Legends & Lattes | Travis Baldree
"the combined aromas of hot cinnamon, ground coffee, and sweet cardamom intoxicated her, and as she brewed and smiled and served and chatted, a deep contentment welled up. it was a glowing warmth she’d never experienced before, and she liked it. she liked it a great deal."
Legends & Lattes is a cozy fantasy about an
orc who retires from the warrior life to open a café. Along the way, she makes
some friends and learns to rely on others.
The novel takes conventional high fantasy tropes and spins
them. It has coffee shops and orcs and elves and succubi and bards and direcats and dwarves, and tackles
the logistics of living in a magical world where these things exist. It does
have Viv facing expected troubles in a new town and expected villainy from ex
crew mates. My biggest gripe is that the first half is over-burdened with
detailed but not actually descriptive narration of building a coffeeshop. We
get many pages of supplies being fetched and assembled, but I was still left
without a clear idea of what the new shop or the city it was located in look
like.
This is a 300 page book where the characters just hang out
and chat, and do their own thing. Mind their own business. There’s not much
plot, you are just following our main character along while she tries to put
together her own coffee shop and makes tons of friends along the way. It's cozy
and quiet. But there was nothing beyond that. It tried to have a sort of plot
and some action towards the end, but the way it went about it was so cartoonish
that I would've preferred it to be left out entirely in favor of more character
work.
It is a nice story about nice people - the retired orc Viv
who, with the pocketed bounty of her final raid, settles down in the town of
Thune to pursue her secret dream: opening a coffee-shop. She hires carpenter
Cal to help her remodel a livery she has bought. Then she meets succubus Tandri
who wants people to see beyond her nature, and hires her to be her shop
assistant. Later Thimble, a rattkin, displays his baking skills and is hired as
pastry maker, who invents the cinnamon rolls and other pastries. They set up
shop, make friendships and lattes, stand up for each other, and invent more things,
like iced coffees and travel mugs. For a while, their problems are about
getting customers and some technology for the kitchen, but soon there are
others - the neighborhood gang, ghosts from Viv's mercenary past.
The whole thing hinges on the fact that the town Viv sets up
shop in has never heard of coffee – a sensational gnomish invention she sampled
on her travels. She never approaches gnomes to learn more about coffee, she just
decides to take the idea and sell it somewhere else. Why not apprentice with
the gnomes and work at one of their cafés? Or hire gnome workers, instead of
others who have no idea what coffee is. It is also quite improbable that in
this town full of students and travellers, no one has heard of coffee. Really?
This book was just okay; it doesn’t do anything offensively wrong,
but doesn’t quite nail any of its elements either. The plot is
virtually non-existent. Although I was expecting low stakes, I was expecting
some element of story, and therefore conflict of some kind. We get none: every
challenge Viv faces is overcome with way too much ease, there is no discernable
arc or tension. The characters themselves feel very shallow, having their main
characteristic being their fantasy-race and the fact that they’re
“nice-despite-looking-tough”. Their interactions remain very superficial and
loyalties are never tested. Calling it “found-family” doesn’t feel earned to
me, as the book doesn’t succeed to establish that level of connection between
these characters; there’s basic co-worker interaction, and then a romance falls
out of thin air. I really need more on-page chemistry or supporting each other
through challenges to call something a found fantasy.
All in all, cute and vibey, but don’t expect any plot. The
cozy vibes is what sticks with me, the characters and everything else seems to
be slipping away quite quickly.
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