Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree

Can you capture lightning in a bottle twice? This book suggests that the answer is yes!

I first heard about Travis Baldree’s Legends and Lattes from Seanan McGuire’s Twitter account. She often will talk about upcoming books that she loves, and she described it in such a way that I was very much looking forward to reading it.

It didn’t disappoint- it was a very nice, sweet, cozy story, and I really enjoyed it. It might have bordered on being too twee, and the inventions of cinnamon rolls and other coffee shop staples felt a tad too convenient at times, but that didn’t detract from the joys of the book.

So I was overjoyed when Tor and NetGalley gave me an eARC of the prequel, Bookshops and Bonedust. Set years before L&L, this book focuses on a Viv who is just starting out in the mercenary business when she gets injured and stuck in a seaside town to recuperate. The cast of characters was even more fun than the last book, and Viv seemed either to be more well rounded or just better written in this volume.

I loved revisiting this world and I cannot wait for Mr. Baldree to let us know more of what’s happening with Viv. This is a must buy for anyone who enjoyed the original.

I love Viv. She is such an honest character. This was a great prequel story but I did like Legends & Lattes a bit more. This had more of the battle scenes that a fantasy story normally has, although it is still very much a cozy fantasy. I hope that we will continue to follow Viv and her adventures in the future.

I’m cleaning up my Feedback bookshelf and trying to give reviews for past books I’ve read. I listened to this as an audiobook and recall that I really enjoyed the narrator. The story itself was good, but I did find myself losing interest in what was happening and sort of waiting for what was next and wondering where the story was going. I listened to this book first because I saw it was a prequel but now I’m wondering if I should have read Legends and Lattes first because this book didn’t pull me in and I doubt I will pick up Legenda and Lattes

I should state up front that I never read Legends and Lattes, and I had no idea of what a cozy fantasy even was until I picked up this book. Call me a new genre fan!

Viv, an orc, is a recently injured mercenary who is recuperating in Murk. Despite her circumstances and initial resistance to resting, Viv quickly finds a place in the community. She spends her days in the local bookshop, finds her first love, and makes some new friends. All fantasy creature doing very human things like running a pub, saving bookshop, and so on. Hence, the cozy fantasy appeal!

This prequel is absolutely delightful, and I cannot wait to read Legends now. If you are like me and haven't read it, you will still enjoy Bookshops and Bonedust. No knowledge of the other book is required.

Orc Viv is just starting out in her mercenary career when she receives a brutal leg wound that takes her out of the action for a significant recovery period. She's laid up in Murk, a seaside town that is way too boring for someone who'd much rather be hunting necromancers and the like. But as she slowly heals, Viv ventures out and discovers a shabby overstuffed bookshop owned by Fern, as well as a mouthwatering bakery owned by supercute Maylee, and starts to find a home in Murk, albeit a temporary one.

This is a prequel to Legends & Lattes, and is just as cozy and heartwarming as that book (which is set at the end of Viv's marauding career). It's a love letter to the power of books and community and friendship without getting overly twee. I loved it, and I can't wait to read more books by Baldree.

This was another of my most highly anticipated reads of the year. I was a little sad, at first, to hear it was a prequel and we wouldn't get the full cast of characters that I loved in Legends and Lattes however I was quickly back to being excited. This book goes backwards in Viv's timeline but continues with the legacy the first book began of feeling like I'm reading a hug in book form. I hope we get even more from this world in the future.

Bookshops and Bonedust is a cozy fantasy read and a prequel to Legends and Lattes. Viv is a mercenary with an injury…and she’s forced to recover in the small beach town of Murk. To help with boredom as she heals, she wanders into the local bookshop and meets new friends. Can she protect these friends when her mercenary world collides with her new one?

This was such a sweet, cozy read! As this is a prequel to Legends and Lattes, we get to see Viv during her mercenary days and I loved how the two stories tied in together, while still being independent. This world is so vibrant and lovely! I absolutely adored the side characters as well, they were so vibrant and well rounded - Pot Roast and Satchel were so fantastic!

Overall this was a five star read! Absolutely loved it and can’t wait for more from this author! This book did have a small romance plot line so one flame for spice

If you’re a fan of cozy fantasy reads with wonderful characters, beautiful world building and all the found family vibes, then absolutely pick this one up! While these can be read independently, I do feel like you’ll appreciate the story more if you’ve read Legends and Lattes.

Baldree has certainly made a name for himself as a peak cozy fantasy writer! He balances the fun aspects of fantasy like rich world-building and action-packed adventure sequences with deep, thoughtful character development in those we meet on our journey. I'm always thrilled when there's emotional dialogue and tension/chemistry between characters that just leaps off the page and causes me to have an emotional reaction (all the while demanding that I read JUST ONE MORE CHAPTER).

This book made me laugh, it made me cry, and it made me feel so warm and fuzzy on the inside by the end (and don't even get me started on the Epilogue!!). All I can say is that lovers of Legends & Lattes will relish and come to cherish the stories and new characters that they meet in Bookshops & Bonedust. After all, "Ever book is a little mirror, and sometimes you look into it and see someone else looking back."

As Fern says at the book's conclusion, "See you in the story past the story."

This book was an absolute delight to read. We first met Viv in Legends & Lattes, and now we get to spend time with her again at a much earlier point in her adventuring career when, due to an injury, she's got to stay put in a little seaside town called Murk while she heals up. While she's there, she can't help getting to know some of the local folks and get just a little involved in their concerns.

Baldree does such a wonderful job writing characters that are lovable folks you can't help but root for. I especially love how proactive Viv is when she gets an idea and just jumps right in to make it happen. And while there are just enough stakes to keep the story interesting, and a couple spooky touches that make this an excellent autumn read, this book still falls very much into the cozy fantasy vibe complete with cozy reading nooks, tantalizing baked goods and everyday folks supporting each other doing everyday things.

This read is definitely one for the book lovers. If you've ever enjoyed the smell of an old book, supporting a local bookstore, or felt the thrill of recommending a title and watching someone fall in love with reading all over again, there are moments that will definitely speak to you.

3.5 rounded up. I can totally understand why people love this series but it was a little bit of a struggle for me. I don’t read fantasy much so that could be why. I had a hard time keeping the names and different things straight. Still, this was overall a nice story that was a quick read and I loved the ending.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy. Opinions are my own.

While I did really enjoy this one, and once again we have characters that have stolen my heart, I'm not sure it's quite as good as LEGENDS & LATTES. Or maybe a tiny bit of that extra love goes to the novelty of book one. Not sure. But if you wanted, or needed, more action even though you like the coziness of the first? I think you'll be very happy.

Once again though it's the romance that doesn't quite work for me. In this one it's hardly as prevalent, more just a taste of something that could've been possible, but it still didn't do much for me despite how much I wanted it to. I really enjoyed the friendships, the little found family, all of those aspects. That's where the strength was. Though Gallina did irritate me more often than not. But it was Potroast. It was Fern and her potty mouth. It was Satchel and his sad sweetness. They more than made up for it. Oh, and Viv too of course.

From coffee shop style AU to bookshops, Baldree is giving readers what they want. And that lovely little treat of an epilogue means we might see the two combine. Or at least we can imagine it. Delightful.

This delightful prequel to Legends & Lattes continues the tale of the orc Viv whose heart is as big as her biceps; this one is set during the start of her career as a warrior. It is also near the beginning of her recovery, as an overeager newbie in Rackam’s Ravens team, she has broken her leg as a result of her overzealousness and been sent to backwater Murk to heal. Here she is consumed by FOMO; the mission was to capture the necromancer, Varine the pale, and her skeletal army, and now the band has moved on without her. An orc’s cabin fever is not pretty to behold and in her desperation, Viv finds a a rundown very funky bookstore run by Fern, a young rather salty mouthed ratkin who has a passion and uncanny ability to match the right book to the right reader… that is if only more beings wanted books. She also encounters the very suspicious eyes of the fearsome local law enforcer, the Gatewarden, a host of eccentric local residents, .and a bakery with incomparable baked goods run by Maylee, a gifted and badass dwarf proprietor who offers the possibility of romance. But perhaps the most significant encounter of Viv’s enforced convalescence is the one that Fern introduces her to, the celebration of falling into a good book. Viv goes from an avoidant-at-all-costs reader to a fully committed bookworm, and the seemingly lost cause of saving Fern’s bookstore becomes her own. The marketing campaigns to expand the business become as engrossing as battle campaigns, and the victories, as triumphant, while being considerably sweeter, many of them involving a self-awareness and ethical self-examination for Viv and some of the other Murk inhabitants. And Varine the Pale, is not out of the picture either. All of the character and plot arcs work, for author Baldree is a cultivator of atmosphere and location. There is magic and action, but much like Legends & Lattes the cosy feels are the forefront of the story and the vicious fights and 'big bad' more of a background element. In the category Hygge Fantasy, this novel deserves a front and center place. Bookstores & Bonedust, shows how a prequel can stand on its own while also making its predecessor (and antecessor) stronger in retrospect. I was loathe to leave Viv and the community she created in the first book, this time it’s even harder. Recommended!

If you liked the first book, you’ll love this one too. It has the same level of cozy vibes and low stakes fun. This book had a difficult task of coming behind one that readers absolutely loved. Part of what they loved were the characters. So it is a bit of a letdown to not get to see more of those characters even though these were good too.

For the newness and lovable characters, I think L&L will always hold a special place in my heart and it is hard not to direct care. But I’m glad I read this and will definitely read anything else in the series. I’m sure most people who liked the first will feel similarly.

I did consume this via audiobook which does make the experience different. Baldree is an excellent narrator and really makes the characters individuals.

Legends & Lattes was all about Viv fulfilling a dream that she’s had for a very long time, to retire from the mercenary life and open a coffee shop, a place where she can hang up her sword (literally) and dispense peace and life-giving liquid in equal measure – instead of dealing death to people who generally deserved it.

The story in Bookshops & Bonedust is the story of way back when Viv was considerably younger and a whole lot dumber (as we often are) and first caught the inkling of that dream. Not in bustling Thune but in tiny, tacky, tawdry Murk, a seaside town that has certainly seen better days.

But it’s the most convenient place for Rackham’s Raiders, the mercenary company that young Viv is signed up with, to deposit her after she gets herself ahead of her team in a fight and gets skewered in the leg for her trouble. Or her hubris. Or just her belief that as a young orc in her first big skirmish she’s both immortal and indestructible.

Of course she’s neither, and has the bleeding holes in her leg to prove it. So she’ll be rusticating and recovering in Murk while Rackham’s Raiders are off to bring down Varine the Necromancer and her horde of skeletal warriors.

Viv is scared that Rackham won’t come back for her. She’s worried she won’t heal properly. But more than anything else, she’s frightened half to death that she’ll go out of her mind with boredom while she’s stuck, literally on her ass, in Murk.

Which is what leads her, albeit very indirectly and with a whole lot of excruciating steps, to Maylee’s bakery and Fern’s bookshop. The bakery because damn it smells good and the dwarf baker looks every bit as yummy as her freshly baked wares. The bookshop because there’s nothing to while away a whole lot of quiet time quite like a good book. Or a whole series of them.

And that bookshop, Thistleburr Booksellers, looks like it has lots and bunches of books, all sort of moldering away in a place that reeks of mold and moist and uncleaned rug and unwashed gryphlet. It smells ‘yellow’ to Viv, and any pet owner knows EXACTLY what that means.

But that doesn’t stop Viv from stepping in to while away a few minutes as she certainly has plenty to spare. The bookshop owner, desperate for both companionship and custom, induces Viv to take a book that she is certain will suck the orc right into its pages for a few hours.

And she’s right – of course she’s right – and it’s the beginning of the kind of friendship that will save them both, the store, and eventually and surprisingly the entire town of Murk.

Because Rackham’s Raiders are chasing that necromancer. A necromancer who is already on her deadly and deathly way to Murk – where Viv and Fern are waiting to beat her. Not with swords – but with just the type of cleverness that eventually will make Viv and her coffee shop such a success in Thune.

All it will take is a bit of ingenuity and a whole lot of help from Viv’s newly found friends.

Escape Rating A+: Anyone who sunk straight into the cozy fantasy vibe of Legends & Lattes is going to sink into Bookshops & Bonedust and not emerge for much of anything until they fall out the other side with a huge smile, a taste for Maylee’s lassy (molasses) buns and a hankering for more stories just like this one – especially for more set in this marvelous world.

What makes this world, and this cozy fantasy style, just so much of a comfort read is that, although bad things do happen to good people, that is most emphatically NOT what the story is about. It’s not about big wars and bigger politics and gigantic battles between good and evil resulting in stupendously high butcher’s bills.

Not that there isn’t danger, and not that there isn’t a confrontation. Because there is most certainly both along with plenty of tension, both dramatic and romantic, to push the whole thing along.

But the way that things get solved and resolved is through less bloodthirsty means – and just as occurred in Legends & Lattes, quite often problems, from small to world-shattering, get solved with a whole lot of ingenuity and more than a bit of help from the friends – and even the frenemies – that Viv has made along the way.

So it’s all cozy in the best way, where the reader slips under a warm blanket of story and gets told a marvelous tale that displays more of the best in people than it does the worst.

Even better, Bookshops & Bonedust, while it has all the charm of Legends & Lattes, is a prequel and not a sequel. Meaning that if you somehow missed the sensation that is Legends & Lattes, you can start here. The story, after all, does start here. If this is where you start, you’ll be thrilled and charmed and ready to start Legends the minute you finish.

But if you started with Legends, reading Bookshops & Bonedust will almost certainly inspire you to pick up Legends again the moment you finish, so you can discover how all the little clues about Viv’s later adventures fit into her first one. I know it certainly inspired me! Which is a good thing because, both fortunately and unfortunately at the same time, the author has three more cozy fantasies lined up, but the first won’t be published until 2025. Plenty of time to reread – or maybe listen this time around – to both Legends and Bookshops (and maybe my other cozy favorite, Can’t Spell Treason without Tea) before my visit with Viv!

Bookshops and Bonedust
By Travis Baldtree

4 stars

In case you weren't aware, Bookshops and Bonedust is a prequel to the story of Legends and Lattes. Which as a runaway hit last year in the newly minted "Cozy Fantasy" genre. With the surge in seeking out low stakes, high fantasy, many credit Legends and Lattes as the OG cozy fantasy.

Baldtree excels in creating charming characters and tangible settings. His stories have a very dungeons-and-dragons-esque feel to them. And it is the perfect escape into another world if you need a soft place to land.

Viv, our main character, hurts her leg in battle and is forced to take it easy for a while to recover. She is taken to a small seaside town, Murk, to recover. There she meets and makes friends with several “people” who live and work there. (People is in quotes because Viv is an Orc, the bookstore owner is a Rattkin, the bakeshop owner is a Dwarf and so on.) She stumbles upon a fledgling bookstore and the owner, Fern, talks her into reading and soon she is helping out and helping to save the bookstore. Queue the found family vibes I love that Travis does so well. However, soon her old life seems to be coming back to haunt her. There is a good amount of action close to the end of the book, but most of the story is pretty “cozy.”

This book makes a great fall/winter read and is great for a snuggled up day in by a fire. If cozy fantasy, romance, and a relaxing read are things you are seeking, then look no further and pick up this book.

Thank you to Tor Books and NetGalley for this ebook arc in exchange for my review.

Sometimes, you don't need a book to be fancy. Sometimes it just needs to be cozy. This prequel to Legends & Lattes is like a cup of tea (yeah I said it), a blanket, and a day just cool enough to bring it all together. I can't say I was AS engrossed by Bookstores & Bonedust as I was Legends & Lattes, but the difference is so slight, it doesn't matter.

This was a cute prequel to Legends and lattes. I liked it well enough (didn't love it though). I was hoping I'd enjoy this more than I did the first book (which wasn't as much as most other people seemed to sadly).

I don't know if this style just isn't for me but I had a hard time getting invested in the plot. The characters are charming and quirky and who doesn't enjoy a good story about books and bookshops.
The author does a great job narrating his own book though and if you like audiobooks I'd recommend listening to it for his performance alone.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for early digital and audio copies in exchange for my honest review. I honestly think this is a just me not you thing and lots of people are going to love it like they did his debut.

This was excellent! I absolutely loved Legends & Lattes so I had high expectations for this and Baldree did not disappoint! And on top of that the author was also an excellent reader.

I liked that there was a bit more action in this one than in Legends & Lattes. While I loved L&L's cozy slowness, I can also appreciate that this started off with a high stakes fight scene, had more going on and still managed to have a general warm and cozy vibe.

Once again, Baldree does an excellent job with characterization. Each one has a unique personality that is distinctive and memorable. On top of that, all of the characters- despite vast differences- blend so well together.

Especially loved the short add-on at the end of the book that eludes to a third installment that brings the stories of B&B and L&L together.

If you like the genre "cozy fantasy" this is for you. A prequel to Legends & Lattes Viv is in battle and is unexpectedly sidelined due to injury. She finds herself in the small town of Murk and needs to pass the time while she recovers and waits for her company to return. She finds herself in a run down bookshop and in the middle of a lot of trouble, friendships, summer love and sword play. Favorite character hands down - Satchel. Bravo Travis Baldree on another brilliant story. Loved the audio (narrated by the author). Thank you to Netgalley and Tor Books on this ARC in exchange for an honest review. Comes out 11/7/23.

I didn't love this one quite as much as Legends & Lattes, but it still had a great cozy fantasy vibe. Viv is a great main character as ever, her character remains pretty much the same, but it works for her. After getting wounded on the job, Viv finds herself convalescing in the dinky town of Murk, home to nothing much. She ends up spending a lot of time in the local bookshop with its owner, so reading and books factor heavily into the plot. The cast this time has its charms, but I felt like it was a bit lacking compared to the first book, though I did like Fern a lot. This was a slow build, at times much slower than L & L was, which worked in places but ended up dragging in most parts.