When an injury throws a young, battle-hungry orc off her chosen path, she may find that what we need isn’t always what we seek.

In Bookshops & Bonedust, a prequel to Legends & Lattes, New York Times bestselling author Travis Baldree takes us on a journey of high fantasy, first loves, and second-hand books.

Viv’s career with the notorious mercenary company Rackam’s Ravens isn’t going as planned.

Wounded during the hunt for a powerful necromancer, she’s packed off against her will to recuperate in the sleepy beach town of Murk—so far from the action that she worries she’ll never be able to return to it.

What’s a thwarted soldier of fortune to do?

Spending her hours at a beleaguered bookshop in the company of its foul-mouthed proprietor is the last thing Viv would have predicted, but it may be both exactly what she needs and the seed of changes she couldn’t possibly imagine.

Still, adventure isn’t all that far away. A suspicious traveller in grey, a gnome with a chip on her shoulder, a summer fling, and an improbable number of skeletons prove Murk to be more eventful than Viv could have ever expected.

My Review

Viv the coffee selling orc returns, but twenty years younger, and with less enemies. Injured in a raid, she’s left in Murk, a seaside town, while her crew, Rackham’s Raven’s continue hunting for Varine the Pale, a necromancer and her hoard of wights. Bored, Viv takes a chance visit to bookshop and discovers a love of reading. In time, she makes friends, falls in love with a dwarf and deals with an undead problem. She meets a famous romance author and a bony homunculus called Satchel in the process. She also meets Galina, the gnome we first meet in Legends & Lattes, in Murk, as a young, untired mercenary.

I have several copies of this book, a hardback special edition from The Broken Binding, a standard Tor hardback, and this Tor US paperback. I have the UK paperback on order for next year. I am a completist with my books, especially when I like them. That’s why I have multiple copies of the Burningblade & Silvereye series (UK and US editions), and many, many editions of The Lord of the Rings.

I really enjoy Travis Baldree’s cosy fantasy novels. That’s why I spend the money to get The Broken Binding special editions, as well as the standard hardback and paperback. Isn’t it glorious? I love the artwork!

Back to the actual story. Viv is a young, over-confident orc on a mission to prove herself. Right up until she gets stabbed in the leg and is shipped off to a dull seaside town. We see Viv, the young orc who becomes the Viv of Legends & Lattes, learning her first lessons in being a mercenary, and that there is a chance at life afterwards, if you find out what you really want to do. We see the start of the yearning that leads to her eventually opening her café and finding a partner. First though, she has to learn to temper her impatience, that sometimes you meet the right person, in the right place, but at entirely the wrong time. Someone who’s had their adventures and found a place, while you are just starting yours and haven’t found your place yet. These bittersweet lessons in life and love are handled well.

There’s the cosy bakery, a dank bookshop that needs modernising, and a gnome with a chip on her shoulder as big as she is. It’s all so delightful. I loved the use of a bookshop – Viv dives in to helping her new friend in return for being given the joy of books. The spread the joy by sharing books with other people and bringing in innovations in bookselling (at least they’re innovative in Murk). Between that, falling in love with a baker, and saving Murk from the undead hoards, Viv has a lot going on, as she impatiently waits for the return of Rackham’s Ravens. Her stay in Murk is a temporary one, she hopes, and dreads both staying and leaving by the end.

This story is about books. It’s a book about stories, too. Mostly. It’s about what books can do for you, about how books, and stories, can explain the world and help us through difficult times and turbulent emotions, by acting as mirrors. It’s about finding the story after the end of the story. In LOTR, Sam talks about how they’re characters in a story, that one day, their great adventure will be another part in a greater story. Viv, Fran, and, Maylee say it differently, but it’s the same concept: we’re all stories, our story streams become part of the greater river of stories that all join each other in the sea of history.

Oh, great, I’m getting metaphorical and poetic!

I was deeply affected by this book, which might sound daft, considering characters include a gryphon-dog hybrid, a cake baking dwarf, a snake-person who runs the town police force, a rat-person who runs a bookshop, a homunculus that need dusting with bone dust to form, and a poetic orc. Then there’s the romance writing elf, who is wildly popular with everyone but a bit of a recluse, until Viv and Fran visit with cakes from Maylee’s bakery. I loved the characters, they’re so squishy. I could cuddle them all day. That’s what I enjoy about cosy fantasy, everything turns out fine in the end, even if the ending is a bittersweet one. The main character leaves wherever they are better than they found it and people’s lives better for their presence. It’s soft and cosy and just the thing for a winter’s evening.

Once again, Travis Baldree has written a cracking good book. The epilogue promises more to come, and I’d definitely read more about Viv’s adventures in between the events of L&L and B&B.