“See you in the story past the story,” said Fern.
It’s strange for someone with my level of anxiety to be okay with a book that doesn’t have that “uh oh” moment. You know, when the worst case scenario has come to fruition, the other shoe has finally dropped, and the bad news just gets worse. And while this book did have its little ups and downs, you don’t ever see the other shoe drop.
Here’s more about Bookshops and Bonedust
In Bookshops & Bonedust, a prequel to Legends & Lattes, author Travis Baldree takes us on a journey of high fantasy, first loves, and second-hand books.
Viv’s career with the notorious mercenary company Rackam’s Ravens isn’t going as planned.
Wounded during the hunt for a powerful necromancer, she’s packed off against her will to recuperate in the sleepy beach town of Murk—so far from the action that she worries she’ll never be able to return to it.
What’s a thwarted soldier of fortune to do?
Spending her hours at a beleaguered bookshop in the company of its foul-mouthed proprietor is the last thing Viv would have predicted, but it may be both exactly what she needs and the seed of changes she couldn’t possibly imagine.
Still, adventure isn’t all that far away. A suspicious traveler in gray, a gnome with a chip on her shoulder, a summer fling, and an improbable number of skeletons prove Murk to be more eventful than Viv could have ever expected.
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My thoughts
The second book in the Legends and Lattes series and I liked it more than the first. While it’s a prequel to Viv’s life as a cafe owner, it did a better job of putting together a fantasy story that satisfies the fantasy nerds and also the cozy vibes you’re hoping for. And wow, this book was cozy. It’s partly because this book appeals to the readers with Viv working at a small bookstore in a town where she’s recovering from a pretty nasty battle. The bookstore was everything you love about bookstores; messy books all over the place, an eccentric bookseller that’s hoping to find you the perfect read. There was even a bookstore dog!
And as Viv recovers from her battle wounds and reads these books about epic battles and even more epic romances, you can see Viv change, grow, become someone more than just the battle-hardened orc who is only here for a quick stint before linking up with her crew and resuming her search for a necromancer name Varine. This introduction to Viv is exactly what I needed to understand her motivation to own a cafe in the first book. Why cozy after so many years of battling it out with whatever bounty she came across? Well, the answers are written on these pages and you can’t help but to push Viv to live the life that she wants.
The characters were also so great in this one. I mentioned the bookseller and the cute dog (which was actually part dog, part griffin), but there was also the gnome who wanted to join Viv’s gang, the skeleton homunculus owned by the necromancer but hoping to be set free, the gate guards, the doctor, the lumberjack. Honestly, it was a plethora of fun characters that really made this world much bigger than it is. I had a hard time keeping track of what each character was, but that’s my own personal problem.
I even loved the conflict. As in the case with all cozy-style stories, there has to be some conflict and this one was well put together. Instead of explaining everything right at the front, it was introduced slowly bringing a small amount of mystery to the story that made me happy to see play out. Of course, it’s very low stakes so whatever worries you may have about following along or the level of death, rest assured that it’ll be enough to get the blood going, but not enough to step away from the book.
And as I read the end of the book with the tunes of The Velvet Underground playing in the background, I had a smile on my face. The courses of Viv’s life before she owned the coffee shop punctuated with “O Sweet Nuthin'” felt like the final scene of a movie, where there’s nothing but smiling faces that everyone got what they wanted and then some. Maybe some are a little more worse for wear and others walk away without what they truly want, but if that’s not a metaphor for life, I don’t know what is. It’s not a perfect book, but it’s perfect enough.
Simone and Her Books 