Bookshops & Bonedust

A fun prequel to the author's previous book, this one concerns the adventures of Viv the Orc when she was just starting out in the 'hack and slash' business with a group of mercenaries. Injured during a battle against a necromancer, Viv is bundled off to recover in a seaside town in the middle of nowhere.

With nothing else to do, Viv wanders into a bookshop, where she discovers an owner with a very discerning eye for readers, who recommends to her a series of books that Viv is startled to discover she enjoys. Viv then returns the favour by helping the owner to clean up the shop and help advertise it to visitors. Viv also gets acquainted with the owner of a bakery, which turns into a summer fling while she waits to rejoin the mercenaries.

Things take a dark turn when a creepy visitor turns up at the town, leading to a fight between the visitor and Viv. This would begin a series of events that would lead the necromancer Viv was fighting to the town, and it would need all of Viv and her friends' bravery to put an end to the necromancer.

The book might be called a 'cozy fantasy', as the story is more about friendships and romance, rather than heroics and fights, the usual tropes in fantasy stories. It is also a good lead-up to the author's previous book, showing the readers more about Viv's background as a fighter and why she eventually chooses to quit it and turn to running a coffee shop instead. It also shows a fantasy world where people are not judged by what they are (an orc, dwarf, elf, etc.) but by their actions. And, of course, interspecies romance would be in the air.

A light and fun read.

This was a fun prequel to Legends & Lattes. It was a much stronger book for me with much more depth; Viv is stuck injured in a small seaside town and has to figure out what to do with herself while she's recovering. It's a cozy book about finding new directions, supporting friends who are stuck, and connections even when they're temporary. These are very different books, but it made me want to go reread Bujold's Memory, which is also a book centered on sorting out your life when its expected trajectory has been suddenly altered.

It's also a book about loving books and caring for a bookstore, which immediately endeared itself to me. Fern (the foul-mouthed rattkin who owns said bookstore) recommends Viv a series of books from different (in-world fantasy takes on) genres. The snippets from these books are entertaining but each one ties implicitly and explicitly into the themes and plot. Mystery! Action! Romance! Friendship! Local authors! Maybe it's a little too on the nose, but it worked really well for me.

(As a super minor aside here, it's also interesting to me about where the tension in this book comes from. Certainly, there's a larger necromancer in the background that creates the larger plot. Secondarily, money in the book is also a concern, but it's less that any of these characters will starve and it's more an emotional worry--Fern is concerned that her bookstore will fold and she will have failed her dad and her own dream. There's a lot of discussion of Viv paying for baked goods and her room and board, but despite being a young mercenary there's never any "how am I going to support this lifestyle of staying at this inn all summer" worries. It reminds me of the kind of cozy worldbuilding that Zandra Vandra does, where there's emotional tension but the normal grinding terribleness of the world has been softened at the edges.)