Review: Bookshops & Bonedust

Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After Legends & Lattes took the fantasy world by storm last year, it seems only fitting that Travis Baldree would return with a new book in that same universe. According to his note at the back of this one, it began as a fantasy takeoff on the cozy mystery genre in the style of Murder, She Wrote, but evolved into something completely different as he realized that particular story wasn't working (though I do hope he takes another shot at writing a book in that style for Viv, because I'd sure as heck love to see it.) Instead, Baldree turns back the clock a few years in Viv's past, where once again she's introduced in the thick of a battle but then pulls out of it, only this time it's not her fault. She's too badly injured to continue, and the party has to leave her behind to recuperate in a small town where she manages to scare just about everyone around her. But not Fern, the rattkin proprietor - think Beatrix Potter's character Thomasina Tittlemouse with a much fouler mouth - of a small bookstore (reminding me very strongly of a particularly small and very slightly dusty one I once visited in Cannon Beach), or her utterly adorable pet gryphet Potroast.

And, just like Viv will do much later when she starts innovating coffeeshop concepts in another city across the land, she proves herself to have a pretty good yen for innovating bookstore concepts, helping Fern organize and promote the books she has on stock, and even enticing a local author to do a reading and signing. And I'm going to presume that Fern getting Viv to start reading for pleasure absolutely was a canon event that set her on the path to quitting her mercenary life and starting a coffeeshop, because without that, we wouldn't have her as quite the soft-centered tough girl we know and love. Not even close.

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