Synopsis:

When an injury throws a young, battle-hungry orc off her chosen path, she may find that what we need isn’t always what we seek.

Viv’s career with the notorious mercenary company Rackam’s Ravens isn’t going as planned.

Wounded during the hunt for a powerful necromancer, she’s packed off against her will to recuperate in the sleepy beach town of Murk—so far from the action that she worries she’ll never be able to return to it.

What’s a thwarted soldier of fortune to do?

Spending her hours at a beleaguered bookshop in the company of its foul-mouthed proprietor is the last thing Viv would have predicted, but it may be both exactly what she needs and the seed of changes she couldn’t possibly imagine.

Still, adventure isn’t all that far away. A suspicious traveler in gray, a gnome with a chip on her shoulder, a summer fling, and an improbable number of skeletons prove Murk to be more eventful than Viv could have ever expected.

Review:

Since Bookshops & Bonedust is out imminently I thought I’d share my review of the ARC I was lucky to receive! Is this one you’re excited to read?

Another wonderfully lovely book from Travis Baldree.

We are back with Viv, but this time we find her as a younger orc just getting her feet into the mercenary world. Travis did a fantastic job of rewinding Viv’s character while staying true to the orc we all grew to love in Legends & Lattes. She is very much a youth compared to her later years, headstrong and impulsive. I enjoyed watching her learn and grow through this story, and you can see how she would continue on to be the character we meet again later down the line.
The other characters we have in Bookshops and Bonedust are also just as great as those in L&L. Fern, a delightfully foul-mouthed Rattkin, trying to keep her bookstore afloat was a personal favourite. The other favourite was Satchel. I won’t say much about him as he was a fabulous surprise, and I really hope he appears again in another story!

The plot for this one was overall higher in stakes than Legends & Lattes, but I found that I actually preferred it. We have the overhanging threat of a Necromancer (the chasing of which brings Viv to the town of Murk in the first place) and the more gentle, low-stakes renovations of a bookstore. The tension that ran through the background of the book was excellent and provided grounding during the ‘fluffier’ parts of the story (namely the romance and bakery parts).

Baldree’s writing is, as it was in L&L, very easy to read with whimsical descriptions of things like the weather sprinkled through. This makes it a nice, quick read that is not at all taxing. A particular highlight from the story for me was how we see Viv fall in love with reading. Taking a book everywhere, reading pages whenever she can – Viv is all of us bookworms!

If you loved Legends & Lattes, I expect you will enjoy Bookshops & Bonedust. If you’re new to Travis Baldree’s work and you enjoy cosy, slice-of-life stories, then this is for you too.

I received this book as an ARC for review from the publisher, Pan Macmillan, and NetGalley.