light debut fantasy. Isabella Nagg, a character lifted from Boccaccio's The Decameron, lives in mutual misery with her husband on an impoverished mandrake farm. She spends most of her time tending to her houseplants and cleaning up after Mr. Nagg's mistakes, the most recent of which is stealing a volume from the village wizard's grimoire. When Isabella attempts to return the book, she finds that the wizard has vanished, leaving her now responsible for his collection of magic spells and the "catlike horror" known as a grimalkin that comes with it. Isabella's attempts at magic cause more problems than solutions (like giving unwanted sentience to both a donkey named Bottom and her very needy basil plant) but the grimoire comes in handy when Mr. Nagg eats goblin fruit and Isabella must rescue him. Isabella's relationship with her horrible husband is not quite nuanced or funny enough to give this rescue mission weight, but there's plenty of fun to be had in the whimsical worldbuilding, while excerpts from the grimoire add charm. Tonally, Darkshire is clearly aiming for Terry Pratchett. Though he doesn't quite hit that lofty goal, fans of comedic secondary fantasy will still find plenty to enjoy. (May)

DEBUT A spell book's bevy of argumentative footnotes and annotations would confound Isabella Nagg--they greatly entertain readers--if her life weren't so hard and dreary that she doesn't have time to worry about the details. Her husband is as useless as her donkey, a goblin market is overrunning her village, and the HOA president is proposing topiary requirements, even though she knows the Nagg farm can only grow mandrake roots near a cursed stone. The spell book does come with a mangy magical cat-thing that might like Isabella a bit and, more importantly, awakens her ability to dream of a life that's a little better. As Isabella bluffs her way through each magical improvement, obliviously strewing consequences in her wake, her mind opens bit by bit. Darkshire's prose is incredibly funny, even as it makes sure Isabella's pain is still visible. Life can be as ludicrous as it is hard, offering unexpected chances for the unsatisfied to transform. VERDICT Darkshire (Once Upon a Tome: The Misadventures of a Rare Bookseller) makes his fiction debut with this humorous fantasy novel that every library needs.--Matthew Galloway