Cozy fiction is still on the rise, and I’m here for it. The more hectic life gets, the more appealing it becomes to read stories about likeable characters just kind of living their lives and vibing without any clear stakes or massive conflicts to deal with. That lack of a clear plotline is supposed to be storytelling poison according to conventional wisdom, but I’m happy to learn I’m not the only weirdo who has been liking books that my high school English teachers would have had a fit over.
That lack of a clear plotline is also the point of Royal Red by K.C. Shaw, a cozy fantasy adventure in a quaint world of domestic dragons that promises “Art. Adventure. And lots of tea.” And it delivers all three in spades, even if that second bullet point is very low-key and personal throughout.
Rose is a dragon and an artist living in a co-op of other artist dragons, but lately she’s found herself in a slump and unhappy with her style of painting. At the urging of her mentor and roommates, she packs up some funds and some art supplies and flies away from her homeland for the first time to travel abroad and experience more of the world in the hope of growing and evolving as an artist and a person.
And that right there is the start and finish of the plot. Rose gets up to a handful of unexpected adventures on her travels, meets other dragons in a wide range of personalities and likeability, paints a lot of different subjects, and has a lot of little meals and tea breaks along the way. To dwell too much on any detail of her journey counts as a spoiler, because the whole thrust of the book is wondering what the next little event will be on Rose’s mostly aimless tour of self-discovery.
What I found most interesting about the whole tale were the bits of worldbuilding that Rose herself took for granted, namely, that this is a world for and entirely populated by dragons — no humans, no other fantasy races, just intelligent dragons casually existing in a quaint dragon society that has the vibes of one of the lower key Ghibli movies, like a Kiki’s Delivery Service or a Ponyo. The worldbuilding that goes into imagining how intelligent, civilized dragons would live is excellent and woven throughout the story with a casual matter-of-factness that sells the setting expertly. Cities are designed around being as readable from the air as they are from street level, architecture takes landing strips and space for takeoff into consideration, the unique particulars of egg-based reproduction are accounted for in the culture and social structures, and all the tea is served in bowls to accomodate a dragon’s snout.
The details are excellent and well-realized, presented as mundane but still with just the right amount of narrative exposition that lets the reader know what’s up without straying into the dreaded “as you know” territory that would make you wonder why someone who’s grown up in this world would be caught up by its basic functions. Rose is familiar with her own setting, but she isn’t well-traveled before the book begins, which gives the audience the same tourist lens for the world that she has. But while she was marveling at the scenery around her, I was engrossed in the minutiae of how civil engineering accounts for everybody’s wings and prehensile tails, or how public hatcheries leads to a very casual free love attitude toward sex and relationships.
Oh yeah, by the way, there’s dragon sex in this book, as the author’s foreward helpfully points out. Not enough to recommend it as a spicy read, but enough to warn off child readers. It contributes to the story and adventure at times, but in the same matter-of-fact way that all the other excellent worldbuilding does, as a simple facet of this society that is present and fleshes (heh) out the setting. The whole thing is entertainingly not focused on the rich fantasy it’s drenched in, as Rose cares much more about her art supplies and her next local breakfast nook. The juxtaposition is a big part of the fun, harkening back to those Kiki’s Delivery Service comparisons.
In all, Royal Red is a slow and cozy read that delivers more than just the low-stakes vibes that it promises, even though those are still most of the focus and excellently presented. The hints toward bigger things happening around Rose that simply don’t concern her or that she isn’t concerned with lays rich ground for how much potential this setting has for bigger adventures, but at the same time, neither Rose nor the story are interested in getting caught up in anything more sweeping and exciting than seeing what’s on the other side of that mountain in the distance and maybe painting it. Then some tea and a nap, and if there’s time, dinner with new friends to talk about art stuff.
It’s low, slow, and cozy, ambling on purpose, with hidden depths and novel sights to see. There’s a tea or travel metaphor in here somewhere, so pretend that I found it and said it, and that it was profound.
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