‘Legends & Lattes’ by Travis Baldree
A Counter Arts Book Club review
“Things don’t have to stay as what they started as.”
‘Legends & Lattes’ was the book I chose to be February’s title when I compiled my new list for the Counter Arts Book Club. Described as ‘cozy’ fantasy, with a nice minor element of queer romance, I thought it would be the perfect choice. And in those respects it certainly was.
Professional audiobook narrator and game developer, Travis Baldree, certainly created quite a storm in response to his own first book— and I’ve seen it mentioned many times in book lists and reviews…. it has been something of an unmitigated success.
The central protagonist in this short novel is a female, Orcish warrior called Viv, who we first join as she is wrapping up the last quest she and her band of bounty hunting miscreants will ever undertake. The rest of the group don’t know it yet, but Viv is retiring — she has a dream she wants to fulfil in her future and with this final act, killing a monstrous creature and removing something from it’s body (the details aren’t really important), she now holds a fabled ‘stone’ which she believes will bring her all the luck she needs in her new endeavour. So without a word of explanation or goodbye, Viv splits.
