Book Review: Legends & Lattes: A Novel of High Fantasy and Low Stakes (plus Let's Get Book Together book group tonight!)

Legends & Lattes: A Novel of High Fantasy and Low Stakes

by Travis Baldree (Baldree)

 

Legends & Lattes is a book with serious buzz. The author, a professional audiobook narrator, drafted it during National Novel Writing Month in 2021 then self-published it on Amazon in February 2022. It became an instant word-of-mouth success thanks to social media. Traditional publisher Tor Books hustled to put out a trade paperback by November 2022. Nine translations are currently in progress. And, of course, there’s an audiobook version performed by the author. An amazing success story!

 

The story opens with Viv, an orc warrior, delivering the fatal sword strike to an enormous monster. She wrenches a fabled stone out of its head and walks away into retirement on the spot and without explanation to her Dungeons & Dragons style adventuring party. Viv has a secret plan: open a coffee shop in a city where the ley-lines and the stone will bring fortune. She’ll need all the luck she can get, as she has no experience running a business and the people in this city have never heard of coffee. What she does have is patience, strength, and way of sizing up people (all of whom are considerably smaller than herself). Some of the obstacles seem like they’d be easier if she picked up her sword, but she wants a fresh start with herself as well. On top of all this, one member of her old adventuring band is not satisfied with how things were left off.

 

This book is as cozy and warm as the coffee shop Viv and her new friends create.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart by Stephanie Burgis or A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher.)

 

( official Legends & Lattes page on the official Travis Baldree web site )

 

Recommended by Garren H.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

 

Join the discussion of this book tonight at the December 2022 meeting of the Let’s Get Books Together book discussion group at the Gere Branch Library, at 6:30 p.m.

Book Review: The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer

The Darkness Outside Us

by Eliot Schrefer (YA Schrefer)

 

What do you get when you take the enemies-to-lovers trope, a murderous space ship AI, and the premise of the game “Among Us” and put it into freeze-dried space ready smoothie? Eliot Schrefer’s The Darkness Outside Us.

 

This book had been on my radar already for a while — an LGBTQ+ representative science fiction novel is right up my alley. However, when the book became the center of a controversy involved with a local literary festival, it jumped to the top of my to-be-read list. With action, romance, and a mid-point twist worthy of the best sci-fi thrillers, The Darkness Outside Us stands out for much more than its place in the center of a censorship controversy.

 

Ambrose Cusk is more than just the prodigal son of one of future Earth’s two remaining nations — he’s the champion for humanities future. Chosen to go on a rescue mission to save his sister, Minerva, from her failed mission to colonize Pluto, Ambrose is hoping to not only save his family but the hope of mankind as well. Along with him on his mission is a representative from the other of Earth’s nations, a mysterious boy his own age named Kodiak. Though they’ve never met, they’re expected to live and work together in a joint effort to save Minerva and the planet’s future. Of course, things don’t start off well, with Ambrose waking up after being comatose from an accident with the ship’s launch and Kodiak refusing to communicate. Slowly, the two boys come together and begin to get to know each other with the help of the ship’s AI guiding them to complete essential tasks to ensure the success of their mission.

 

But all is not as it seems (after all, if things went according to plan, we’d have a much shorter and far less interesting book). After a few solid chapters full of relationship building, cute almost-dates eating freeze dried space food, and emotionally charged backstory reveals, we take a sharp twist from a budding romantic enemies-to-lovers space romcom to a heart-pounding thriller complete with existential dread, a murderous AI, and timorously unraveling mental states (for both the characters and the reader). This book had me on the edge of my seat for the majority of the second half, and the pay-off was more than worth the rise in blood pressure. Eliot Schrefer ends on a refreshingly hopeful note that doesn’t cheapen any of the tension or twists.

 

Schrefer’s writing is enrapturing, with a tone that is engagingly straight forward supported by the perfect juxtaposition of exhilarating fast paced action and slow, heart pounding tension. While the setting is contained almost entirely on the two main character’s space station, Schrefer builds the single setting into an entire complex world full of tantalizing details and easy to miss clues that delightfully reveal themselves as the novel goes on.

 

Plus, there’s an adorable helper robot. I love a little robot in any context.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke, The Martian by Andy Weir or Interstellar, a film by Christopher Nolan.)

 

( official The Darkness Outside Us and Eliot Schrefer web site )

 

The Darkness Outside Us was a book up for discussion at last month’s Let’s Get Books Together book group meeting at the Gere Branch. Tonight is the November meeting!

Check out this library-sponsored LGBTQ+ book group’s upcoming titles on their schedule at this link.

 

Recommended by L. G.
Gere Branch Library

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Reading Recommendations from Let's Get Books Together book group - Jan 8 2020

The “Let’s Get Books Together” reading group met on Wednesday, January 8^th, 2020. The theme of this meeting was “Graphic Novels” that address LGBTQ+ topics. All attendees shared their reading suggestions. Many of these Graphic Novel selections are available from the libraries via the Hoopla digital downloads service. If a title was also available in physical printed format, the call # for that version is provided first in the list below. Hotlinks will go to all formats of the title in the libraries’ online catalog. This list is in Alphabetical order by author name.

Various call # - various authors – Lumberjanes

741.5 Tar – various – Motor Crush

Hoopla only – Allison, John – Giant

306.766 Bar – Barker, Meg-John – Queer: A Graphic History

(not in library) – Be-Papas (collective) – Revolutionary Girl Utena (manga/anime)

741.5 Bec – Bechdel, Alison – Dykes to Watch Out For (multi-volume series)

YA PB (Non-Fiction) Bongiovanni – Bongiovanni, Archie – A Quick and Easy Guide to They/Them Pronouns

741.5 Car – Carrol, Emily – When I Arrived at the Castle

Hoopla only – Ellis, Grace – Moonstruck

741.5 Fra – Franklin, Tee – Bingo Love

(not in library) – Gillan, Kieron – The Young Avengers

YA PB (Graphic Novel) Gillman) – Gillman, Melanie – As the Crow Flies

(not in library) – Jacques, Jeph – Questionable Content

(not in library) – Kamatani, Yuki – Our Dreams at Dusk

YA PB (Graphic Novel) Larson – Larson, Hope – Goldie Vance

(not in library) – Nagai, Go – Devilman

741.5 Nag – Nagata, Kabi – My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness

(not in library) – Neely, Tom – Henry and Glenn Forever and Ever

YA PB (Graphic Novel) O’Malley – O’Malley, Bryan Lee – Snotgirl

j O’Neill – O’Neill, Katie – Princess Princess Ever After

J O’Neill – O’Neill, Katie – Tea Dragon Society

jPB Series Osterag – Osterag, Molly – The Witch Boy

YA PB (Graphic Novel) Panetta – Panetta, Kevin – Bloom

YA PB (Graphic Novel) Pascat – Pascat, C.S. – Fence

(not in library) – Patil, Amruta – Kari

Hoopla only – Rivera, Gabby – America, Vol 1.: The Life and Times of America Chavez

YA Stevenson – Stevenson, Noelle – Nimona

741.5 Tag – Tagame, Gengoroh – My Brother’s Husband

YA PB (Graphic Novel) Tamaki – Tamaki, Jillian – Supermutant Magic Academy

YA PB (Graphic Novel) Tamaki – Tamaki, Mariko – Laura Deen Keeps Breaking Up With Me

YA PB (Graphic Novel) Tamaki – Tamaki, Mariko – This One Summer

YA PB (Graphic Novel) Tynion – Tynion, James – The Backstagers

YA PB (Graphic Novel) Usdin – Usdin, Carly – Heavy Vinyl

741.5 Vau – Vaughn, Brian – Paper Girls

jPB Series Wang – Wang, Jen – The Prince and the Dressmaker

(not in library) – Weaver, E.K. – The Less Than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal

(not in library) – Woolfson, Alex – Artifice

(not in library) – Woolfson, Alex – Young Protectors

Hoopla only – Young, Keezy – Taproot

YA PB (Non-Fiction) Zuckerberg, J.R. – A Quick and Easy Guide to Trans and Queer Identities