2.5 stars rounded up

I did not enjoy this one as much as legends and lattes. I feel like it kind of lost the intent or purpose of the book. It tried to be low stakes and cozy, but then had a necromancer?

3.25 stars

I really enjoyed Legends & Lattes last year, so I was very excited to get this prequel. I enjoyed this one, but for me it really didn’t hit the same spots that the first book did. Legends & Lattes has a very cozy and sweet feel to it, as I’m sure you all know. However, this one is more that it has cozy and sweet moments, as opposed to most of the book, if that makes sense. Like the first book this one has a dangerous mystery subplot. Unlike the first book, however, it takes up a larger portion of the story.

The voice of Viv is also quite different in this book. This takes place when she is young and getting her start, so there’s a lot more impatience and abruptness on her part. She really needed a few decades to mellow out.

I think this book would be great if you read Legends & Lattes and liked it but thought it was a bit slow and not much happened.

Thank you to NetGalley & Tor Publishing Group for this advance reader copy. All opinions are my own.

I love this world and I love these characters. The cozy vibes are top notch! I’m just not sure what i expected from this story, but I guess a “backstory” for Viv wasn’t it. I’m not saying it wasn’t needed, I just found it hard to want to be invested in any character aside from Viv, as we already know they’re not central to her next adventure. I suppose the ending helps with that investment a bit.

The first half of this book was very slow and I was struggling to want to read it, but once a few new characters get introduced and the story picks up a bit I had a lot more fun. I do wish I had had the chance to read this first and then legends and lattes, but regardless, I was happy to be in this world again!

As a bookseller, this book brought me a particularly rare sense of joy that can be found in the cozy, slow days at the store. It perfectly encapsulates the personal challenge of finding the perfect book for each customer and the talent for reading people that develops from that challenge. An amazing read ideal for the coming cold days tucked away inside with some baking and a warm drink of choice, this was an easy 5 stars.

I loved this prequel to Legends & Lattes even more than the original! After an injury prevents her from continuing on with her adventuring, Viv finds herself surprisingly invested in a local bookshop that's struggling to make ends meet. This one is faster paced than L&L but just as cozy and cute! It also features a skeleton homunculus, a bookshop owner with a foul mouth, and an owl dog.

I really love the growing cozy fantasy genre. Life is stressful enough without being stressed out by a book, and the low stakes magical worlds are a lovely escape. Bookshops & Bonedust was a delightful read and enjoyable prequel to Legends and Lattes. Other than an epilogue at the end of Bookshops which contains spoilers for Legends, you really could read either book in any order.

Highly recommend for folks looking for escapist, curl up in front of the fire, reading.

Travis Baldree has done it again. Viv, the vengeful orc is back in this prequel to Legands and Lattes. I didn't realize this was a prequel at first and was thoroughly confused, but once I got my bearings, I was able to settle in and enjoy this story. Viv has been injured in battle and is brought to an inn to recuperate. She is sure the sleepy seaside town will bore her to death. While exploring the town and trying to get herself back into fighting form, she meets some unique inhabitants. The characters in this story are charming and the setting is delightfully cozy. This book lives up to the high expectations set by its predecessor for sure!

Bookshops & Bonedust is a prequel that takes place 20 years before Legends & Lattes. In this book, we meet a much younger Viv who has just started her career as an adventurer.

Viv's mercenary career is put on hold when she's injured hunting a necromancer. She's left by her company in a small village called Murk to recuperate, and she hates sitting there doing nothing even when the surgeon states her wounded leg demands it. Viv finds herself returning again and again to a little bookshop.

I loved reading about Viv and her discovery of books. I'm hoping that there will be many more books set in this world.

I think cozy fantasy is just not for me. I can absolutely see why people love this series and love this genre, but I think I need some stakes. I gave up at @35%.

“ᴇᴠᴇʀʏ ʙᴏᴏᴋ ɪꜱ ᴀ ʟɪᴛᴛʟᴇ ᴍɪʀʀᴏʀ, ᴀɴᴅ ꜱᴏᴍᴇᴛɪᴍᴇꜱ ʏᴏᴜ ʟᴏᴏᴋ ɪɴᴛᴏ ɪᴛ ᴀɴᴅ ꜱᴇᴇ ꜱᴏᴍᴇᴏɴᴇ ᴇʟꜱᴇ ʟᴏᴏᴋɪɴɢ ʙᴀᴄᴋ.”

Another feel good cozy fantasy in the world of the Legends & Lattes series. This is a prequel focusing on the main character, Viv… and you know I love an orc character no matter the genre. I just love the low stakes, warm writing, and character relationships that are developed in these books. This time we are in a small town with Viv as she recovers from a battle injury, and she makes friends with a local bookshop owner and town baker.

I love how the author creates/invents things in the story that put a smile to your face as you recognize what they are. During the story, they work to clean up the bookshop and discuss what to do with inventory. It is suggested what if we wrap up these books like surprises and write words on them (aka blind date with a book). Viv also finds her love of reading, and I can’t help but smirk as she is given a romance book to read.

This was such a charming read with quirky characters, and I can’t wait to see if there is more in store with this series.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and @netgalley for this arc.

LITERALLY SUCH A COZY READ.

I am in my fantasy cozy era thanks to this. I loved it so much. If you liked the first book - youre 1000000% going to LOVE and devour this one. Highly highly recommend.

I had a really good time with this one. I enjoyed the characters and thought they were really sweet. Reading about the bookshop and the bakery and the adorable relationships these characters developed was a nice cozy time.

Somehow I didn't find myself bored at all and was very entertained by Satchel. I think Fern swore a little too much for me, it is funny in doses but I think it was slightly overdone. But overall I really liked all the main characters and think they were great friends.

I'm a little surprised there was as much action as there was, I wasn't expecting much at all but I really enjoyed the small sections we got of combat and adventure. I think there is a good balance between action and cozy slice of life going on to make this an easy read for anyone, even those who may not be very familiar with fantasy.

This prequel to Legends and Lattes continues to hit all the right spots. In this volume we learn a bit about Viv's backstory as a young mercenary as she recuperates from a wound in the quiet town of Murk. Baldree does a great job of letting us see Viv grow into the character that we meet in Legends and Lattes as she befriends another fascinating array of characters (hopefully we will meet them again in whatever sequels appear).

What makes this book (and the series) great is that while there is some action and the feel of a medieval fantasy world is there the focus is instead on the characters. How they meet, how they learn to accept their differences, what they learn from each other.

Strangely I feel like this one was written more for the masses than L&L. B&B had more of an over-arching plot and more fighting and mystery than I really found in L&L which was more just... vibes. That being said, I did really enjoy this book, it just wasn't the super cozy book I was expecting.

Part of it too may have been that as this is a prequel we know where Viv ends up and so there wasn't a lot of mystery to the whole thing of how things were going to go. I did really enjoy the story and I liked a couple of the new characters. Some of the new characters though, just didn't really hit with me.

So, while not a new favorite like L&L, still a really solid and enjoyable book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

If you loved Legends & Lattes, I can almost certainly guarantee that you will love this book. It has all the coziness of L&L, but substitute a coffee shop for a bookstore, and add just a touch more action and adventure (this is, after all, a prequel set before Viv retires from her mercenary days). There's even a little summer romance that's very cute, even if (spoiler if you haven't read Legends & Lattes) you know it isn't made to last. And the underlying theme that books are mirrors and there is a book out there for everyone? That made my little librarian heart so happy.

Also, could someone make a plushie of Potroast for me, please? Because I would very much like to buy one.

Absolutely delightful.
A story about an orc who has to spend some time healing from a war wound, it’s really about discovering books and a love for reading (& and a very sweet summer fling). It’s thoughtful and sweet and yet paced quickly enough to keep my attention through a stomach bug outbreak among my kids (a few late nights and tired days).

Thanks to NetGalley and Tor for the ARC.

I received a free copy of this book thanks to NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group; all opinions expressed are exclusively my own.

I wasn't sure how a prequel would feel after FINALLY getting my hands on Legends & Lattes; the original work feels so complete as a story about Viv that it was a little hard to imagine enjoying a younger her. My imagination was weak, because Bookshops & Bonedust was every bit as beautiful and possibly even more touching than its predecessor! The humor was brilliant, the characters complex and lovely, and the story was the sort of curl-up-with-something-warm level of cozy I hadn't expected it could reach. I will say, I think this would be best enjoyed as a series to get all the impact of the emotional moments, but there is plenty of joy in this book on its own that I wouldn't think it would be hard to love even without the context.

I have not read Legends & Lattes, but now I'm rushing out to get a copy! I've never been much of a fantasy reader because my imagination struggles to wrap it's lack of creativity around the descriptive creatures and worlds most fantasy stories conjure, but I think I could become a fan of the "cozy fantasy". I appreciated that, honestly, not much happened in this story. That sounds like an insult, but it's not. So many fantasy stories have fast-moving action and elaborate fight scenes, and I struggle to keep up because I just can't picture it all. The cozy fantasy, however, gets you used to fantastical creatures and characters without the complicated plot. Bookshops & Bonedust is a fun story of an orc who finds friendship when she's doing the exact opposite of looking for it. Laid up in a strange town with a leg injury, Viv is forced to slow down and smell the roses, so to speak. She befriends a local bookstore owner and a bag of bones (not kidding), and finds a smidge of romance with the cute baker in town. But the fight that left Viv injured is threatening to show up on her temporary doorstep, endangering those she's come to care for. This sounds more suspenseful than it really is, but once again I was totally fine with that. The lack of a ton of mystical action left my brain free to focus on imagining each character as they interacted with one another as Viv figured out what friendship felt like. There's plenty of humor, heartwarming relationships, and a smidge of action to keep the pages turning. I just may need to give another "cozy fantasy" a try...

**Thank you, NetGalley and publishers, for a DRC in exchange for an honest review.**

Is anyone surprised that this book is just as delightful as Legends & Lattes? In his acknowledgments Baldree says it’s the prequel he never intended to write. But I’m so glad he did. It’s just as cozy, low stakes (maybe a smidge higher stakes than L&L), and delightful. The characters are perfect, the story stands alone but also intertwines so well with its predecessor, and goodness. It’s just swell. I love it, it’ll definitely be a re-read for me.

Another cozy and engaging fantasy book from Travis Baldree. I know it’s low stakes fantasy but it’s still an engaging and intriguing plot line.