I think I have to resign myself to the fact that as much as I like cozy fantasy, this version of it is not for me. I feel exactly the same way about Bookshops & Bonedust as I do Legends & Lattes - that is, particularly underwhelmed. Its central premise is Viv’s time before her coffee shop owner days. And while it is an appropriate setup for why she might pivot to this life, it also feels like an odd detour to what we were told her backstory was in the first book.

The problem with a low stakes fantasy, as this is aptly marketed, is that the plot is not going to carry the book. It has to be the characters, and the atmosphere. I’m not expecting grand world building or extravagant quests. I just want interesting characters having interesting conversations. Unfortunately, the characters here felt like neatly packaged versions of a general personality trope - the quirky bookseller or the tsundere gnome that was always supposed to be a “softie” all along. I felt like I could predict every one of their interactions - the banter felt perfunctory.

For some people, I think this familiarity is going to be why they like this series at all, there really are no risks. And I won’t highlight anything in it as technically bad. In fact, I think fans of the first book will love this because it matches the tone exactly and hits many of the same plot beats. But it’s the kind of story that’s going to pass through my mind and will be gone in a few years.

Thank you to the publisher Macmillan Audio for providing an audiobook ARC via NetGalley for an honest review.

I adored this book just as much as Legends and Lattes!
This one felt a bit more action packed than Legends and Lattes but I didn’t mind.
It was such a lovely story. It features the girl gang all booksta girlies would want to be a part of.
It’s such a fun read, I found myself literally laughing out loud at points and that rarely happens with books. I might chuckle a little internally, you know those little snorts of air, but this produced actual audible laughter.

Travis Baldree’s narration is wonderful. I feel like it really adds the special touch to an already fabulous book.
I can’t recommend these books enough. This is the prequel to Legends and Lattes so if you haven’t read that one already that’s no problem.
If you’re looking for a low stakes, cozy fantasy novel with a diverse cast of characters that features mouth watering baked goods, strong female characters, and a plethora of books, this is for you!

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the advanced copy of this audiobook!

What an absolute delight of a book. I truly loved the first one and didn’t this one would be better — but it was. I was hooked from the first chapter and grew to love each character. You can’t help but to root for them wholeheartedly. 10/10 for me.

Bookshops & Bonedust is the prequel to the wildly successful Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree. If you had any doubts about who the King of cozy fantasy is, this book will cement that spot in your heart as belonging to Baldree.

Once again we are experiencing a heart warming adventure through the eyes of Viv, but this time we are seeing her in her early years back when she was still pretty green as a mercenary and doing her best to find her way in life.

Recently injured Viv is stuck recovering in a small town by a port waiting for her second chance at joining a crew and getting back into the action. During her recovery Viv begins to explore the town and of course in true Viv fashion makes some new friends along the way. Not only do we get some new lovable characters in this book and if I’m being honest pot roast is my favorite. We also get a different view of a character you would have first met in ‘Legends & Lattes’.

I’m gonna go on record and say Baldree is also the King of making readers hungry. His ability to suck you into the world and make it come to life in such a way that you begin to experience all aspects of it including the smells is simply superb.

If you loved the witty humor of the first book then I’m confident you will love it here as well. Honestly I think Baldree has found the perfect formula of humor mixed with mystery and a dash of romance that is sure to keep readers coming back for more as long as he decides to keep putting out stories in this world.

Considering all that has been happening in the world in the last 5 years or so I hope Baldree and the other authors who have jumped on the cozy fantasy keep putting out content. I personally believe we need more uplifting stories like this to help keep our spirits high as living in the real world especially as of late can be pretty grim so this gives us a great escape.

this hit this spot for a cozy read! i can’t even begin to explain how much i love this world. the characters, the atmosphere, the storytelling. everything about this story is so wholesome, it brings me so much peace and comfort. after reading the absolutely cozy legends & lattes, this prequel was just another breath of fresh air. i have grown so fond of viv and i enjoy following her adventure. i need more, pls. travis baldree, I AM A FAN.

I wanted to read Legends & Lattes, but I’m on a no-buy for this year, so when k saw that this prequel was available for review, I requested it. Now, obviously, I have to buy Legends & Lattes as soon as 2023 ends.
This book is sweet and unique. It’s cute & quick. I may have felt more attached having known the setting and characters had I read the first book first, but I still enjoyed this.
I don’t always love male narrators, especially for female MCs, but this narrator is the author, so that’s great.
Love the book shop setting and the small town feels and the queer romance.

Before I start the review, I just want to say thank you so much to the publishing company as well as NetGalley for giving me an advance readers copy in audiobook form.

If you really loved Legends and Lattes, then you are going to devour this book! What Legends and Lattes did with coffee this book does with the joy of reading. I found myself slowing down a lot when listening to this book because I just wanted to save every minute of it.

I would strongly recommend getting the audiobook because the author of this book is the one that actually narrates this story, and he does a phenomenal job bringing these characters to life!

An excellent prequel to the first book!

This story has the same relaxing vibe as the first one but with a similarly high-stakes adventure on the side. I enjoyed seeing the originals of Viv and how she came to enjoy a slower life.

Excellent read, would recommend it!

This prequel to the delightful "Legends & Lattes" gives us a glimpse of Viv as a young warrior at the beginning of her career. She's injured on what is really her first mission and having to stay at a quaint little village of Murk for several weeks waiting to heal up.

If you're not familiar with Legends & Lattes, this is a fantasy adventure story without the adventure. Both this, and the original, are set at the time between the adventures in the quiet downtime. It's a very slow burn where not much happens outside of character interactions.

The plot this time is a bit more complex - the main one feels similar, with Viv helping the local bookseller to spruce up her shop but there's also some romance and more action. Everything is colored by Viv's (and everyone's) knowledge that she's just here temporarily and she really wants to get back to the exciting life of a sellsword.

The characters in this book are better fleshed out than in L&L and there's more of a story. It still has the same warm fuzzy vibe that made the first book so wonderful to read - a slow burn that you kinda hope would just continue on forever. As one review aptly put it: if a fantasy novel and Animal Crossing were combined.

If you loved the first novel, you won't be disappointed with this one. On the other hand if you didn't like it, this won't change your mind. If you're new to the series, I'd still probably start with L&L instead of this one but realistically can read either one first.

Note: I listened to the audio version and it is read by the author.

If you're looking for a cozy, enjoyable read you can't go wrong with this. Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.

Viv the Orc mercenary burst onto the literary scene with Travis Baldree’s Legends & Lattes (2022), instantly defining the cozy fantasy book category and earning well deserved accolades and hordes of fans (the good kind of hordes, naturally <wink>).

Now the author returns with a major contribution to Viv’s backstory in Bookshops & Bonedust (2023). Not by going all the way back to how she came to join the mercenaries in the first place (perhaps another novel is hovering in the wings about that, one could hope), but a tale about how the young Orc’s impetuous nature and ambitious desire to just get in there swinging and take out the bad guys landed her with a serious leg injury in the sleepy seaside town of Murk. This is where her mercenary colleagues left her and where she would impatiently spend a few weeks recovering and keeping a weather eye peeled for the necromancer they had been seeking to win a bounty, and her evil minions that Viv had met in battle.

Her first few days in Murk are not auspicious. She inadvertently throttles the Elf healer that had been prepaid by Rackam’s Ravens to take care of her, learns to make her painful way around her rented one room (unfortunately up a narrow flight of stairs), and generally indulges in the sulks about her turn of misfortune.

And then, through a mishap with a rotten plank on the boardwalk directly in front of the town’s only bookshop, Viv takes a limping step into a wider world. Fern, the foulmouthed young rattkin proprietor and her sidekick – a gryphet dog-like creature with the improbable but delightful name of Potroast, are both rasty characters with attitudes out the door. But gradually, almost imperceptibly, they become friends.

As Viv heals over the subsequent weeks, Fern presses a succession of carefully curated books on Viv, who moves from a most reluctant reader (but with nothing else to do and time on her hands), to someone who, much to her own surprise, becomes entranced with the selections. It doesn’t hurt that most feature sword fights, pirates, derring-do, and (eventually) what Fern hilariously terms ‘moist.’

If the booksellers association of America had a fictional character to nominate for best book hand seller, Fern would get my vote!

However, with the initial set up of the book being a failed battle, one could surmise that a successful battle would round out the tale, and you would not be wrong. There is peril aplenty and I held my breath more than once in the final climactic battle, fearing the worst for a couple of my favorite side characters.

The book ends with an epilogue that jumps forward 20 years to a Viv who is now happily married and slinging the espresso that we all know about from Book 1. But it also harks back to the past, with a sheen of wistfulness that I’ve experienced and liked when JRR Tolkein did it at the end of the LOTR books, and in movies like Interstellar and Arrival. It also hints at possible future reunions, too – and somehow in the hands of this talented author, it manages to weave together the past, present and future.

I’ve had the pleasure of hearing Mr. Baldree at one of his book release events talking about how he can literally hear the dialogue in his head as he is writing, which makes sense as he is a professional narrator and does a splendid job with the audio version of this book (a copy of which I gratefully received from Netgalley, but which did not influence this review). He effortlessly glides between characters with distinctive voices and delivery. The author/narrator has a true gift in evoking the sights, smells, tastes and sounds of all the various settings and scenarios found in this book. That leads to a truly immersive listening experience. The only place where the audiobook was perhaps a bit challenging was when a chapter began with dialogue that seemed out of place. It quickly became clear what was going on (Viv’s internal voice as she read the opening lines from a chapter of her latest read), but I can imagine that seeing it in print as perhaps italicized would have erased any misapprehension about what was going on.

Highly, highly recommended….Bookshops & Bonedust represents a true highlight of my reading year thus far!

I received an audio ARC and ebook ARC from the publisher through NetGalley.

This was an entertaining followup to the breakout novel, [book:Legends & Lattes|61242426].

While not as solid a story as that told in the first book, this prequel adds quite a bit of backstory to the main character of both novels, Viv.

Although as a prequel this novel is set some years before the first published book, I would recommend reading Legends & Lattes first. It serves as a better introduction to the characters and settings. Also, this book has an epilogue that is set after the events of both books.

On a final note, Travis Baldree does the audio reading of this book himself, and he is excellent at capturing the characters and keeping the story moving....

Personally, I don’t drink coffee, so I resonated a lot more with this book with its celebration of bookshops and reading when compared to Legends and Lattes. The plot and characters were very compelling and, since Viv is still a mercenary in this one, we get more action than Legends and Lattes, which I found quite enjoyable, although the vibes are still very much warm and cozy.

I definitely think you could pick up this book having never read Legends and Lattes. I listened to and enjoyed the audiobook, which was read by the author, Travis Baldree. I think that when the authors narrate their own stories, they tend to enhance the experience and this was no exception. Additionally, Travis Baldree has prior experience working as an audiobook narrator so the quality of his narration is incredible! (And yes, I actually looked that up after finishing this because his voice sounded so phenomenal.)

Personally, I also really loved the themes (mild spoilers on the themes discussed in the remainder of this paragraph.) The book really centered on the value and importance of transient experiences and relationships within shaping our lives, which I found to be incredibly unique and refreshing. Additionally, these themes add a lot of value to this story considering that it is a prequel and we already know where Viv will end up long-term.

Thank you to NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for the arc!

This was sweet and adorable just like the first book and just like the first book it was so well written and full of such deep world building I found myself often getting lost it in it.

Another perfect cozy fantasy read by Travis! The guy can do no wrong in my eyes. We meet Viv in a prequel setting to Legends & Lattes where she stumbles upon a bookshop where a heartwarming adventure awaits her!

Thank you NetGalley and Travis Baldree for the early access to this audiobook! Pot Roast will always have my heart!

Bookshops & Bonedust (Legends & Lattes, No. 0) by Travis Baldree
𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞𝐬: Fantasy, Cozy, LGBT
𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭: Audio

QUICK BITS
•Cozy adventure
•Prequel
•Bookish

REVIEW
Legends & Lattes truly took me by surprise in the year of 2022.

I have never been one to seek out a cozy reading experience, but L&L showed me that I could enjoy a low stakes, high vibe kind of book.

Going into Bookshops & Bonedust, my expectations were still pretty minimal. Being a prequel, I really just wanted that aha moment that leads us to L&L and just more low stakes vibes.

Surprisingly, for me, there was just a little bit too much going on. I wanted less action and more settling in. I wanted more books and less adventure.

Although, the stakes and vibes were just a little off, I just knew that by the end I would get that settling moment of clarity where Viv meets the perfect cup of joe and begins her new life away from the action...I'll just say it didn't quite give me that.

All and all, I think this book will be loved by most.

Although, it didn't quite give me what I needed, I still appreciated the story as it pertains to Viv finding herself. There is still a lot to love in this little prequel.

RATINGS
8 Characters
8 Atmosphere
7 Writing Style
7 Plot
6 Pace
6 Intrigue
6 Enjoyment
TOTAL= 48/14= 3.43

3.50/5.00 Rounded Rating

A big thank-you to @macmillan.audio and @netgalley for this ALC in exchange for an honest review.

Travis Baldree is a talented narrator and I’ve been listening to his work for years. I guess after reading so many other author’s works he decided try his hand at it himself and last year he came out with Legends & Lattes. It got raves reviews upon release but it wasn’t until this summer that I finally got around to reading it. And I immediately fell in love with Viv and Co. Her tale of opening a coffee shop was so different for a fantasy novel, relaxing and yet fully engaging. So I was thrilled that Travis was coming out with another book. And yet I couldn’t help being a bit disappointed when I first started Bookshops & Bonedust. You see I absolutely loved the cast from the first book and since this is a prequel and not a sequel I instantly missed those characters I’d gotten to know from the first book. Of course I needn’t have worried as Travis quickly introduces us to a whole new cast of lovable characters.

With Bookshops & Bonedust Travis Baldree delivers another wonderful cozy fantasy. (I know you’re saying ‘is that even a thing?’ Well, yes. Yes it is.) In this prequel we once again journey with Viv. Well, no we don’t journey actually. You see Viv, a rather pleasant Orc, has been injured during her latest adventure and has been sidelined, forced to remain in a quaint little town while she recovers and awaits the return of the rest of her companions. Of course sitting around and doing nothing isn’t exactly Viv’s style. Remember this a younger Viv who is still longing for adventure. She ends up befriending a rather sassy bookshop owner among other fun characters and her time of ‘rest and relaxation’ ends up being sprinkled with a fair bit of action. I don’t want to spoil the story but I will say what Viv did for her own coffee shop in the first book, she has a similar effect on the bookshop, and the bookshop owner for that matter (as well as the other friends she makes). While I think I prefer Legends & Lattes a bit more, Bookshops & Bonedust is a worthy addition to the series, and if Travis continues serving up more of Viv’s adventures I’m more than happy to go along for the ride. Those familiar with his work already know Baldree is an exceptional narrator but there is just something extra special about hearing him read his own words. I’d like to thank Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to and review an advanced copy of the audio version of Bookshops & Bonedust.

https://www.amazon.com/review/RHA3XIXJSEQ8A/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv

Travid Baldree does it again. I love this world so much and Baldree's storytelling delivers. Officially an auto-buy author and I hope he always narrates his own work. Pure magic.

This was absolutely everything I needed.

Legends and Latte’s has a bit of a cult following as a cozy fantasy, and for good reason. Bookshops and Bonedust also completely hit the nail on the head and I loved every moment, maybe even better than the first release.

Bookshops and Bonedust has all the cozy vibes you loved about L&L, not make it the restoration of a failing bookstore (and a dash of necromancy). The characters are so charming and lovable, and it was so moving to get a background story for how Liv may have been convinced, over time and through various experiences, to change the course of her life and slow down. There are a lot of quiet and meaningful lessons to be learned from this tale, as well as some great humor, truly heartwarming friendships, and sweet supportive romances as well. I loved how the (low stakes) conflict came to a head at the end, and Liv’s process of leaving this short interlude of her story behind was bittersweet but so perfect.

I think anyone who is a fan of cozy fiction, specifically fantasy or sci fi, will adore this. Legends and Latte’s fans will definitely not be let down, if anything they may love it more. Thank you so much to Macmillan audio for the audiobook copy!

Thank you Macmillan Audio for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Bookshops & Bonedust, the prequel to Legends & Lattes that everyone's been waiting for! It's like a sneak peek into the life of our main character, Viv, before she got caught up in the coffee shop business.

In this story, we find Viv taking a breather in a small town, on account of being injured. That's when the adventure begins. She mingles with some interesting folks and stumbles upon a bookshop that's seen better days. The plot has its share of mysteries, a dash of romance, and plenty of snappy banter. The story, to be honest, didn't have me on the edge of my seat, but the characters were an absolute hoot. My personal fave? Fern. She's the snarky bookshop owner who just oozes a passion for books and knows how to hook readers up with the perfect book. Viv wasn't much of a bookworm, but Fern shows her that she simply hadn't met her book soulmate yet. As a fellow book lover, how could I not relate?! I loved it!

So, I'd say it's a cozy read that gets a 3.5 out of 5 stars from me. The plot might not be the most gripping, but the characters are a riot. If you're into Legends & Lattes and cozy mysteries, this is one you'll probably want to dive into!

Thank you NetGalley & Travis Baldree for the opportunity to listen to the second installment of Legends & Lattes.

I really enjoyed the continuation of learning more about Viv. She’s a very lovable character.

Bookshops & Bonedust was such a cozy slow read. If you loved Legends and Lattes, you’ll definitely love Bookshops & Bonedust.