When 103-year-old Melissa Alexander dies peacefully in her bed, her great-niece, Lia Sanders, and Lia’s husband, Eric, drive through the night from Texas to the family property in rural North Carolina. Melissa has bequeathed everything to Lia, including the house, a 400-acre estate that borders the Glistening Rock wilderness area, and a telepathic cat named Athena. She also left a letter explaining that the Alexander family are hereditary guardians of the local “fae,” and that Lia herself has inherited the gift of speaking to them. Soon, Lia is greeted by Hugo and Heidi, seven-inch-tall twin “bropis” (a brownie-pixie hybrid) who shape-shift into birds and live in the herb garden. Lia and Eric decide to relocate permanently to the alcove. They’re joined by Lia’s young nephew, Michael, who’s just lost his parents in a sailing accident and shows signs of inheriting the family magic. Trouble arrives in the form of a corrupt governor named Gregory Lassiter, who tries to use eminent domain to seize part of the property so his brother can build a visitors’ center and road through the forest. Minor conflicts ensue over the fate of endangered wolves on the estate. The tale is threaded through with themes of environmental stewardship, inheritance, grief, and the magic of the natural world, along with a gentle celebration of marriage and chosen family. Black writes warm, basic, readable prose. Twee domestic sequences abound involving tea on the porch, herbs in the garden, and Athena purring on the bed while telepathically projecting her thoughts (“Clear your thoughts and listen”). But the fantasy elements never quite dig in—the lore of the bropis is delivered in tidy expository chunks rather than through discovery or demonstration. What little conflict arises is resolved without major tension, and the villainous governor feels lifted from a different book. Readers craving more intense enchantments may consider this tame, but cozy-fantasy fans will find it just the right temperature.