Life comes at you fast, and these past few years have come with a whole lot of extra life stuff to deal with. So it’s been a bit of a while since I’ve actually read much of anything, much less read anything to completion, and much less even than that read anything that’s left me with strong enough feelings to write another one of these.
But then I saw this book on a little shelf in a thrift shop a couple months ago offering “high fantasy and low stakes,” and it looked like the kind of chill, cozy, light read that might lull me back into reading more regularly.
The jury’s still out on that point, because busy life things are still happening and I only just finished this book; but regardless, Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree definitely delivers on the “slow down, take a breath, have a nice time” vibes it was giving. It is, in a word, charming.
The story follows Viv, a freshly retired orc barbarian who’s decided to swap her greatsword for a bean grinder and get away from the bloody, hectic life of a professional adventurer. To this end, she rolls up in the city of Thune with a nest egg and a plan: introduce the townsfolk to this wonderful gnomish concoction she fell in love with on her travels, a liquid hug in a mug called “coffee.”
Making hot bean water sound appealing is the least of her concerns, though. And although there are tense conflicts that pop up to raise the stakes (local mob bosses, slighted and suspicious ex-allies, magical mumbo-jumbo that may or may not be steering things), most of Viv’s story is focused on the more mundane and day-to-day struggles of starting up a new cafe: shop maintenance, building renovation, finding the right employees and business partners, figuring out a menu, experimenting with snack recipes, etc.
Put like that, the story doesn’t sound too exciting, and for the most part, it’s not. But that’s a feature, not a bug. It’s just a nice, wholesome time watching Viv struggle with social awkwardness around her new succubus barista, or try to convince the terse hobgoblin who helped her renovate the place to accept free drinks for his trouble, or wrangle the dire housecat that’s decided it lives in the cafe now and has a propensity to startle the customers and steal unguarded baked goods.
The few more dramatic plot points notwithstanding, this book is more concerned with casual lo-fi story beats. It’s a domestic fantasy to relax and study to, if you will. And that makes it every bit the warm, refreshing treat as the titular lattes.
If you’re looking to just feel comfy and nice, but in a nerdy fantasy kind of way, give this one a sip.
