Early Review – The Stormborn Vine (Leaf and Scale, Book 1) by Tilly Wallace (3/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Historical Fantasy
Length: 274 pages
Publisher:‎ Ribbonwood Press
Release Date: February 5, 2025
ASIN: B0DHYQ484D
Stand Alone or Series: The first book in the Leaf and Scale series
Source: eGalley from NetGalley.com
Rating: 3/5 stars

“In a corner of rural England, Fern Oakby makes a living through her knowledge of botany. An unusual case erupts during a storm when a Boston ivy turns monstrous and…carnivorous.

However, the solution is not as simple as hacking down the exceedingly rare and hungry plant. The storm also gave life to an origami dragon and bound it to the vine. When a lonely woman pleads with Fern to save the tiny dragon, she is forced to confront a profound question—what defines the value of a life?

In a world where ancient magic lingers, every life—no matter how small or strange—holds immeasurable worth. As Fern races against time to unravel dark secrets at the estate, the vine continues to grow. She must find a way to destroy it before it spreads or snatches more lives. Nor, as she discovers, is the little dragon the only life in need of saving…”

Series Info/Source: This is the first book in the Leaf and Scale series. I got this as an eGalley from NetGalley to review..

Thoughts: This book has a lot of things I love in a cozy fantasy book, but they all felt a bit underwhelming here. There is a plucky heroine who makes her way in a science field, a wonderfully supportive home life, adorable dragons, a mysterious alchemist, and magic and danger. I should have loved this, but I found it repetitive, shallow, and predictable.

The story follows Fern; she has been disgraced in society and is quietly following in her father’s footsteps by working as a botanist. When she gets called to a manor house to help figure out why part of the garden keeps dying, she ends up with a lot more than she bargained for. A strange carnivorous vine forms after a horrible storm passes through. Fern’s life gets incredibly hectic as she is suddenly dealing with man-eating vines, dragons, and a difficult lord.

While I did like the idea of this, it felt unfinished to me. The characters are very cookie-cutter; they are what cozy fantasy characters should be like but didn’t have much depth at all. Our main character, Fern, spends all her time running back and forth between three locations trying to solve this mystery and fix things at a breakneck pace. It should have been exciting, but it was very repetitive and a bit confusing. I was trying to figure out how she got between all these places that are hours away from each other multiple times a day on horseback. Also, why did she have to do so much back and forth? She was frantic all the time, which made it so I never got to know her as a character.

I wanted to love Fern, but her character just felt so shallow. She was like the cardboard cutout of what a rebellious botanist could be, but she just didn’t have a unique personality of her own. This is a short book, but about half way through I found my mind wandering and realized I didn’t care. Then, when the alchemist entered the picture, I thought, ah, here will be an interesting character. Unfortunately, he was also one-dimensional, stiff, and boring. The character with the most personality in this book is the non-speaking paper dragon…which is unfortunate.

When I started this book, I was excited. I was actually looking at Wallace’s other series, Manners & Monsters, and thinking I should pick that up too. She was described by some as Gail Carriger but a bit less goofy, and I thought this will be great! In the end, though, this was just barely okay. There are good ideas here and some good sketches of what this world could be. Unfortunately, that is what everything; the magic, the characters, and the world felt like to me…an idea of a sketch but not well fleshed. I didn’t hate this…I just didn’t really like it either; it felt incredibly vanilla to me. By the end, I was left feeling vague disappointment because I was really looking for another fun and snappy Victorian fantasy author to read.

My Summary (3/5): Overall this was a bit disappointing to me. The premise is good, the idea behind the story was good, but everything felt repetitive, shallow and unfinished to me. This is like a sketch of a good cozy fantasy without any meat or depth. This is one of those situations where I really wanted to love this; I feel like there is a lot here I should like. Unfortunately, pretty much everything about this just missed the mark for me.