Greton of Willow returns in this sequel to the cozy fantasy neurodivergent sensation, ‘Magic, Maps, and Mischief’, a perfect read for lovers of ‘Legends and Lattes’, ‘The Teller of Small Fortunes’, and ‘Under The Whispering Door’.
Within the idyllic city of Barrow’s Hill, the elderly, autistic map maker Greton of Willow is living his heart’s desire, making his maps surrounded by his found family and owl. But, without warning, his cozy existence is challenged. When it comes to map making, there’s new competition in Barrow’s Hill…
Struggling to come to terms with such a change to the expected – and having to face challenges like extravagant dinner parties and understanding fashion – Greton stumbles upon even more mysterious goings on in Barrow’s Hill. The nefarious Cartographers’ Guild have found fresh investment and influence, mages appear everywhere they shouldn’t be, and the newly uncovered ruins beneath the hill are off limits to those deemed undesirable… Especially Greton.
With Charms, Charts, and Conspiracies aplenty, Greton strives to understand his place, and true worth, amongst his circle of friends. The mysteries continue to build, with his good name at the centre of every puzzle in the City on the Hill. Can Greton cope with the competition? Will he finally understand what he means to those he loves? And can he escape the net closing around him before it’s too late? The answers – and tea, plenty of tea – are at your fingertips…
I was lucky enough to get an ARC for this books, which is slated for release on the 7th of July.
Charms, Charts and Conspiracies is even better than its predecessor, and that is saying something.
Where Magic, Maps and Mischief opened in darker territory before settling into its cosy heart, this sequel leans fully into the warmth from the start. There is a mystery at the centre of it, someone is framing Greton, and the stakes feel genuine precisely because they feel personal. When your protagonist is autistic and already prone to catastrophising, having his reputation and his sense of self under attack hits differently.
“Even Greton was beginning to suspect himself, and he’d been with himself the entire time.”
That line is quietly devastating, and it earns every bit of tension the plot builds.
But the mystery is almost a vessel for what the book is really about: belonging, and whether you deserve it. A new map maker arrives in Barrow’s Hill and opens a shop nearby, and Greton does not so much resent the competition as quietly dismantle his own place in the world because of it. If his friends can have someone new, why would they keep him?
“Greton’s place was right there, in his map shop, surrounded by friends who accepted him for who he was. Friends who were family. Or so he believed and hoped. Such close friends, such family, was an altogether new prospect for Greton. Would everything topple like a house of cards?”
Watching him work through that fear, and watching his found family refuse to let him go, is the emotional core of the whole book.
And what a found family it is. Aria and Petra, whose relationship deepens beautifully across this book, model something rare in fiction: people who can see their own flaws, apologise without drama, and love unconditionally as long as you are genuinely trying to be good. Aria in particular has a tendency to show love through action first and questions second. When she and Greton talk it through, the result is one of the loveliest scenes in the book: not a confrontation, but two people who love each other working out how to love each other better.
“Please do not let your doubts curb your instincts. You are who you are. And who you are is wonderful. Truly wonderful.”
The cast has grown in this second book, and every addition to the circle brings more warmth, more loyalty, and more of the unconditional acceptance that makes Barrow’s Hill feel like somewhere you genuinely want to live.
The representation is broader and more confident than in book one. The asexual thread is handled with real grace, a conversation that manages to be matter-of-fact and deeply moving in equal measure, ending with the quiet revelation that Greton has loved before, in his own way, and that this is enough. The LGBTQIA+ inclusivity feels woven in rather than signposted. And the autism writing continues to be some of the best I have encountered, not just in the sensory overload scenes where his thoughts “raged like a blizzard in the Northern Wastes” and his suit itched and pinched and his boots cramped his toes, but in the quieter, harder insight underneath: that Greton is not unemotional. He is so very emotional that he learned to suppress it, told his whole life that too much of anything was wrong. That suppression has a cost. David Green writes this from the inside, and it shows.
“All at once, Greton’s senses screamed at him. The heat stifled beyond what was reasonable. His previously well-fitted suit clung to him. Itched. Pinched. His boots cramped his toes. The ruckus from the ballroom bled into the library as the band struck up a boisterous tune. Laughter surrounded him, the pitch setting a scratch deep in his brain. And his thoughts? They raged like a blizzard in the Northern Wastes.”
Atlas the owl, Roger, confirmed by the narrator as “the bestest boy,” and Jasmine the cat are companions to different people who somehow all get along famously, and are very much anything but background decoration.
Charms, Charts and Conspiracies is cosy fantasy doing exactly what the genre does best: creating a world so warm and full of good people that you feel the loss of it when you close the cover. And as Greton finally understands:
“Not only did so many people in his life love him, truly love him, but he was also deserving of their help. He could ask for it, like they could ask him. And like Greton, his friends would do what they could. It wasn’t a transaction. Such a request didn’t need to be reciprocated. There was no ledger. Helping those you loved is what people did.”
If you have been waiting for a sequel to live up to its first book, this is the one.
If you now also can’t wait to get your hands, or eyesy on this, you can preorder it here!
Angela Boord
Tom Joyce