“I’m not. I’m opening a coffee shop.”

Ansom looked nonplussed. “But why would you buy a horse stable for that?”

Viv didn’t answer for a moment, but then she stared hard at him. “Things don’t have to stay as what they started out as.” She folder the deed and tucked it into her satchel.

As she left, Ansom hollered after her. “Oh, and hey! What in the eight hells is coffee?”

Do you ever put off a book for a really long time because it’s super hyped and you don’t trust the hype? There are plenty of books in the past that have stung me this way, and I was expecting Legends and Lattes to be the same. I was expecting it to be cliched and cheesy. But I was craving a cosy read so thought I’d give it the benefit of the doubt, and I’m so glad I did – I couldn’t have been more wrong about it.

The tagline for this book is High Fantasy Low Stakes, and by the end of the book I found that resonating with me hard. Since the pandemic I’ve noticed a big shift in my reading and I’ve struggled to lose myself in the darker and grittier fantasies that I once loved. I’ve been enjoying the recent trend for cosy reads, and of course Legends and Lattes is arguably one of the best-known for this, so honestly I don’t know why I do this to myself. As I said, I’ve struggled with dark and gritty fantasies, but I’ve missed other elements from the genre, and what Legends does is bring those elements I missed into a gentle warm read I didn’t know I needed. I felt just like Viv’s patrons, having lived a life without coffee, discovering it for the first time.

For those of you who somehow don’t know, Legends and Lattes is the tale of an orc, Viv, who (quite literally) hangs up her sword (and questing/adventuring/murdering days) to open up a coffee shop. The premise really is that simple. There’s a little more to it in terms of magical artefacts that may or may not be drawing fortune towards her, and the trouble that brings, but mostly this is the story of someone trying their damnedest to set aside what they once were, to break from the ties of that life, and forge a new path for themselves. There was such a beautiful message in this that I loved, and it’s a theme that echoes throughout the story, as the same can be said for many of the side characters drawn in to Viv’s enterprise.

This is one of those warm, life-affirming reads but written for the fantasy genre. It’s a slice-of-life drama with an orc protagonist, a succubus, dwarf, gnomes, arcanist, elves, a dire-cat and a ratkin who can bake. Travis Baldree is the Fredrik Backman of fantasy; I laughed and cried, but most importantly I simply enjoyed. I had a great time reading this book, I loved being in this book, in Viv’s world, and I was gutted when I came to the end. I you haven’t picked this up yet, for whatever reasons, do so now – you won’t regret it.

Legends and Lattes is available now, you can pick up your copy on Bookshop.org