Review: Bookshops & Bonedust, by Travis Baldree

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.

"Sometimes, we aren't the right people yet."

Travis Baldree's Bookshops & Bonedust is the perfect prequel to the lovely Legends & Lattes, a prequel the author hadn't anticipated but that allowed him to flesh out more the protagonist, Viv, and expand on her backstory and her motivations. This is another low-stakes story wherein Viv learns the art of staying still in one place, finds friends, has a fling, and makes connections; she starts to read, and learns the magic of books.

This books is soft and tender and charming, and it has very poignant things to say about there being a time for everything, about missing chances and growing and finding one's place. The characters are all so vivid, we even see some old faces, and the epilogue especially was delightful. New races are explored, the worldbuilding grows, and there's more of a coherent plot regarding a magical threat, than in the first book of the series. It takes what worked so well in the first installment, and gives more, for a beautiful exploration of the ties that bind people.

Bookshops & Bonedust is a worthy prequel/sequel and a cozy marvel.

✨ 4 stars

📚📚📚 IF YOU LOVE THIS, YOU MIGHT LIKE:

* The Bookshop and the Barbarian, by Morgan Stang

for: low-stakes, bookshops