Last Winter Solstice, at our family book exchange, I received Legends and Lattes and adored everything about it! Fortunately the follow-up book came out in time for my family to get it for me this year. Bookshops and Bonedust is a prequel to Legends and Lattes and delivers an equally excellent story.
When it was announced that Bookshops and Bonedust would be a prequel, I assumed that it would be about when Viv discovers coffee. I was pleasantly surprised that this is not that book. In Legends and Lattes, we see Viv at a turning point in her life. She has done the adventuring gig for long enough that she is no longer interested in sleeping on roots. Instead Viv wants to put down roots and settle down.
Bookshops and Bonedust introduces us to young, fresh Viv. Recently signed up with an experienced mercenary company, Rackam’s Ravens. She is ready to slay monsters, hunt down bandits, and guard caravans. Viv’s also impulsive and full of the belief she can handle anything, until a spear into her thigh says otherwise. Rackam pays for a surgeon and several days in an inn. With a promise that he would be back in several weeks after capturing the necromancer, Varine the Pale. He cautioned her to patience, a skill she would need to acquire if she wants her career to continue with the Ravens. Viv finds herself in Murk, a sleepy, little town on the edge of the Sea, with nothing to do but heal a grievously wounded leg.
At first just being in Murk grates at Viv. Frustrated by her inability to do normal activities and at herself for getting into the mess in the first place, has her chomping at the bit. But then she meets Fern, who’s passion in life is to find the right books to put into people’s hands. Fern has inherited her father’s bookshop and business is abysmal. The interior of the shop is rundown and smells of Potroast, Fern’s adorable hippogriff / pug animal companion. Helping Fern revive the bookshop gives Viv some purpose for the enforced down time. Meeting Maylee, the adorable and talented baker of Sea-Song bakery, rouses warm feels in Viv as Maylee flirts while selling lassy buns. A spiky friendship is started with the smart mouthed Gallina. Viv can almost see herself staying but the call to adventure to far greater. A mysterious stranger kicks off events and there is even some fighting but this is a low stakes book. More interested in discussing books and gushing over favorite authors than kingdom threatening events, this is cozy fantasy at its best.
There is so much that I like about this book! I enjoyed Legends and Lattes focus on coffee as I live with a coffee aficionado. My passion lies with tea but I could relate. However, books and bookshops, this was like catnip to me. I enjoyed the snippets of books that Viv is reading and how they gave us just enough information that it felt natural to follow along with the characters discussing them. I especially related to Fern and her love of finding the right book for a reader. It brings a spark of joy to my day learning that someone loves a recommendation I gave them.
I will say I did keep waiting for coffee to show up in some form but it never did! That happened on some other part of Viv’s journey. Hopefully, Baldree writes that story someday. Whatever comes next, I eagerly look forward to anything else he may write in this cozy setting.