Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“After 10 centuries of doing this, do you want to know what’s really exciting?” Fern nodded. “Dry socks.”

Brigands & Breadknives by Travis Baldree

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  I really enjoyed this. It’s nice that Travis Baldree is also a voice actor, because he really brings his words to life on the audiobook. I enjoyed the focus on Fern and her accidental road trip. Zil the goblin is a delightfully chaotic entry to the Legends & Lattes universe. Asterix the Oathmaiden keeps everyone grounded while bringing the sword wielding adventure. If you recall, in the Legends & Lattes prequel, Bookshops & Bonedust, Viv made friends with Fern, a bookseller in Murk, where […]

“It was like drinking the feeling of being peaceful.”

Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree

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Bingo: I am counting this book for the “Work” category, since the plot centers around the main character’s business venture and place of work. Viv, an orc adventurer, is ready to hang up her sword and settle into a more peaceful life. She wants to start a coffeeshop in the magical city of Thune, spreading the joy of caffeine and baked goods to all species, races, and character classes (those are the correct DnD terms, right?) Viv is stubborn and independent, but quickly learns that if […]

How the legend might have started with books before lattes

Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree

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What’s cozy in the same way as a latte? Second-hand books. That’s what we get with Bookshops & Bonedust, and I’m down with that. This is a pretty good prequel, but it can be done as a stand-alone, and it also does a nice job of maybe setting up volume 3. The whole story starts with young and eager Viv getting ahead of herself and getting injured in a fight. The rest of her team leaves her behind to recover in middle of nowhere Murk, […]

A fun read, but possibly too light-hearted

Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree

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3.5 stars Twenty years before the events in Legends & Lattes, Viv is a young and relatively inexperienced mercenary, who gets badly injured fighting undead monsters while hunting for a powerful necromancer. Her mercenary band leave her in the quiet and mostly empty seaside town of Murk to heal up and recuperate. She worries that the group are going to leave her there, but thankfully, to take her mind off her fears, she encounters the local bookshop owner, who manages to persuade her (Viv has […]

A Cozy Story About “Exotic Bean Water”

Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree

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This was just what I needed given the stress I’ve been feeling lately, and I wish I hadn’t waited so long to read it. It was such a cozy read that I almost teared up at how comforting it is. The story focuses on Viv, whose 3rd person perspective we get, as she sets about opening up a coffee shop in the city of Thune, a city whose residents have never heard of coffee. She was previously a mercenary but doesn’t want to die in […]

The last books of 2023. I made it to 100!

Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree

Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher

The Six Deaths of The Saint by Alix E. Harrow

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I am nothing if not predictably unpunctual. Here’s the last bit of what I read up until the end of 2023. I literally finished The Six Deaths of The Saint at 11:45 PM Bookshops and Bonedust by Travis Baldree One of the first books I read in 2023 was Legends and Lattes, and I haven’t been able to get the warm cozy feeling it gave me out of my head, so when a prequel was announced, I was ecstatic. Of course, I wanted to see […]



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