★★★☆☆ Bookshops & Bonedust, by Travis Baldree
Fantasy novel about turning a business around
Bookshops & Bonedust
Travis Baldree
Fantasy novel about turning a business around
Travis Baldree has done it again! By "it", I mean written a fantasy novel about running a business. Probably you are reading Baldree's Bookshops & Bonedust because you read Legends & Lattes and liked it. Personally, I was lukewarm about L&L, but here I am reading the prequel B&B, so a business person might tell you that my experience must have been somewhat positive.
L&L and B&B are linked not just through the alliterative titles and the abundant baked goods, but also through the protagonist Viv, a badass orc who makes a career as a blade for hire. In L&L we met Viv after her retirement, where she used her savings (it was a financially successful career) to start a business, a coffee shop called Legends & Lattes, in the city of Thune. In B&B we meet Viv when she's young and stupid. She takes a break after a leg wound (her own fault -- did I mention she was stupid? Well, not really, but she was ACTING stupid) in the tiny town of Murk. Because it's a prequel, we know going in that Viv is going to survive the events of B&B and go on to a successful career fightin' bad guys.
L&L was a fantasy novel about starting a business. B&B is also a fantasy business novel. This time, instead of starting a business, Viv helps to turn around a failing business -- a bookstore. That is the main plot of B&B. There's also a somewhat perfunctory sword and sorcery subplot with a detectable whiff of Harrowhark Nonagesimus about it. We end with an epilog in which L&L Viv is reminded of B&B Viv by a letter from Murk.
So, this was not bad, but not truly great. Doing "it" for the second time is seldom as impressive as doing "it" for the first time, no matter what "it" might be. I will probably not read a sequel unless it takes the series in a new direction.