About the Book

High fantasy. First loves. Secondhand Books.

Set twenty years before the events of Legends & Lattes, Bookshops & Bonedust is a standalone cost fantasy about the power of good bookshops, great friends and the unexpected choices along the way.

Viv’a career with the renowned 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 struggling bookshop in the company of its foul-mouthed proprietor is the last thing Viv would have predicted. Even though it may be exactly what she needs. Still, adventure isn’t far away. A suspicious traveller in grey, 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 ever could have expected.

Sometimes, right things happen at the wrong time. Sometimes, what we need isn’t what we seek. And sometimes, we find ourselves in the stories we experience together.

About the Author

Travis Baldree is a full-time audiobook narrator who has lent his voice to hundreds of stories. Before that, he spent decades designing and building video games like Torchlight, Rebel Galaxy, and Fate. Apparently, he now also writes books. He lives in the Pacific Northwest with his very patient family and their small nervous dog.

What I Thought

I well and truly loved Travis’ first book Legends & Lattes (You can read my review of it here).

So when I found out we were getting Viv’s prequel I was excited and maybe a little scared. Most of the characters we love wouldn’t feature! But I needn’t have worried because I think Travis is a master at creating bands of loveable characters for us to root for. I’m not going to name them here because I want you to experience the joy of meeting them yourselves. There are so many in B&B – that provide Viv with friendship, love, rivalry and food. Never fear, there is a Bakery in this town and the descriptions of its delicacies are as mouthwatering as those in L&L.

“Murk seemed to have a sleepy power over her, a seductive song of indolence.”

Bookshops & Bonedust – Travis Baldree

It is the town itself, and its pace of life, as much as the people, that creates this feeling in Viv, a precursor to the feeling I think she wants to recreate with her later retirement in L&L. But she is not quite there. Her soul is still hankering for adventure so this is but a temporary pause for her.

Whilst some of the complaints people (not me) had about L&L is that there were very low stakes, there is definitely more at risk in B&B although not perhaps until a bit later in the book. A necromancer definitely gets in the way of a smooth ride to both Viv’s recovery from injury and the bookshop’s renovation.

This story is definitely a love letter to books and reading and there were quite a few moments that readers and booksellers are definitely going to enjoy in terms of parallels with publishing currently. This quote however sums up how I felt reading:

“…leaving her alone in the centre of a perfect sphere of story.”

Bookshops & Bonedust – Travis Baldree

A character that turns out to be my favourite in this book describes their experience of reading as this:

“I look at the page, and then the words are in my mind. That’s the accepted way, yes!”

Bookshops & Bonedust – Travis Baldree

And this observation is also made:

“Never trust a writer who doesn’t have too many books to read. Or a reader, for that matter.”

Bookshops & Bonedust – Travis Baldree

As readers, we are often to be found bemoaning the size of our TBR piles, bookshelves, rooms, etc, so surely the idea of being to soak up an entire page of text at once to help us speed through appeals, right? Nope. Savouring each word, letting the revelations creep over you, lingering in that story sphere is what many of us love most. That being said, I do like to immerse myself in a book over a shortish period of time with limited distractions from reality, so the short chapters and steady pace of this made that easy to achieve.

There is an author character in the book and as a writer myself these two quotes made me snort.

“You’re in luck. She’s not writing so she’s in a good mood.”

Bookshops & Bonedust – Travis Baldree

“I reckon writers got to have a good imagination…because they can’t all be that lucky.”

Bookshops & Bonedust – Travis Baldree

But with Viv’s temporary pause has to come to an end. The omnipresent thought of Rackam’s Ravens reappearing to whisk her away hovers over proceedings and their hello would mean a host of bittersweet goodbyes.

“A parting was imminent and big gestures felt like lies.”

Bookshops & Bonedust – Travis Baldree

And then we have – that epilogue – and we are wrapped up once again in cosy and I am, at the very least, hoping now for the sequel to L&L to come into creation. I hope to see Viv and others…

“…in the story past the story.”

Bookshops & Bonedust – Travis Baldree

Huge thanks to Black Crow PR and the publisher Tor UK for the gifted ARC. This review is entirely my own gushing. Check out what everyone else on the tour thinks too and as the book is out now join in on the readalong which starts tomorrow – 10th November.