Bookshops & Bonedust

LEGENDS AND LATTES was the best book I read last year. It was original and cute. I had high hopes for this prequel story, but it fell a little short of the greatness of the first book. However, it's still fun and kind and tells a compelling story with compelling characters.

This tale finds the orc warrior, Viv, recovering from a battle injury in Murk, a seaside town with not much going for it. Viv, out of boredom, stumbles into a bookstore and befriends the proprietor, Fern. Fern runs a cluttered and unsuccessful bookstore, but she turns Viv into a reader by giving her saucy tales of swords and romance that she figures Viv will enjoy. In turn, Viv helps Fern run her shop better. Add in the conflict a necromancer poses to the area, and you have an enjoyable low-stakes fantasy adventure.

Baldree continues to root this series in a Ted Lasso-like kindness that makes it an enjoyable change of pace from so many books out there. It's anachronistic and silly at times, but that's what makes it endearing.

Writing the second book in any series is difficult, even more so when you write a prequel instead of a sequel. In the acknowledgments, Baldree even notes that he wasn't able to write the sequel he initially wanted to write, but he put forth another fun story and a worthy installment for this clever fantasy world he's creating, but it just doesn't land quite as well as the first book, probably because I'm not terribly interested in prequels. Tell me what comes next.

I'll look forward to whatever comes next for this series.