The Lost Book of Cures – Heather Morrison

Published By: Storm Publishing
Pages: 180
Released On: 09/12/2026

In the Suffolk village of Barton Heath there is a cottage with a blue door, where bundles of herbs hang from the beams and the jars hold recipes older than anyone can remember. Eden Beck is the village herbalist, the latest in a long line of women who can feel a plant’s purpose in their hands.

But these days, Eden is hardly ever there. There are podcasts, publishers, trains to London—the quiet life of connection she worked so hard to build has turned into something else entirely. Until, beneath a false floor in an old oak chest, she finds a locked book of cures: four hundred years of remedies, spells, and secrets. Could this be what brings her back to her magic?

But then a village woman dies after drinking one of Eden’s teas, and her world begins to come apart. Police come for her jars, the village turns away, and her husband keeps disappearing for hours on end. For the first time, Eden doubts her own hands. The lost Book of Cures holds answers… will she find them in time to save herself?

*****

Thanks to NetGalley and Storm Publishing for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.

I adored the first book of this series – The Herbalist – and was excited to read this sequel.

It is a little repetitive, but that’s probably because she probably didn’t expect someone to read book one on one evening, and then the sequel the morning straight after. If you read them with a gap, then it probably won’t feel as repetitive.

It’s the second book, but it’s more of an adjacent story I think, because it’s so short, but it still has everything I loved about the first one.

She’s settled into the characters more so they come with more depth and they’re wonderful. Eden’s herbalist side has developed too and we’re seeing more sides to it which was interesting.

There’s a subplot involving a character called Ginger….I won’t spoil what it is, but it wasn’t my favourite, and for a short book it took up a lot of time. I often found myself disappointed when I got to those scenes. They’re not bad, that’s not the problem. I just found her irksome and irritating but not in a “I must read more” kind of way. More of a “oh it’s you again” kind of way.

It still had everything I wanted – love, family, friendship, community, passion, magic – but it didn’t reach quite the same heights. Maybe if I hadn’t read them one after the other it would be better, but because I did, I was forever comparing them, and this one just didn’t feel quite as magical. There were subplots I didn’t like and characters I wasn’t fond of, and I don’t know, it didn’t have that same spark. Maybe if it was a bit longer? Because as it is, there’s a lot of information concentrated in a short page count. It’s still very enjoyable and I highly recommend it and I am hoping there will be more to this series, but it just wasn’t quite the same.