Books book reviews Tiny Dragons and Teenage Romance: The Faraway Inn by Sarah Beth Durst Vanessa Armstrong reviews a cozy YA fantasy that’s “a warm patchwork quilt to assuage an anxious heart”—no matter your age. By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on April 13, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share Sixteen-year-old Calisa is facing a tough summer. She had just broken up with her boyfriend, who she caught cheating on her, and she isn’t eager to see him out and about around Brooklyn. Her moms have a solution: spend the weeks before her senior year of high school at her great-aunt’s Vermont bed-and-breakfast—an establishment, Mom-Kate tells her, that could use her help and also, with its non-existent cell-phone service, be a better place to get over her heartbreak. Auntie Zee, however, isn’t happy to see Calisa. She and Mom-Kate haven’t really talked since Calisa was six years old, and while Calisa doesn’t know why, it’s clear the rift between the two hasn’t mended. Auntie Zee is so unhappy Calisa’s there, in fact, that the older woman says she’ll be sending her grand-niece back to her mom’s within the week. The B&B has also seen better days; it’s rundown and a bit shabby, and the few guests who are there seem a bit… odd. Calisa is determined to stay and to help, however, and so The Faraway Inn begins. Like Durst’s recent works—The Spellshop and The Enchanted Greenhouse come to mind—her latest young adult novel is high on the cozy factor and also centers on a protagonist who throws her heart into turning a crumbling establishment into a thriving, welcoming place. Calisa throws herself into cleaning and baking, and has a delightful meet-cute with the young groundskeeper, Jack. She also slowly realizes that Auntie Zee has magical powers; the inn is on a nexus of realms that Auntie Zee connects by creating magical portals in regular old doorways; and the guests are all magical in their own right. (Calisa is arguably slow on the uptake with the magic stuff, but in fairness she doesn’t know she’s in a fantasy novel, so the reader has an upper hand on her in that regard.) Buy the Book The Faraway Inn Sarah Beth Durst Buy Book The Faraway Inn Sarah Beth Durst Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget There are stakes, too, beyond Calisa getting over her not-so-great ex-boyfriend. Auntie Zee’s magic is failing, and she’ll have to close the inn soon if she can’t find another witch to replace her or a way to reinvigorate her magic. Jack’s father, who used to work at the inn, has also been missing for three years. Calisa finds out he was lost through one of the portal doors that Auntie Zee has struggled to keep open, a side effect of her magic faltering as she gets older.  Jack’s immeasurable trauma from that—being parentless through his early teens (his mother is gone)—is muted (as is how he was able to stay at the inn for years without a legal guardian), for better or worse. That’s not to say his emotions around the loss aren’t given some space on the page, but his trials aren’t what The Faraway Inn is about. The focus instead is on Calisa as she comes to realize she deserves better than what her ex offered her and starts to come into her own. The novel is her beginning the journey of figuring out what she wants out of life, and her days at the inn help her along that path. That is no small message for teenagers who read this book (and for adults as well, if I’m being honest). That message also comes wrapped up in whimsical magical flourishes as the inn comes back into its magic (a self-filling teapot!) and Calisa delves into baking (flavored maple syrup! gooey chocolate cake!).  The cast of guests (and the inn’s magical residents) will also warm your heart. There’s the statue of a woman in the garden who moves only when you’re not looking, Durst’s take on Doctor Who’s weeping angel that wants to hug rather than kill you; the firebird who flits from room to room, lighting up the fireplaces and also serving as the inn’s version of an intercom system; the dryad who is in a disagreement with her mother and also friendly with the local beavers; and an elderly man who prefers the shadows, good chocolate, and his beloved gargoyle. There’s also a tiny dragon(!) who Calisa befriends. Every story is made better by a tiny dragon. Speaking of tiny dragons, the story also takes us beyond the inn’s walls, in brief outings through Auntie Zee’s magical portals that give us a taste of the realms to which the inn is connected. Even with these visits to realms quite unlike our own, the story remains centered on Auntie Zee’s B&B, with those excursions confirming the importance of the inn to the guests who check in. An adventure novel this is not, and while no great battles are fought or worlds saved, the pace is surprisingly brisk and engaging, even when plot points focus on cleaning the bathrooms and pulling out weeds. Overall, The Faraway Inn excels in all the things I look for in a cozy fantasy: the creation of a quirky found family; characters working hard and doing their best (and having their best be enough); people’s emotional wounds healing over as they work to repair the physical space where they strive to live and/or work; and great descriptions of delicious things I want to eat and drink. The book is another welcome addition to Durst’s roster, and great for those looking for a warm patchwork quilt to assuage an anxious heart, no matter what their age. While the book has a definitive conclusion, I’d love to have another magical getaway to Auntie Zee’s inn and spend more time with the people (and magical objects) there.[end-mark] The Faraway Inn is published by Delacorte Press. The post Tiny Dragons and Teenage Romance: <i>The Faraway Inn</i> by Sarah Beth Durst appeared first on Reactor.