Definitely worth a read!

Travis Baldree knows how to write cosy fantasy! Bookshops and Bonedust is a brilliant prequel that focuses on Viv and her journey as she falls in love with READING! There were so many cute moments, and I loved seeing how the bookstore started introducing author signings, book clubs and more! What I loved about this book is that the plot is much more intricate. I still prefer Legends and Lattes but this was a delight!

4/5

Step into the enchanting world of Bookshops and Bonedust, the cosy high-fantasy prequel to @travis_baldree Legends & Lattes.

Meet Viv, a determined young mercenary eager to prove her mettle in Rackam's Ravens, a renowned mercenary company. The journey begins with a chaotic battle where Viv sustains an unexpected injury, leaving her unable to continue the hunt for a dangerous wielder of necromancy magic.

Forced into the tranquil beach town of Murk to recover, Viv battles the tedium and frustration of her enforced rest. An encounter with a rundown local bookshop and its outspoken proprietor offers her an unexpected purpose.

What unfolds is an adventure beyond Viv's wildest imagination, filled with new allies, friendships, and even the stirrings of first love. Prepare for a journey where destiny weaves an unexpected tapestry of excitement and intrigue.

The E-Book could be improved and more user-friendly, such as links to the chapters, no significant gaps between words and a cover for the book would be better. It is very document-like instead of a book. A star has been deducted because of this.

Another warm cozy hug of a book from Travis Baldree. I am so grateful to have been given the opportunity to review this as I absolutely loved Legends and Lattes. If you want something low stakes to curl up with and simply enjoy then this is the one for you.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read Bookshops & Bonedust earlier!
After Legends & Lattes this might be my favourite book. It’s still a cozy low stakes fantasy but with a bit more action than L&L. I also find that the author’s writing has developed since the first book.
I truly recommend this book to everyone because Viv is the best and I can’t get enough of her!!

I had worries going into this prequel. I knew whatever romance happened it would end, I knew Viv would go back to adventuring, and I knew my favourite side characters wouldn’t be present. I shouldn't have been worried at all. In fact, I enjoyed Bookshops and Bonedust even more than Legends and Lattes.

We join young Viv who’s found herself stuck in a seaside town as she recuperates from an adventuring injury (sadly not quite an arrow in the knee). In true Viv fashion, she makes some friends, some enemies, and helps a local bookshop get back on its feet.

I loved the central plot. The stakes felt high, but not so high that it ruined the cosy element. The cast of characters were lovable and unique. I adored Satchel and would read another book on just him.

It delivers on the cosy DnD style of world. Everything about this world feels familiar and I think sometimes it’s nice to read fantasy where you don’t have to go through that steep learning curve. As a reader, I naturally loved reading about the bookshop. Fixing up the bookshop felt very reminiscent of the coffee shop in Legends and Lattes.

This series is a lovely pallet cleanser for when you feel too bogged down by complicated magic systems, empire-level conflict, and tragic deaths.

2.5 stars. I expected to love this after reading Legends & Lattes. However, I really struggled to get into this. It felt dragged out and like not much happened. It was nice to have characters fleshed out tho but overall it just didn't hit the mark.

This book is a prequel to “Legends & Lattes” and follows the same ‘recipe’ of the first book - being a cosy fantasy but this time set in a bookshop instead of a coffee shop.

If you enjoyed the first book, I think you will also enjoy the cosy vibes of this one. However, by the nature of this book being a prequel, I couldn’t care as much about the characters or the risks taken, as I already knew that ultimately Viv’s story would continue beyond Murk.

If you are looking for a new cosy fantasy series I would read this book first and then Legends & Lattes, but I would only read B&B’s epilogue after finishing both books. In my opinion, by reading in chronological order you will feel that the stakes are higher and make Viv’s character journey more interesting.

Thank you, Pan Macmillan and Netgalley for giving me this eArc in exchange for an honest review.

I will be curious to see what the next book will bring!

(Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an eARC in exchange for an honest review)

I really liked the world and all the cosy fantasy vibes. And obviously as a book lover myself, I loved watching Viv discover the wonderful world of reading. I’m also now tempted to just ditch my degree altogether, move to a small coastal town and open a bookshop because it honestly just sounds like the dream job (maybe minus the suspicious travellers and skeletons Viv has to deal with).

My main issue with this book though is I just didn’t feel very connected to the characters or the plot. And honestly, I really can’t think of a reason why this is the case. There was nothing wrong with the writing, the characters were all likeable and the plot was quick but still had action. There is nothing obvious as to why I felt disconnected and not super invested in the book, I just did.

It was however a good little book and did provide all the cosy fantasy bookshop vibes I wanted.

Love this series. It’s fantasy but it’s like it’s half about us bookstagrammers! Cozy coffee shops and bookshops the joy of reading and friendship over reading. Lovely prequel to Lattes which was amazing.

This is so worth a read if you like adventure mixed up in cozy friendships and settings.

So glad I found this series!

Travis Baldree has become an author who I will immediately read from now. Bookshops & Bonedust is a charming prequel to Legends & Lattes, and I was delighted to follow Viv again and get to know who she was before she moved to Thune. Also I love Fern and Potroast with all my heart.

Just as good as the first one! I loved seeing a younger Viv and the cosy fantasy vibes were on point. The new characters easy to love and I can't wait to see what Travis Baldree writes next.

I loved legends and lattes and this did not disappoint. I loved seeing more of Viv's background and I loved that this was set in a bookshop

'Bookshops and Bonedust' has introduced me to the genre of cosy fantasy, and I am hooked!

I wasn’t aware that B&B was a prequel to Travis Baldree’s previous book, 'Legend and Lattes' (I just hadn’t got round to reading it yet), but luckily it didn’t take away any of my enjoyment and I didn’t feel like I was missing anything plot-wise.

I really enjoyed the setting of Murk and the mini-mystery regarding the necromancer, which took place in the background. It’s a fairly low stakes fantasy that has you less on the edge of your seat and more wanting to curl up with a hot drink on a rainy day while you read.

My only complaint was it did sometimes drag on and could have done with a small splash more action in places; however, I enjoyed this book so much that I’m now much more motivated to picking up L&L.

[This review is based on NetGalley ARC provided in exchange for an honest, unbiased opinion]

I adored Legends & Lattes it was a book that I was intrigued by but I never expected to fall head over heels in love, collect what feels like a million different editions and to unlock a new obsession with all things cozy so when I saw that Travis Baldree had a new book coming out it was an absolute must.

Bookshops & Bonedust is a prequel to Legends & Lattes and we meet young Viv who winds up in a sleepy seaside town to recover from a battle injury- and soon the magic of small town, cozy, found family, sapphic vibes kicks in throw in Viv helping to boost sales in the local bookshop and you have one of my absolute favourite reads of 2023.

The magic for me with Travis Baldree's stories is all the other side characters who have their own stories within stories within stories and even the smallest details can make or break your heart.

I loved this book, it was exactly the hug in a book that I have grown to need- also where can I get my own Potroast?

Bookshops & Bonedust is another slice of toasty, low-threat fantasy, where we learn a bit about what Viv was doing before the events of Legends & Lattes.
Here, instead of being drawn in by the hot drinks and pastries of L&L, we have the renovation of a bookshop and an exploration of reading, and readers, and the magic of finding 'that' book. The romance is subtle, the friendships are fierce, and the danger is minimal and predictable. Like its predecessor, Bookshops & Bonedust is a comfy read that will make you want to snuggle up in a cosy bookshop, next to a fire, with a recommended read in one hand and a pastry in the other, more than you possibly already do.
Another warm, easy, fantasy story by Travis Baldree. His books are, to me, like the favourite parts of RPG fantasy games I've played online. Not the parts where you're having stressful boss fights and frantically watching your health rapidly drop until you're facing imminent death, but the parts where you're planting a herb garden so you can make potions or building a bookcase for the new room in your player-owned house. Those easy, joyous, simplicity of life moments, and I for one are here for it.

Bookshops & Bonedust is a prequel to Legends & Lattes which follows - a much younger - main character Viv as she recovers from a battle injury in a quiet beach town.

As the title suggests, much of the book takes place in a bookshop, with a significant subplot surrounding Viv's attempts to help the bookshop and its owner to thrive.

To be quite frank, whilst this book was not bad at all and at times I was enthralled, I did have to mostly force myself to pick it up; I think this is a sign that cozy fantasy is not for me.

BOOKSHOPS & BONEDUST is a prequel set several decades before LEGENDS & LATTES, and it is a delightful read for this cold, grim time of year; I finished it today while the second storm of the weekend raged outside.

Where LEGENDS & LATTES is a love song to coffee and finding a new direction in life—along with discovering what new sort of person you want to be—BOOKSHOPS & BONEDUST is a love song to books, bookshops, and figuring out how to trust people. Like all good prequels, it presents the seeds sown that lead Viv to become the weary hero she is in L&L, but here we see her as a brash, impulsive youth, eager to make her mark on the world at the expense of everything else. We also see how she and Gallina first met, which makes Gallina’s appearance in L&L all the better.

B&B is also a love song to booksellers, and the wonderful feeling of recommending a book (or more) to someone that they end up loving, and in the process learning something about them that they wouldn’t necessarily ever tell you. I love books AND coffee, so I was delighted at the door being left open to both becoming a focus should a third book centred on Viv’s corner of the world ever be written.

L&L was my first book read in 2023; it seems fitting that B&B will be one of my last this year.

3.5 stars.

Bookshops & Bonedust is the kind of follow-up, kind of prequel to Legends & Lattes which was a surprise for me when I read it last year. That was because I really enjoyed it—it's not really my usual sort of thing, but it was just a nice comfortable read. This one was in many ways the same, but it was also very different at the same time.

I don't think it was as good a book as Legends & Lattes. Part of that might have been because the novelty, for me, wore off—I knew more what I was expecting going into it—but also, as it was a very different book, you've got a different theme to it, and I did feel at some times that it was almost like it was trying too hard to recapture the magic of that first (in publication order) book.

It just didn't quite reach those same heights for me because it almost seemed forced at times, a bit like the author was taking his experiences as a published author and writing about those. This is good because you've got that kind of “write what you know” mentality, but for me it just didn't quite work. It did give a bit of an element of the known for me because it's in my kind of circle, although not my specific area of expertise, but it just wasn't something that really worked for me in this particular book form.

The main character, Viv, spends a lot of time in a bookshop, and as she's reading books, we do get snippets of those, whether it was just summarizing what had happened or actual pages that were being read. I did think that bit of it was quite interesting, and some of those stories actually sounded like they could be really interesting books in their own right, so there's an opportunity there, I guess.

But that aside, I did feel this one was a bit strange because of its overall cozy label. It was a bit different because there were also some battles, so at the start of the book it’s very similar to the way that Legends & Lattes starts out with a little bit about a job that Viv is going on. She’s injured and has to take some time away to recuperate and that's where the bookshop comes in. There’s then an element later on that changes the scope of the book and that's where the ‘bonedust’ comes in, and it does have a couple of battles which just seemed a little bit too out of place when put alongside the rest of the book.

There were a number of characters who I liked—the key characters are all very likable on the whole, and that's one of the one of the elements of charm that the book has, but overall, it just wasn't quite as good as the first book for me. I just felt that it was missing a little bit too much and it just felt ever so slightly disjointed with having to marry up the nice cozy part of it against the really not cozy side of it that comes in as you get through the book.

I definitely recommend picking it up though if you did enjoy that first book or if you're just looking to find out a little bit more about it. I would say you don't have to read Legends & Lattes first—obviously this one does take place chronologically earlier on—but this one does come full circle and the epilogue of the book is the one bit that would be spoilerish for Legends & Lattes, so just bear that in mind if you are considering reading them in chronological rather than publication order.

Another tasty mix of cozy fantasy with a sprinkling of adventure from Travis Baldree. In this delightfully relaxing prequel. Viv is forced to take some time off due to injury and finds herself surrounded by lovable characters, more delicious baking, and tonnes of books. While I preferred the set up for Legends & Lattes I have to say the addition of book old made it even more cozy. I hope we get a sequel combining the two!

I was expecting this to be another delightful story following Viv and her exploits, but I didn't anticipate just how much I would love every minute of it! The found family aspect that I enjoyed so much in Legends and Lattes was here once again and the friendship between Viv, Fern and Maylee was beautiful. I loved the expansion of the world we saw here and although the main thrust of the story is the found family, there is more plot involved in this prequel, which I really appreciated. The bookshop was adorable and Potroast was a delight, as was Satchel. Overall, this was one of those books that just wraps you up in a big warm hug and I cannot recommend it highly enough.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.