Bookshops & Bonedust: A Heartwarming Cosy Fantasy and TikTok Sensation
£8.99
‘Glorious’ – Ben Aaronovitch, author of the Rivers of London series
A standalone cosy fantasy about the power of good bookshops, great friends and the unexpected choices along the way from the bestselling author of BookTok sensation Legends & Lattes.
First loves. Second-hand books. Epic adventures.
Viv’s career with the renowned 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 struggling bookshop in the company of its foul-mouthed proprietor is the last thing Viv would have predicted. Even though it may be exactly what she needs. Still, adventure isn’t 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.
Sometimes, right things happen at the wrong time. Sometimes, what we need isn’t what we seek. And sometimes, we find ourselves in the stories we experience together . . .
‘A perfectly executed prequel . . . the stakes are higher and the scones are hotter still!’ – Nicholas Eames
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Additional information
| Publisher | Tor (9 Nov. 2023) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| File size | 5910 KB |
| Text-to-Speech | Enabled |
| Screen Reader | Supported |
| Enhanced typesetting | Enabled |
| X-Ray | Not Enabled |
| Word Wise | Enabled |
| Sticky notes | On Kindle Scribe |
| Print length | 354 pages |
by LMS
This is the prequel to Legends and Lattes.
Read if you like: ✨Fantasy ✨YA ✨Adventure ✨Magical creatures and objects ✨Friendship✨Unexpected choices ✨The power of good bookshops
This was a fun cosy fantasy read with a little smidge of romance.
There was a lot of detailed world building and imagery. I could clearly picture the world and characters that Travis was describing. The story brings together magical creatures and objects and they fall into an adventure together.
The main character is Viv the orc. She is a bounty hunter and after she is seriously injured in battle she is forced to recover in the sleepy seaside town of Murk. She becomes friends with Fern and helps her out with her bookshop.
The bookshop itself is a treasure trove and Fern the owner has a real calling and talent, finding the right book for each visitor.
Travis talks about a story within a story and there were lots of strands to the events happening in the small seaside town of Murk. There’s the stranger dressed in grey, a gnome with attitude, innocent summer love, skeletons and a mysterious and impending danger that they need to survive.
I loved the strong friendships that developed in the story and when it was time for Viv to leave I could feel the sadness. As a romance reader the ending was different to how I expected, but it’s clear that there’s more in the future for each character and this adventure sets them up to go out on their own and make their own stories.
Travis did a great job with the audio and it really gave an insight into how he as the author saw the characters.
by Columbo1977
Bookshops & Bonedust find Viv stranded in the small town of Murk when she is injured on a job with the mercenary company Rackam’s Ravens. Here she is annoyed to find herself stuck recuperating until they come back. Spending her time in the struggling bookshop with Fern the colourful proprietor. It is the last place Viv would have thought she would be but could be exactly what she needs. Things are not quiet for long, a strange man in grey, a Gnome with an attitude, and a dwarf running the local bakery. Her recuperation could be a lot more eventful than she thought.
This book had a lot to live up to, I read Legends & Lattes in a day and loved it. My first entry in the genre of cozy fantasy. This prequel shows Viv when she was more headstrong and in the prime of her mercenary life. It’s a good way to get a look at how Viv came to be the way she was in Legends. Baldree does it again building a group of ragtag people that we can adventure with. There is more action in this book and the stakes are higher. The new cast is interesting and left me feeling connected to each of them. One of them, in particular, I recognised from legends. This book plants the seeds that lead Viv to seek out a new life in legends & lattes.
The action is paced really well in this one and there is still the “cozy” feeling with a fantasy book that isn’t a 5 book series or about the end of the world as we know it, but still has some really good conflict and higher stakes than in the first one.
I really enjoyed this book. Great character development and a satisfying story arc. I bought it as soon as it came out to put it in my library next to Legends and I would recommend you do the same.
If you like cozy fantasy with interesting characters and setting, this is the book for you.
by Annette J
Bookshops & Bonedust is the hotly anticipated new release from the king of cosy fantasy Travis Baldree and it certainly does not disappoint. If you loved Legends & Lattes you are in for a treat. Set years before the first book, here we meet Viv as a young mercenary, incapacitated on one of her first quests and forced to recuperate in the small village of Murk. While she dreams of returning to her band, Rackam’s Ravens, as they hunt down a powerful necromancer, the reality is she is will have to find some other way of passing time until her injuries heal. The last thing she expected was to discover a passion for reading, but with some choice selections from local bookseller Fern she is soon hooked and even finds her horizons broadening. So, that is the bookshop from the title but how the bonedust fits in is a key part of the story and introduces one of my favourite characters, though to say any more would spoil the fun for readers.
This book can absolutely be read as a standalone, but readers who are already familiar with Viv will enjoy seeing this younger version of herself and it does give some insight into how and why she grew into the character that we all loved so much in Legends, and where her love of pastries comes from. Once again there is so much comfort in the reading experience with this book, and the characters soon start to feel like friends. I found that there was more of a plot here, with ever so slightly higher stakes, though since it is a prequel we can be pretty assured that the outcomes will not be too devastating. Reading this book feels like being wrapped up in a soft blanket, in a bubble away from the real world, and that is an experience to treasure.
I read an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.