I am having a déjà-vu... last time I reviewed a series the opinion was similar: the first one made me in my Top Ten Reads of last year (this time the honourable mentions list), the second one failed to impress me. Even the ratings are the same!
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| ★★★★★ | ★★★☆☆ |
And the series in question is Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree. When it was first published, Legends & Lattes made quite an impression on the book world and popularised the genre of cozy-fantasy. As one does, Baldree decided to write more books in the Legends & Lattes universe, so he wrote a prequel. That being said, let's review them in publication order, shall we?
"She was smiling, and for the first time, the building, the city, this place… felt like hers. A place she’d still be tomorrow, the week after, next season, next year…. Home."
Legends & Lattes
Legends & Lattes follows Viv, an orc who is finally ready to put down her sword and live a peaceful life. How to do that? Simple, open a coffeehouse in a town where nobody even knows what coffee is!
Doesn't that sound fun and wholesome and delicious?
The best part about Legends & Lattes, surprisingly, is not the coffee or the delicious pastry description that will make you crave a cinnamon bun, trust me. No, the best part is my favourite trope in fantasy: found family. During her journey Viv learns that she no longer needs to do things on her own, she can count on other people and even make friends (or more). This novel will surely warm your heart.
And it's not all just cosy-cosy yummy buns and coffee. Besides the usual challenges Viv has to overcome (like the fact that nobody drinks coffee - or even knows what coffee is), there is some conflict too. The story was perfectly balanced!
"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."
Bookshops & Bonedust
The prequel of Legends & Lattes sounded amazing: it follows Viv, the warrior orc, we already know and love, as she is forced to rest in a beachy town after she was wounded during the hunt of a powerful necromancer.
Stranded in a beachy town but unable to just sit an rest, what's an orc-girl to do but find something to occupy her time? And from reading a book or two from the bookshop in town she starts helping the bookshop owner around - from fixing a shelf or two to marketing strategies for selling more books.
Of course there is conflict too and a little bit of romance, but unfortunately this book did not work for me as well as Legends & Lattes did. The main culprit was that it's a prequel and it's written in a very similar way as Legends & Lattes, but it fails because you know the sense of found family and the Viv's first love have an end date, they are not meant to be, so it's very hard for the reader to care for the story or the characters.
What personally bothered me the most was that I did not feel the love for books as much as I felt the love for coffee in the other book.
"I don't know if I can explain it, but watching you read what I give you, putting a book in your hands and seeing what happens to you once you put it back down... I can't make you understand how that gives me something I didn't know I had to have."